Concepts From Advaita for Developing Conscious Leaders

The talk will be delivered in three parts:

1. An Overview of Advaita Vedanta; 
2. Characteristics  of a Good Leader;  
3. Q & A

The Pinnacle of Advaita teaching is the Doctrine that “There is no creation; none is ever born (ajAti vAda)”  — 4 Upanishads + 3 Special Treatises declare so in one voice !!!

What then is this “World” perceived by us?

• Perception is self-deception; 
• There is a Perception – Reality Disconnect; 
• Seeing is NOT Believing; 

Just like a dream world with all its paraphernalia disappears when one  wakes up from dream, the awake world too goes when one awakens from the awake world!

The really real ‘Reality’ is one homogeneous, indivisible, boundless, eternal, all-pervading nameless “That” which is Complete within Itself, a mass of Sentience, absolutely lacking nothing, has no hunger and thirst, never born, no decrepitude and that One is what you yourself truly are!

The World is nothing but a Common Consensual Controlled Hallucination. We project it ourselves. It’s not one world and 8 billion of us; it’s One Reality and 8 billion worlds!

We shall do a brief Experiment to ‘feel’ and ‘know’ (smavedana) “That” (also indicated by the pointer word, brahman).

For those who believe that they are born into a pre-existing world, the tradition adopts a compassionate concessionary “Model” in imparting the Non-dual message. The “Model” uses the technique of “Superimposition and Sublation.” That means, the teacher tentatively accepts your idea — this is the first step called deliberate ‘Superimposition’ of a non-existing world. Next, over a series of steps, the superimposed world is rescinded, as the student is able to grok the teaching at each level. This step is called ‘Sublation.’ (13.13, BGB).

As a part of this ‘superimposition’ of a created world, also come a team of great Managers and Leaders who are vested with the “running” of this huge huge enterprise called ‘Creation.’ They are the “Ex-Officio In-charges of Creation” (AdhikArika puruSha-s – see 3.3.32, BSB). One finds the description of the nature and characteristics of such Divine  AdhikArika puruSha-s sprinkled all over our scriptures. The general public loves them and would like to follow in their footsteps as they are incontestably the most ideal and lovable Leaders. They also go by the name of jIvanmukta-s, sthitaprajna-s; kritakritya-s; &C.

They are the ones who abide as that Infinite “brahman.” We shall look into their characteristics and the “desirable” qualities of a Modern Leader as envisaged by some of the leading Institutes like Harvard Business School etc. Some of the notable features are: Equanimity; Impartiality; Free and Fair 2-way Communication; Upliftment of all; Visionary nature;  Purity in Thought, word  and Deed and so on.

We are endowed with two Visions – the Eternal and the mundane. We have to re-engineer ourselves to using the Eternal Vision to be a jIvanmukta. (1.4.10, 3.4.2, 4.3.23, BUB; 116, aparokShAnubhUti).

We will then have a Q & A Session.

14 April 2023, Friday 

Time : 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM EST | 08:00PM to 09:30PM IST

Speakers

Dr. Ramesam Vemuri

Speaker

Dr. Ramesam Vemuri retired as an Adviser in the Dept. of Science and Technology, GOI. He authored Religion Demystified (2008); A primer on Advaita (2022) and co-authored Knowing-Being (2022). He worked with several Western Authors on Non-duality. He is a regular blogger at the Advaita Vision site, UK. He rendered into English Yogavasishta of Sage Valmiki, Yogataravali of Shankara and a few other books explicated by Shri K. V. Krishna Murty Garu, a well-respected and honored Sanskrit scholar and Vedic Pundit with Avadhoota Datta Peetham, Mysore, India.

Brhm. Sai Sambath

Host, Co-founder Centre for Consciousness Studies & Inner Transformation

Sai Sambat is a spiritual practitioner who has been focusing on psychospiritual evolution of self and others over three decades. An intense identity process-work in early 90's and immersive apprenticeship with a realized Spiritual Master have gifted him with nonevaluative awareness and evolved levels of psycho-spiritual, socio-cultural and ecological coherence. Sai’s passion and expertise span Leadership Development, Knowledge Management, Learning Design, and Organisational Development. As a Leadership Development Consultant and Coach, Sai enables managers and leaders to discover innate potential and leverage it towards greater efficacy, excellence and results. He is a graduate in Production Engineering from NIT, Tiruchirapalli and has a Masters in HRM&OD from XLRI, Jamshedpur.