Can meditation enhance leadership?⁵

Can meditation enhance leadership? The answer is in the affirmative. Meditation can and does enhance leadership. But we have to know what we mean by meditation. If meditation means a secluded life, if meditation means only an individual triumph over oneself, this type of meditation can never enhance leadership. If meditation means that I exist only for myself, if it means that my own self-mastery is my only goal and that I alone am important on earth, then leadership cannot be enhanced, for there is no necessity of leadership. If meditation means a secluded life, a life of individuality, then the necessity for leadership does not and cannot arise at all. If I alone exist on earth, who am I to lead? I am all in all. Only when there are two persons is leadership necessary or important. Either I take the lead or somebody else takes the lead.

But if meditation means an expansion of our consciousness, if meditation means that we are of all and for all — that we are of our inner divinity and for aspiring humanity — then our qualities of leadership are bound to increase. If we take leadership as something qualitative, then we have to feel that the light of meditation will make the quality go from bright to brighter and from brighter to brightest. If we take leadership as something quantitative, then we can say that the light of meditation will enable us to transform much into more and more into most.

When we encounter leadership, immediately the physical in us surrenders because it is perfectly aware of its teeming limitations. It knows how weak and frail it is, how insignificant its capacity is. But the vital in us immediately sees leadership as a kind of challenge either from the inner world or from the outer world. After accepting the challenge, the vital wants to conquer and dominate the world around it. The vital immediately wants to dominate others and kick the world around like a football for its own pleasure. This kind of leadership our vital enjoys.

Mental leadership is somewhat different. In mental leadership we notice that the world around us is all imperfection and we feel that only our own mental world is perfect. You as an individual feel that you are perfect, but that the world around you is imperfect. He feels that he is perfect, while the rest of the world is all imperfection. Since he feels that he is perfect and everybody else is imperfect, he accepts his self-styled leadership to perfect us. God has not entrusted him with leadership. As long as he sees only imperfection around him and feels that his being alone is flooded with perfection and light, then he is not the right instrument to lead others.

There is another type of leadership. We call it psychic leadership, the leadership of the heart. This leadership is totally different from the vital and mental leadership. Psychic leadership is founded upon the heart’s inner awareness and oneness with reality as a whole. Whoever leads in the heart is a real leader. This is not the leadership of a self-styled leader. This leadership is the recognition of one’s inseparable oneness with the rest of humanity. The one is for the many and the many are for the one. When we think of ourselves as the one, we feel that the many are our branches, leaves, fruits and flowers. When we think of ourselves as the many, immediately we, as the branches, leaves, fruits and flowers, feel that we are the trunk. Here oneness, real oneness, makes us feel that all are equally responsible for embodying the highest Truth, revealing the highest Truth and manifesting the highest Truth.

Meditation is a dynamic active power; it is movement. Movement itself is progress. Movement itself is the growth and expansion of our reality. Whenever we meditate, no matter what plane of consciousness we are on, at that time we are moving towards some destination which we are bound to reach. While progressing towards the destination, this movement increases its potentiality, its capacity, its reality, its vision, its identity with its Source. And once it reaches the Source, all its capacities increase in boundless measure.

In the outer world, a leader is he who has more capacity than some other individual or two other individuals or many other individuals. If his capacity far surpasses theirs, then he becomes the leader. But in the spiritual life it is not like that. In the spiritual life, real leadership depends on one’s awareness of reality and one’s conscious and constant acceptance of this reality as one’s very own. If one can accept the reality around him as his very own despite all its imperfection, limitation and bondage, then he is the real leader — and not he who has a little more capacity than another individual or the rest of the group. He who claims his brothers and sisters as his very own, he who accepts the challenge of ignorance and who stands in front of ignorance-night determined to conquer it and transform it into the flood of Light — he is the real leader. In the spiritual life, leadership means our conscious wish to be a chosen instrument of the Supreme. The moment we become His chosen instrument, we feel that we have become real leaders. A divine instrument is he who has the capacity to lead and guide humanity.

According to Indian scripture, when a devotee worships the cosmic gods and goddesses, the capacity of the gods and goddesses increases. You may ask how this can be. The cosmic gods and goddesses already have tremendous Peace, Light and Bliss. Just from the worship of a devotee, how can these qualities increase? It is like saying that if you stand in front of the ocean and worship the ocean, immediately the length and breadth of the ocean will increase. Your physical mind will immediately laugh at the idea, but the Indian scriptures were not an inch away from the truth.

What actually increases in the cosmic gods and goddesses when they are worshipped is their conscious awareness of humanity’s need for them. When the gods feel that they are consciously needed by humanity as a whole, then they feel that they have a task to perform on earth. They think, “The children of earth need us. Let us help them, let us guide them, let us mould them, let us shape them into divine beings.” When the cosmic gods and goddesses feel earth’s need, immediately they shower their choicest blessings on earth. The satisfaction that dawns in them because of earth’s need is the increase of their capacity. Previously earth did not need them, humanity did not need them; so their capacities were kept dormant. But when they are pleased and satisfied with humanity, they deliberately bring forward and increase all their capacities.

We are spiritual people; we need Peace, Light and Bliss in abundant measure. That is why we invoke the presence of the cosmic gods. But there are people who want the divine help in order to achieve something which will not be a creative force but a destructive force. Indian mythology offers us hundreds of stories about seekers who meditate for years and years and, at the end of their journey’s close, when their chosen deity is satisfied and agrees to grant them a boon, they ask for something destructive. One very well-known story is about a devotee of Lord Shiva who meditated for years and years to satisfy Lord Shiva. Then the boon he asked for was this: that any person whose head he touched would immediately be burned to ashes. When Shiva granted him this boon, he wanted to test it on Shiva’s head. But Shiva ran away and took shelter with Vishnu, and Vishnu’s clever wisdom saved Shiva, Vishnu said to the aspirant, “You are a fool. Why have you to chase Shiva in order to know whether the boon is genuine. You could easily place your hand on your own head and see its efficacy.” The foolish aspirant did this and was destroyed.

What do we learn from this story? When we want something undivine or destructive, God may give it to us; but there is a divine force which is infinitely more powerful than our undivine force, and this will come to God’s aid. If the ignorance in us wants something and cries for it, the boon may be granted; but if God does not fulfil our ignorance-prayer, it is a real blessing. And when He does fulfil our ignorance-prayer in order to give us an experience, then we have to know that this experience is necessary so that later we will cry for real Truth and Light. After giving us the necessary experience of ignorance, God will try to pull us towards His Height. At that time He does not actually destroy the capacity of our prayer; He only shows us that the capacity of our prayer should be directed towards some reality which is divine and immortal.

In India, when thieves enter into the temple to commit a theft, first they pray to Mother Kali that they will not be caught red-handed. Mother Kali may listen to them a few times, but after a while they are caught. When they pray, Mother Kali says, “All right, you want a life of ignorance; I will fulfil your ignorance.” But there comes a time when her higher wisdom, which is compassion, starts to operate. She wants these desire-bound souls to be liberated from ignorance, so she exposes them to earthly justice.

If we want to achieve leadership through the fulfilment of ignorance, God grants us that boon. But when we have the inner cry, God immediately removes from us the leadership which is based on ignorance, and He kindles the flame of aspiration in us so that we can become endowed with divine leadership and be the torch-bearers of His Light and Truth.

On the physical plane we have a human body. When the physical in us listens to the inner voice or has a free access to the inner being, even the physical can become a real leader. One striking instance I can tell you. All of you know about India’s great political leader, the father of the Indian renaissance, Mahatma Gandhi. His physical frame was very frail and weak, but his physical frame embodied inner light in abundant measure. His mental capacity was not on the same level with that of Nehru and others, but his soul’s light guided India’s fate and the leaders who were mental giants sat at his feet. Why? Just because he saw a higher light, a higher truth, which he wanted to express through his philosophy of ahimsa, or non-violence. Ahimsa does not mean that one will not strike someone or fight with someone. Gandhi’s non-violence was the vision of universal and transcendental Light in humanity. This is the vision that he had and embodied and wanted to reveal. That is why he became India’s unparalleled and supreme leader. A real leader is he who has inner light in boundless measure; it is he who represents the soul inside the physical, outside the physical and everywhere. He who wants to convey the message of the soul is the real leader.

It is said that a poet is born, not made. There is much truth in this. But I have seen that by the grace of spiritual Masters, or by the grace of inner awakening, many people have become poets. I am using the word in its largest sense — as an artist in any plane of consciousness or in any form of art. If one has not brought with him at birth a particular capacity, that does not mean that he will not be able to acquire or develop that capacity in this lifetime. One can! If one has not come into the world with a quality of leadership, it does not mean that that person will never have leadership in this incarnation. No! If one accepts the spiritual life, it means one is beginning a new life. If one has an inner guide, a spiritual Master, he enters into a new life and is awakened to the highest Truth. A new life means a new hope, a new promise, a new prophesy, a new dream which is about to be blossomed into reality. This new life is bound to offer the seeker what he wants, whether it be leadership or anything else.

So an individual can become a divine instrument even though he did not bring down on his own the capacity to be a divine instrument. To become a chosen instrument of God is to become a divine leader, a supreme leader. This can be done by mutual acceptance. If light accepts darkness as its very own, and if night accepts light as its very own — that is to say, if the higher part in us is accepted by the lower part and vice versa — only then can the light act in and through the darkness which needs guidance and constant assurance. If he who needs and he who has can consciously become one, then one sees through the other. The lowest needs the highest for its realisation. The highest needs the lowest for its manifestation.

Divine leadership either one has or one is going to have. It is not the sole monopoly of any individual. It is granted to all. But each individual has to be aware that this capacity and reality abide in him. He has to exercise his inner capacity; he has to feel the need of this reality. Then automatically, spontaneously, divine leadership comes forward and increases in boundless measure. This leadership must come to the fore. How does it come to the fore? When one consciously and constantly feels that he is of one Source and he is for all mankind. This moment he is the Creator; the next moment he is the creation. When he thinks of himself as the Creator, he is one. When he thinks of himself as the creation, he is many. He has to see and become the Dream; he has to see and become the Reality; and finally he has to see the Dream and the Reality in his being as one, each complementing the other. Dream we need to fly in the sky of the ever-transcending Beyond. Reality we need to manifest the transcendental Height and to give value to the universality in and around us. The song of the Transcendental we sing through our Dream. The song of the Universal we sing through our Reality. Both Transcendental and Universal, both Dream and Reality, make us whole, complete and perfect.