What makes life complete? | Gaur Gopal Das | TEDxMITP

Gaur Gopal Prabhu explains how Life is like a jigsaw puzzle and we can only experience completeness when all pieces are in their right place. Explore the different dimensions of life and put them together to make it holistic and fulfilling.

For over two decades, Gaur Gopal Das has been guiding students, celebrities and corporate leaders all over the world.
Based on the timeless wisdom coming down from ages, his talks make the audience think deeper and find simple solutions to difficult problems.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

One of my friends in Mumbai,
a Gujarati gentleman,

he purchased a very expensive,
high-end, upmarket car:

a slick, posh, yellow Lamborghini.

You know cars are expensive in Mumbai,
things can't get more expensive than that.

If you have watched
this Hindi movie "Deewar,"

Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor.

Amitabh Bachchan talking to Shashi Kapoor:

(Hindi) "I have a car, a house, money,
and servants. What do you have?!"

(Laughter)

Amitabh replies, "I have a mother."

(English) The rhyme of today
has changed, ladies and gentlemen.

Amitabh says, (Hindi) "I have Lamborghini,
I have a Jaguar, I have a Bentley,

I have a BMW, I have a Rolls-Royce.

What do you have?!"

(English) Shashi Kapoor says,
"I have parking space!"

(Laughter)

(Applause) (Cheers)

Here in Mumbai, parking space
is more expensive than cars.

This friend of mine, a Gujarati,
purchased a yellow Lamborghini

and called me up and said,

"Would you like to bless my car?"

(Laughter)

Now in India, everything gets blessed:
babies, marriages, job contracts;

all the stuff gets blessed.

"So would you like to bless my car,
we'll go for an inaugural drive with it."

I said, "Well, it's a Lamborghini.

When do swamis get to bless
Lamborghinis? Come here.

(Laughter)

The gentlemen drove to our temple
in the Lamborghini,

and he said, "We'll go on
a 15-minutes drive."

I sat in the passenger seat,

and the gentleman sat
in the driver's seat, obviously;

he was driving.

I was the first one!

He didn't even have
his wife to drive first.

Choose your career wisely, you know!

(Laughter) (Applause)

This gentleman, we went on a drive.

The car encountered
a traffic light at Peddar Road.

And there was some car standing there;

I can't even remember what model,
I'm sitting in a Lamborghini.

I'm sitting there,

and this gentleman in the next car,
he turned his head around,

and his eyes were, like, big.

Never in the streets or roads of Mumbai
had he seen a slick, yellow Lamborghini.

And his eyes went even bigger
when he saw me sitting inside the car!

You should have seen
the expression on his face,

he was, like, "Swamiji, you too?!"

(Laughter)

I wanted to pull the windscreen down
and say, "Man, this is not my car.

I'm the blessing man,
15 minutes blessing and it's done!"

(Laughter)

The 15 minutes drive
turned into 35 minutes.

I suggested to the gentleman
that I need to get back

because there's a very important meeting
that I need to attend.

Ladies and gentlemen, what this man did,

when I just suggested I need to get back,

shocked me to the core.

I believe most of you
would be shocked to the core

when I tell you what he did.

This guy broke down crying like a baby.

I don't think any of you would cry

the first day when you have possession
of a slick, yellow Lamborghini,

and you're driving it for the first time.

And these were tears of anguish.
How do you know what tears they are?

When tears are cold, they're tears of joy.

When tears are warm,
they're tears of pain and anguish.

Check it out next time.

When someone is crying,
don't take a thermometer,

"This is tears of joy!"

Don't test on others,
you can test it for yourself, you know.

I asked him what had happened.

This man, with great difficulty, spoke up

and said, "Just three days back
my wife has filed papers for divorce."

He was driving a car - fancy car -

he loved his wife,
his children loved his wife,

for some reason the wife
had filed papers for divorce.

And this fancy Lamborghini,
expensive, high-end car

couldn't wipe his tears;

this fancy, expensive, plush car
couldn't bring him any hope.

While I was driving with him
I was thinking to myself,

"God. Look at this gentleman,
with all of the achievements that he has:

a first-class business,
incredible amounts of money,

tremendous influence and affluence,

and with all of that he had,

and the cherry on top of the cake
was a Lamborghini:

(Laughter)

Bugged. No hope.

Ladies and gentlemen, therefore I say

if you truly want to know how rich you are

then count all those things
that you have that money cannot buy.

Hope, love, respect, dignity,
character, integrity, acceptance.

Wealth is a very broad term.

Money is not wealth.
Money is just a part of wealth.

And you must have it obviously -

all of you are looking forward
to having money,

and you must obviously have it.

But it's just a part of wealth.

February 2, 2005,

I was lying in a monastery
in an ashram on the wooden floor,

exhausted, tired
from the anxiety last night,

and suddenly a fellow monk,
one of my friends,

came up to me and woke me up

saying, "He's leaving. He's leaving!"

I got up, gathering myself together,
rushing to go to the room,

where my dear friend
Stoka Krishna Das was leaving his body.

Memories were flashing through my mind
as I was rushing towards this room.

He was a monk with me,
we had stayed together.

At a certain point, he had decided
to move on and get married.

He went out.

He'd taken a job at the hospital
we run, as a librarian.

He'd just gotten married;
his wife was pregnant.

While the wife was pregnant,
he was diagnosed with melanoma cancer.

He decided that he wanted
to leave the body in the monastery

where he spent most of his time.

We had brought him to our monastery.

As the memories flashed in my mind
as I was rushing there,

I remembered everyday I went to sing
God's names to him on the harmonium.

My tears filled the eyes.

As I cried, seeing a dear friend
struggling with melanoma cancer.

Every single time I looked at him,
my vision was blurred.

Because it was someone so dear.

Yet, this gentleman was amazing,

he had a beaming face,

all the excruciating pain
that he went through

hadn't affected his determined resolve.

Yeah, look at his face,
look at that smile.

No morphine was working on him.

I realized: this stuff works.

His wife had given birth to a baby girl;

they brought the baby girl
right next to him.

It was the last time she would see him;

it was the last time
his wife would ever be with him.

Ladies and gentlemen,

as I walked to the room,

my guru Radhanath Swami,

the author of the popular book
The Journey Home,

was right next to him, giving him hope.

I was astounded inside the little room,
there were so many people.

I was standing right next to him
with my guru Radhanath Swami,

outside were 450 members of our community,

all together chanting the names of God.

What I saw here was a man
who didn't have a Lamborghini.

What I saw here was support.

What I saw here was people:

people who were there
to financially support him,

people who were there
to medically support him,

people who were there
to spiritually support him,

people who were there
to emotionally support him.

I was amazed

at the kind of support this man had.

You know something,

when you're born, people love you,

and when you die, people love you;

in between you have to manage.

(Laughter)

And this man had managed truly well,

he'd invested so much
in relationships with his people

that when he was in dire need

people had come to him.

Ladies and gentlemen,

yes, it is important for us
to have support.

Wealth doesn't just mean money.

Wealth means money plus

people and support.

One gentleman said,

do you know what's the difference
between complete and finished?

He said if you find
the right partner, you're complete;

If you find the wrong partner,
you're finished.

But if you were caught with the wrong one
by the right one: completely finished.

(Laughter) (Applause) (Cheers)

I must tell you:
we definitely need partners,

we definitely need friends,

we definitely need
professional therapists,

we definitely need people
who can support us.

Therefore, I say if you wanted
to know truly how rich you are,

drop a tear and see how many hands
come forward to wipe that tear.

That's how rich you actually are,

that's wealth.

(Applause)

Sanskrit is an amazing language.

If people want to call
someone a donkey in Sanskrit,

you say Vaishakhnandan.

(Laughter)

You want to know what you call
ice cream in Sanskrit?

Dughdasharkarayuktahima ganagolagattu.

And if you say mango ice cream, you'd say,

Aamra dughdasharkarayuktahima
ganagolagattu.

It will melt before you place the order!

(Laughter)

But I'm sure most of us
love to eat ice cream. Yes, indeed.

People who eat ice cream,
it is good to eat ice cream

because the ideology
behind the ice cream is:

enjoy your life before it melts.

And then there is a candle
where the ideology is:

give light to others before it melts.

Ladies and gentlemen,

yes, the live world is full of ice creams;

what we need is candles.

Yes, there was a gentleman
here in this country, Chennai,

Mr. Palam Kalyanasundaram,

giving away each of his salary
to educate the poor.

He was recognized
by the U.S., given an award,

about five million American dollars,
approximately 30 crore Indian Rupees.

He gave away all of that money
to educate the poor.

How many of you are ready to be candles?

Contact me later, I need a lot!

(Laughter)

To be honest, we cannot be that extreme,

selfless candles,

and just because we can't be candles
should we continue being ice creams?

Journey means move
from being an ice cream to a candle.

How many of you like to look beautiful?

How many of you like to look handsome?

Those who are not raising their hands,
they think they're already beautiful.

I must tell you,

a teacher wrote down on the whiteboard:
I am beautiful. "Which tense is it?"

The student said,"Past tense, Madam."
Visible beauty just goes away.

One of my friends, ladies and gentlemen,

I'd like to introduce you
to a very handsome guy.

One of my friends,
Prem Raheja, wonderful man,

from a well-to-do,
high middle-class family.

This man,

his accountant's daughter stood first
in the KEM medical college

and wanted to go the U.S to study

and didn't have any money,
didn't have a sponsor for the visa.

He sponsored her visa;

paid for her tuition fee,
paid for the travel fee,

all of his staff, paid for the fees
of all the children of his staff,

paid for the house
of every single staff member,

paid for the marriages
of the every single person

in his staff's family.

And what's amazing
is no one ever even knew.

And there are so many such people
across the country and across the world

who are trying to move
from being an ice cream to being a candle.

Ladies and gentlemen,

if you truly want to know
how handsome you are,

just extend your "hand" to "some,"

and you will definitely be considered
to be extremely handsome.

It's not about the looks, which fade,

but it's definitely
about how we help others.

It is important for us

that wealth is equal to
money + people + purpose in life,

to serve, share and contribute.

It was July 9, 2009.

I had just returned from England, London.

As I got back from London,

it was half one in the morning,

for some reason my telephone was on,

cellular phone.

My phone rang.

My mind started going into guesses:

Who could it be?

My mom had rung me up.

As I picked up the phone,

I didn't want to hear the news
that my father had gone.

He was diagnosed with Parkinson's.

Just before I had traveled to London,

I had gone and seen him;
he was bed ridden.

From all the way
as I'd become a monk till now,

it had been an amazing journey for them.

Hard in the beginning,
definitely appreciated later.

My dad had gone.

I drove from Mumbai,
it was pouring cats and dogs.

The cremation was done.

The next day I went to the crematorium,

and what came in my hand

was a pot.

A pot of ashes.

As I held this pot of ashes in my hands,

I was stunned, shocked,
couldn't think for a while.

And this is 2009,
I took this life as a monk in 1996

after having worked at Hewlett Packard.

And as I was now there,

I'm wondering:

is this my father?

Is this what's left out of my father?

God heard all what I'd spoken,
read, heard and spoken

in so many different forums
including the British Parliament

had dawned upon me
suddenly in that one moment.

That's all gone.

I'll tell you something,

it's quite amazing
how these sobering moments are.

They bring to your heart
those important priorities

which truly matter to you.

Ladies and gentlemen,

you all have to evaluate
what is of importance to us.

What are we going to hold?

Grudges? Anger? What?

When we go we need
to leave a legacy behind

and not just leave a legacy behind.

When we go we must
carry something along with us.

On my way to London,
on the flight, British Airways,

I had a mango milkshake bottle
with me in the lunch pack.

And at the X-ray machine
as the mango milkshake passed through it,

the security guard said,
"Sir, this can't go ahead."

I asked him, "Why?"
He said, "There's liquid in it."

I said, "This is not liquid,
this is sublime."

(Laughter)

He said, "What is sublime?"
"This is mango milkshake, sir."

"One liter of steel bottle."
"Sorry sir, only 100 ml is allowed."

So I said, "I'll throw it away,"
but I won't give it to him.

"Let me take it."

So I found someone -

I know someone the airport, he took me out
and we gave it to the beggar -

and came back.

As I boarded the flight
I put on my laptop with one thought:

when you board a flight
you must know what you can take along.

Everything else is left behind.

And similarly, when the flight ends,
you have to know what you can take along;

and therefore, I must say,

there is a need for a divine
spiritual connection.

Yes, when the flight ends,
there are three things we must do:

not have anything
in the mind left thinking,

"Oh! I should have done that!"

Second, we leave a legacy behind,

and three, we have something
to carry on, even if it's 100 ml,

(Laughter)

but it will be allowed
with us as we move on;

and thus I say what makes life complete:

Wealth makes life complete.

Be super wealthy,
have a lot of money, no problem.

Be super wealthy, have a lot of support.

Be super wealthy,

have a lot of purposes to move
from an ice cream to a candle and share.

Be super wealthy,
by leaving a legacy behind,

and having something that you can
carry along with you as the flight lands.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I must thank all of you
for your kind attention.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)