Defeat Your Problems and Succeed!

[Guest guest]

Defeat Your Problems and Succeed!

 

President Kalam's passion - igniting minds

with glorious dreams

 

The story of the 11th president of India, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is

truly inspiring, particularly in these times characterized by

religious strife and tension between scientific and humanitarian

world-views. Dr. Kalam is a Muslim in a predominantly Hindu society.

He is a rocket scientist with a deeply spiritual message. Throughout

his career he has held highly responsible technical and scientific

leadership positions. His experiences in leading such systems,

however, did not shake his spiritual foundation; just the opposite.

He told us: " The path of science can always wind through the heart.

For me, science has always been the path to spiritual enrichment and

self-realization. "

 

What initially inspired us to try to obtain an interview with him

was this unusual quote from Dr. Abdul Kalam in his book Wings of

fire:

 

" Each individual creature on this beautiful planet is created by God

to fulfil a particular role. Whatever I have achieved in life is

through His help, and an ex-pression of His will. He showered His

grace on me through some outstanding teachers and colleagues, and

when I pay my tributes to these fine persons, I am merely praising

His glory. All these rockets and missiles are His work through a

small person called Kalam, in order to tell the several-million mass

of India to never feel small or helpless. We are all born with a

divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire

and fill the world with the glow of its goodness. "

 

Aside from the large majority of Hindus, India also has the world's

second largest Muslim population and a minority of Christians,

Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Parsis and Jews. President Kalam is the

inspiring leader of this amazingly heterogeneous multi-religious,

multi-cultural, multi-lingual democratic nation – the world's

largest democracy.

 

" True divinity is a combination of spirituality and social

obligations. "

 

- President's Convocation

Address in 2001

 

When we asked Dr. Kalam about the relationship between religion and

spirituality in such a complex society, he provided us with a clear

and concise reply: " When religion transforms into a spiritual force,

people become enlightened citizens with a value system. It is

therefore most important that, for the happiness, peace and

prosperity of mankind, we transform our religious forces into

spiritual forces. "

 

President Kalam's passion is to meet with and speak with young

people all around India, inspiring them with his vision of the

future of India and of the role of values and spirituality. Indeed,

on 22 November, 2006, he addressed the students, faculty and guests

of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (now Sri Sathya

Sai University ) with the words:

 

" I am indeed honoured to deliver the 25th convocation address in the

presence of Sri Sathya Sai Baba in this divine environment. My

reverence to Baba and greetings to Vice-Chancellor Dr. A.V. Gokak,

Professors, faculty members and staff who have been responsible for

shaping not just graduates but human beings with great value systems

drawn from our civilization's heritage. At this point, I would like

to quote a message from Baba: `Today people think that spirituality

has no relationship to mundane life and vice versa. This is a big

mistake. True divinity is a combination of spirituality and social

obligations. National unity and social harmony are founded on

spirituality. It is the divine that links spirituality and social

existence.' "

 

This energetic and optimistic leader of more than a billion people

told us: " I learnt in my life, that if you don't do anything, you

won't have any problems. But if you do something, suddenly something

will pull off. Problems should not become your master. You have to

become the master of the problems. God gives us the opportunity to

grow through problems. You have to concentrate on what can be done,

not what you think cannot be done. If I could, I would remove the

word `impossible' from the dictionary. Defeat your problems and

succeed. "

 

On the morning of November 23rd, 2001,

the President spent every precious

second with Baba

 

Inspired by the few minutes he spent in His presence, the President

burst out with a beautiful poem...

 

When we then asked him about the core competence of business,

President Kalam poetically replied: " The most important thing is

righteousness, dharma. When there is righteousness in the heart,

there is beauty in the character. When there is beauty in the

character, there is harmony in the home. When there is harmony in

the home, there is order in the nation. When there is order in the

nation, there is peace in the world. You see the beautiful

connectivity between these. The question before all of us today is,

how do we get righteousness in the heart? "

 

A business leader who has for years focused on righteousness in the

heart is G. Narayana, lovingly and respectfully referred to

as `Guruji' by those he inspires with his words of wisdom and his

loving, generous behaviour. As you will now see, however, it took a

crisis to awaken him to the beauty of his character.

 

Ram Chugani

Kobe, Japan

rgcjp