Full transcript: Radhanath Swami on London Real
3:50 Brian Rose: This is London Real, I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Radhanath Swami, the American and monk, author, spiritual teacher, and activist. At age 31, you took your monastic vows and went on to establish missionary hospitals, eco-friendly farms, and a number of emergency relief programs, one of which feeds over 250,000 people per day. You’ve been sought out by some of the most influential leaders on the planet, including Mother Teresa, Barack Obama, and the Dalai Lama.
4:15 Brian Rose: And your last book, The New York Times Bestseller, A Journey Within, shows us how to solve dilemmas with the simplest of resources and uncover miracles in everyday life. Radhanath, welcome to London Real.
4:28 Radhanath Swami: Thank you, Brian. I am so honored, grateful, and happy to be with you.
4:33 Brian Rose: Well, I am happy to be with you too.
4:35 And we just had a tour around London Real Studios and realized we have a lot of friends and places in common. And for people that don’t know, last year I ran an Ironman race and I went to New York City to train for that race. and I met a guy named John Joseph, and in the process talked about my struggle with addiction and overdose, and we went to a place called the Bakti Center on First Avenue and learned about Hare Krishna. And I just found out from you that you helped found that center, and you know about Orion and the other people I met there.
5:11 Brian Rose: Is that right?
5:12 Radhanath Swami: It’s right. It’s a beautifully small world.
5:15 Brian Rose: It is, it’s a really beautiful small world. So it’s really even more of an honor to be sitting down with you and hear about some of your ideas.
5:25 And it was great to see the history of what happened there in New York City with Prabhupad going to Tompkins Square Park, which is a place, strangely enough, I used to go sit underneath the Hare Krishna tree when I was having low moments in 2001. But I had no idea that was where Prabhupad was. And I had no idea the Bhakti Center was one block away from me. But I was in my own prison in my own brain. and at the time, it’s just fascinating for me to know that maybe help was one block away.
5:53 But it took me a while, but I finally found you guys. So it’s great to have you here. Thank you. Tell me about London. What’s it like to come to this city for you?
6:05 Because you have a long relationship with the city. I mean, from what I understand, you started off here and ultimately pilgrimage to the Himalayas. So can you tell me a little bit about you and this city?
6:23 Radhanath Swami: I was born in 1950, so my teenage years were the 1960s from Illinois. I was born in Chicago, and during those times it was very troublesome. It was the Vietnam War, and many of us really couldn’t understand why we’re there, and yet when we turn 18, basically if you’re drafted you have three choices. Either you go and kill people that you don’t understand why or you go to prison or you have to escape the country. So it was quite intense. And then there was so much prejudice. You know people who were of minorities like the African Americans at that time if If you’re born in the ghetto, there’s hardly a chance you could ever get out of the ghetto.
7:21 So I was troubled by a lot of what I saw inconsistencies. And I saw a lot of prejudice in the name of religion and God. And I couldn’t just be satisfied getting some sports medals, getting a good education, having a career, unless I could really make a difference. So I joined the civil rights movement and counterculture and I was really trying to find myself. And gradually I came to a conclusion that if I don’t change myself, I can’t really substantially be an instrument of change in the world around me.
8:09 And I believe that that change was spiritual. But then there was another problem. I saw so much apparent hypocrisy and contradiction in religion. Hate, sectarianism, prejudice in the name of a loving God. And I either had to just reject the idea of spirituality and religion, or there had to be something beautiful that was at the heart of all true spiritual paths.
8:42 And I believed at the core of my heart that that was there. And I kind of committed my life to find that essence within religion and spirituality that could actually awaken love and compassion. And with a friend, I decided in 1970, I was 19 years old to come to Europe. and we got a $65 flight to Iceland and then there was a connecting flight behind the same ticket to Luxembourg and when we got there we actually had no money, we didn’t know anyone so we were just exploring kind of a sociological expedition trying to understand how different people in different places view each other, America, God, nature, so like that.
9:39 Brian Rose: And you were always a little bit of a unique kid anyways. You didn’t want to eat meat and eggs. You wanted to eat on the floor, not at the table. I mean, there was something unique about you as well, right? Your parents must have wondered.
10:01 Radhanath Swami: They didn’t see me as unique. They saw me as strange. But yeah, I don’t even know where that came from.
10:08 Brian Rose: Do you think, I mean, do you think that, I mean, are there are there things involved? Are there past lives involved? Do you think you have a different spirit because to not want to eat at the table in Chicago and not eat eggs and meat in Chicago is quite rare for a kid to do.
10:25 Is there something else going on here?
10:29 Radhanath Swami: Yes, we believe that the impressions of when we were children that we experienced affect how we are as adults. And similarly, the impressions that we had in previous lives affect how we begin our life. life, you know, what our values are, what our perceptions are. Right.
10:58 And you’re in Chicago, which is, was kind of like a real hotbed for a lot of activity. I mean, it’s one of the most segregated cities in America. And back then, probably more so, I spent a couple of years there and the discrepancies between the south side and the north side. And then, I mean, wasn’t the Democratic convention there in 68?
11:18 Radhanath Swami: I was there.
11:19 There, where people were getting shot. I mean, it was-
11:23 Radhanath Swami: I got tear gassed.
11:25 Brian Rose: You got tear gassed. Wow.
11:27 Radhanath Swami: The police were chasing to beat us, but in those days I was a pretty fast runner, so I escaped.
11:34 Brian Rose: Is it hard for people to understand just how hectic intense it was back then with leaders getting assassinated and Robert Kennedy dying and Martin Luther King dying and the draft, the stress of the draft and the images coming back from Vietnam and all the civil rights, I mean, have you ever seen a time where it was that tense or tumultuous in the world since?
12:09 Radhanath Swami: Well, those situations, to be thoughtful, brought us out of complacency. We just saw things that were so troubling of our times and our leadership that we really felt, many of us that we couldn’t be a part of this.
12:29 We had to make a difference.
12:31 Brian Rose: And when you looked at religion, kind of the traditional religions, you saw again, similar types of embedded hypocrisy and hate. And so you went on a journey, believing somehow deep inside that there was some type of universal love.
12:48 Radhanath Swami: And that brought me, Brian, to London. To London.
12:52 Brian Rose: What makes you at such a young age believe that you could find something that would unite, that would be loving. Because when I was 17, I wasn’t thinking that big.
13:11 Radhanath Swami: I would have to say because there was such a feeling of need in my heart to find that essence, I believed it was there. And the more I studied and experienced the various spiritual paths I had I had experience that it was there
13:37 Brian Rose: and so you come to London what’s it like in 1970 the counterculture was very strong what does that look like
13:50 Radhanath Swami: um there was a lot of people some people call them hippies and My welcome to London was very difficult, because I had no money, and somehow or other, I had enough to get a ferry from, I think, the hook of Holland.
14:14 When I arrived in England at the coast, the police took me to a back room and asked how much money we had. I had long hair, and they interrogated us for hours and hours and hours. I was with one friend, and they threatened to shave our heads, which was kind of ahead of the time because I ended up doing that myself. But they, and they threatened to put us in prison. They threatened to beat us.
14:48 They just didn’t want anybody with long hair coming into their country. It was quite amazing. And ultimately, they just kind of let us in, okay? Instead, if you make one wrong move, you’re going to be in prison. So we hitchhiked eventually up to London.
15:11 And, you know, I was making the scene and I was actually really popular. Everything was going really well. I was staying on the floor of a Catholic church across from the British Parliament on Lambeth Road with all these travelers who had nothing, but the people I was meeting and the experiences, it was just wonderful, but there was something missing. I would sit for hours and hours and hours under the starlight or the moonlight on the bank of the River Thames and just try to to understand where the current of the river of my life was actually going to lead me.
16:01 And I was, it was almost like a battle. There was something within me that wanted a spiritual direction in my life. But then my mind and the life around me was so much engrossed in pleasures and popularity and all of these things. and it was like a battle, and it was here in London that I, one time I was sitting in Trafalgar Square among the pigeons and the tourists and the business people and I was meditating and I experienced something so deep and so sublime in that meditation and I opened my eyes and I just saw London as a beautiful place of family
16:52 Because I saw everything in relation to God and then I decided my life has to be for a spiritual purpose. And from here I was hitchhiking through France, through Italy, and eventually I was living in a cave in Greece. And there I was praying for direction.
17:16 Brian Rose: And you’re about 20 or 21 at this point.
17:19 Radhanath Swami: I’m 19.
17:20 Brian Rose: Still 19. Still night and you left London even though it must have been so seductive to be here Like you said the popularity and the protests and the movement and there’s a lot of energy there But still you knew that you had a higher calling something was missing Okay, so you keep traveling to that cave
17:41 Radhanath Swami: and I I ended up spending most of my time on the Riverbank Used to be a baker. I used to live on Riverbanks
17:48 Brian Rose: You have good jokes, Swami. I was an investment banker. You were a river banker.
17:54 Radhanath Swami: Yeah, exactly.
17:56 Brian Rose: Why do you think you were attracted to rivers?
18:01 Radhanath Swami: The flow, the courage. It’s like a river begins at a certain place and it’s flowing toward the sea. And I really believe that sea was union or connection with God, with my own true self, with the love of my heart, and whatever happens in our life, I wanted to be like that river and flow toward the sea of truth, of love, of God.
18:40 Brian Rose: Wow, and so that moment in Greece was a big one. What happened in that cave?
18:47 Radhanath Swami: On my way, I was living in monasteries and synagogues and I was living in forests and a lot of river banks and I would go to museums just to study art to get enriched.
19:01 And eventually, I was in Athens and had no money and I met some people at a blood bank who were giving blood for money because in those days Athens was hard, it was like a police state.
19:16 Brian Rose: But was it really? Yeah. Wow.
19:19 Radhanath Swami: And so, you know, you couldn’t just sleep under trees in riverbanks, you had to actually go somewhere. So it was pretty painful, the process of giving blood. So I played harmonica and someone else who was there from Switzerland had a violin and someone else from France had a guitar. So we started a band and we were playing in the streets and my friend Gary who came with me from America, he had a little hat. And people were just throwing these drachmas, the currency in those days of Greece, and we were doing really good.
20:02 And then the police put us in prison and said it was illegal and took all the money away. So that was the beginning and the end of my musical career. We hid enough money to get a boat to Crete. We lived in a cave there. And there I was praying from sunrise to sunset on top of a mountain all alone for direction in my life.
20:31 And I heard right at sunset, on one beautiful, beautiful evening, I heard three words. And I knew if I followed these words, my life would never be the same. The three words were, go to India. I heard it within me, it was silent, but I had never met an Indian person in my life. I never ate a chili pepper in my life or Indian food, and I didn’t even know where India was.
21:05 But I believed that God was calling me to India, and if I just keep hitchhiking east, I would get there. So I left my friend and I started hitchhiking to India through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Took about six months.
21:23 Brian Rose: And so people know this is before Google and YouTube and Instagram, and the only way to find out about these places is to maybe go to a bookstore and look up things in an atlas, right, or find a travel book.
21:40 Radhanath Swami: I never did that, I was just hitchhiking east and I just arrived at these different places.
21:47 Brian Rose: And what do your parents think of all this at the time? They just wrote you off? Were they supportive?
21:56 Radhanath Swami: When I left the Chicago area, I told my mother and father, I’ll be back in two months to continue college. And three months passed and they didn’t hear from me.
22:11 And four months passed. And four and a half months passed. And finally, they got a letter from me that I was alone now and I was hitchhiking to India to find the truth and to find what is the deepest meanings that we could live for in our lives. And I remember writing that what greater education could there be than this? So please don’t worry.
22:49 Brian Rose: And what did they say? Well, they couldn’t really write you back.
22:54 Radhanath Swami: They couldn’t write me back, but it was postmarked Iran.
22:58 Brian Rose: And what did they think at the time? You probably found out later.
23:03 Radhanath Swami: They felt helpless. Helpless, okay. Yeah, they were worrying like anything. Then a few months later they were getting, they got a letter from Afghanistan. Then I was living in the Himalayas.
23:18 And I thought that they would really be proud of me for living in the jungles of the Himalayas, but they weren’t quite worried. But ultimately when I came back and when they saw a few years later some of the things I was doing, especially in India, they became so very, very proud and so happy.
23:45 Brian Rose: Wow. And so you spent a lot of time in India, and I know Mumbai, you know, big center there. Why do you, what did you ultimately find in India and why do you think something told you to go there?
24:03 Radhanath Swami: When I was traveling through Europe, I was studying Christianity, Judaism. When I was traveling through the Middle East, I was studying Islam. When I was in India, I was studying and living with various
24:21 Schools of Buddhism and yoga and Hinduism. And I really was discovering that at the heart of all All these true spiritual paths was something beautiful and common. I remember in the Old Testament and the New Testament, the first and great commandment is to love God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and the natural expression of that love is that we love our neighbor as ourself, and everyone’s our neighbor. And if whatever the philosophies, whatever the historical interpretations or explanations may be, if it doesn’t bring us to that point of actually loving God with all our hearts, soul and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourself, then we’ve really missed the purpose.
25:30 And when I reached India in the Bhagavad Gita, there is a beautiful verse. And when I heard this, I was thinking, this is it, Vidyabhana yasampani brahmani gabhyasthani. It speaks that true wisdom, true knowledge, true enlightenment, true connection to God is when we can see all living beings with equal vision. Whether one is a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian or a Jew or a Jane or a Sikh or a Parsi, or whether one’s an agnostic or an atheist, or whether one is a male or female, rich or poor, whether one is a human or a dog or a cat or a cow or an elephant, wherever there’s life, is sacred, because the one supreme being, the source of everything, is the source of all life and the source of all creation. And if we really are developing, you know, true love for God within our heart, when we really connect with our own true souls, then we’ll see every living being as our brothers and sisters. We’ll actually feel compassion, where we see suffering. And we’ll see that nature is not something to exploit. Nature is something to honor. And while I was in India, I found those definitions of spirituality so clear. And the yoga that What I chose is bhakti-yoga, which means to connect with our own true self, to create harmony with our body, our mind, and our hearts and our souls.
27:37 And in that harmony, we realize the harmony among all humanity, all species of life and harmony with nature, and harmony with God brings about that experience. And that’s really at the core of all religions. So it’s not about being this religion or that religion. It’s about how we’re actually connected to our own true divine self, how we’re actually connected through love with the Supreme, and how we find harmony with nature and with life itself. This is a phrase that really moved me, that an enlightened person is not a person of this denomination or that denomination.
28:40 The heart of all these denominations that bring about enlightenment create a consciousness where other people’s happiness becomes our happiness, and other people’s suffering becomes our suffering. And I really wanted to experience that and then whether we’re bankers or river bankers Whether we’re billionaires or millionaires or middle-class or just working class or whether we’re Doctors or lawyers or politicians or entertainers or swamis whether we’re from the east to the west if that’s our purpose, if that’s our goal, to be instruments of God’s love and what we’re doing, that all these different occupations, all these different nationalities, all these different religions, the variety creates beauty. Beauty in life and beauty in the planet.
29:43 Brian Rose: Are these lessons you learned by being in India, or was Swami Sivananda instrumental in kind of opening your eyes to some of these concepts?
30:05 Radhanath Swami: Swami Prabhupāda, you mean?
30:10 Brian Rose: Yeah. Yeah.
30:12 Radhanath Swami: I was getting glimpses of these virtues in all of my travels, in all of my studies.
30:25 In my life, when I was in India and I met so many different spiritual persons, and then And when I ultimately met my guru, Prabhupada, who taught this very, very inclusive, all-encompassing spiritual principle of awakening the dormant love that’s within our heart and expressing it through whatever we’re doing in our life. And when I recognized it through my own spiritual path, then I could really appreciate it at the heart of all spiritual paths.
31:08 Brian Rose: And so this happens now kind of in your 20s, late 20s.
31:13 Radhanath Swami: When I was a teenager. Still a teenager. Well, I turned 20 when I was in India. It was a journey.
31:25 Brian Rose: And so you stay in India for quite some time, right?
31:32 Radhanath Swami: I was in India for a couple years, and then my visa ran out, so I had to leave. And then I was back and forth, and since about 1987, I’ve been based in India.
31:48 Brian Rose: Okay. And before that, lots of traveling. Yeah.
31:53 But ultimately you felt like you wanted to go back and connect with India and now that’s been a big part of where you live most of your life.
32:06 Radhanath Swami: Actually when I traveled six months from London to the Indian border in 1970 I arrived December the guard wouldn’t let me in.
32:18 Brian Rose: Wouldn’t let you in to India.
32:21 Radhanath Swami: At that time the immigration post was in a forest. There was just barbed wire fencing and military with guns, because India and Pakistan, you know, are not friendly neighbors. And there was a no-man’s land between Pakistan and India. So when I got an Indian visa in Pakistan, and then I, I left Pakistan into the no-man’s land, and I wasn’t allowed to go back yet, because I only had a one entrant visa to Pakistan, and when I reached the Indian border, they asked how much money I had, and I had 26 cents in five different currencies.
33:12 They rejected me. They said they wouldn’t let me in unless I had $200. So I couldn’t go back to Pakistan, and I had already hitchhiked, and traveling through the Middle East was very challenging. I got all kinds of diseases, all kinds of life-threatening conditions, and all many beautiful experiences too. But by the time I reached India, I aged about 30 years in that six months, and they would not let me in. And I was crying and begging, and they just got angry or an and hour after hour after hour I was just sitting under a tree and I didn’t know what to do there was no telephones there was no no way to communicate with anybody in the world in a no-man’s land and finally around sunset the guard changed this tall elderly Sikh man with military turban he took the post and And the other person who was rejecting me drove off in a jeep, and I went to him, and he said to me, that my commanding officer has already ordered me to reject you, go back, and I started to cry.
34:39 And it wasn’t fake tears, it was for real, because I was really desperate. And I said, sir, I have risked my life from the people of India to understand your culture and your people. I promise you, if you let me in, someday I’ll do something good for your people. Please give me a chance. And for a long time, he stared in my eyes.
35:22 He was like searching my mind, my heart. And then he took my passport, and he said to me, sometimes a man must follow his heart. Although my commanding officer ordered me to reject you, I am going to give you the chance that you’re crying for. And he stamped my passport. And he was older than my father.
35:56 He put his hand on my head and said, I bless you that you will find what you’re yearning for. Welcome to India. That’s how I came in. So I’ve been trying to fulfill that promise whatever way I can.
36:18 Brian Rose: That was a big moment for you.
36:21 And if we fast forward 10 years, 15 years, what are some of the other moments that you’ll always remember? What are some of those big moments of transition? You know, where you start maybe teaching more than you’re learning.
36:40 Radhanath Swami: One of the moments I was living in Himalayas, I was studying so many different paths. And I remember I was, which one am I to follow? And I was praying. And in those days, hitchhiking in India was jumping on third class trains. Because they were so crowded, ticket collectors couldn’t get in to take tickets.
37:11 So you just jumped through the window before it got too crowded while it was moving, and then you got free passage. And I was on this train for about 40 hours, and about five o’clock in the morning, finally the train stopped somewhere. And I just somehow crawled out the window to get some water, And the train left and I couldn’t get back in it. It was too crowded and I didn’t know where I was. And I asked somebody and he said, this is Mathura, Krishna’s birthplace.
37:52 And today is Janmastami, Krishna’s birthday. So there I was. And I really loved the place, but I was on my way to this pilgrimage site in the Himalayas. And I was supposed to leave like two days later. I was sleeping on a riverbank.
38:14 And in the morning, when I woke up, I had typhoid fear. So I couldn’t leave. I was really sick. I was this far from death. I was just laying on this riverbank.
38:29 Just sicker than I had ever been in my life. I couldn’t stand up, or vultures hovering over me. And finally, this farmer saved my life and threw me in the back of an oxcar, took me to a charitable hospital. And there they diagnosed me with severe typhoid and the doctor said, you cannot travel, you have to stay here for at least a month. And during that month, the idea of God is Kṛṇṣṇa, God as the supreme lover and the supreme object of love in a very personal way, the way people follow their spiritual path, it melted my heart so deeply. I just decided, I’m just going to stay here. And a few months later, my guru, Prabhupada, I met him, and he was representing this culture which I knew was timeless, in which so much charmed my heart and just answered all my questions, and gave me such deep satisfaction and meaning. And in him, I saw such profound compassion to physically, emotionally, and spiritually help people, that I just wanted to help him.
39:59 I just wanted to assist him in whatever, because it was just so beautiful, and it was so rich, and I felt it was so totally relevant to the world. So that’s where I adopted this particular path. Brian, I ended up like this.
40:19 Brian Rose: Change your life forever, huh? And do people always ask you to tell them stories about Prabhupad, and if so, what do you tell them?
40:30 Radhanath Swami: That was the deepest impression I had. He could explain the most complex philosophical issues philosophical issues and such simple common sense words and made it very practical not just something to know but something to live and I could perceive that it was because he just cared so much he had such deep compassion for people for everyone.
41:12 Brian Rose: I remember John Joseph in Tompkins Square Park saying, Brian, Prabhupada said, every day you must beat your mind with a shoe.
41:27 That’s what he said. That was the quote of him quoting him. And I always think of that, like every day your mind is gonna wanna go do all these things. You’ve gotta like beat it with a shoe to get it to just stay focused. What do you think are some of the biggest lessons that you need to impart on the world today.
41:49 You know, we live in a very hyper-connected world. We live in a world where people sometimes get lost in money and fame, and I’ve been there as well. When I was a banker, not a river banker, a banker, I got lost in priorities I thought were important, but something inside of me was dark and kind of rotting away and took me a long time, and I’m supposed to be a smart guy to figure out that my actions were taking me in the wrong direction. Do you see this happening a lot these days?
42:19 And what are some of the things that you tried to teach people from everything you’ve learned?
42:30 Radhanath Swami: Things can give some fleeting experience of satisfaction to the body, the senses, and the mind. But things, whatever they may be, cannot give fulfillment to the heart, Only to love and be loved can give satisfaction to the heart. And real happiness, real peace, is a state of the heart. Everyone is seeking pleasure, from the little cockroach on your kitchen cabinet to the heads of state.
43:17 Everyone is looking for pleasure. Why do we all have that in common? Because the nature of the living force within us is, we’re filled with pleasure. And what is that pleasure? The pleasure of the soul, the pleasure of the heart is love.
43:40 And ultimately, everyone is on a quest to find love. But when we forget that it’s within us, then that quest is distracted toward things. And then our life becomes lost in superficialities. We’re all seeking that love that’s within us. And when we find that love that is our truest nature, when we understand that the true self, which we call the soul or the atma, is who is seeing through our eyes and hearing through our ears and thinking through our brains and touching through our senses.
44:33 We’re not an eye, we’re seeing through an eye. That living force that’s within us, that living force that differentiates a living body from a dead body, is who we are. And spiritual science defines our true identity. And the Bhagavad Gita teaches, that the soul is a part of the Supreme Soul. Our nature is to love God, and our nature is to experience the limitless, infinite love of God.
45:21 And to be an instrument of that love in whatever we do, that’s true dharma. That’s true life. It’s beyond sectarianism. It’s something we all have in common. When Prabhupada, my teacher, came to London for the first time, he was asked by reporters, What have you, why have you come?” And Prabhupada said, I have come to teach you what you have forgotten, forgotten who we truly are and what real happiness is.
46:01 If we can’t find happiness and peace within ourselves, we can never find it in the world around us. But if we find real happiness and peace within ourselves, we can be happy and peaceful in any situation. And to give that happiness and peace is the greatest joy there is. And so if we wanna change the world, it starts with changing yourself or understanding yourself. Awakening the love that’s within us.
46:36 Okay. And when that love is awakened within us, it’s expressed as compassion. And I know people who are CEOs of international corporations who have found that love, and they are motivated by that love and that compassion and they’re beautiful people. And those same people serve hand in hand with little villagers who never went to school in their life, who also have that love. PhDs, entertainers, and monks and swamis.
47:27 These are all just different roles we can play and we choose a particular role in which we are best by our nature and by our enthusiasm and by the necessities of the world around us, how we can best help, how we can best serve. And it’s not about being a monk or being in business or entertainment or any of these things. It’s about how we love and how we see that whatever we’ve been given and whatever we know how to do, its most fulfilling and wonderful purpose is to be utilized as an instrument of that love.
48:13 A knife is used by a thief to kill someone and that same knife in the hands of a surgeon saves someone’s life. So is the knife good or bad? The knife is as good as the intention of the person who has it and that’s the way everything in this world is wealth, knowledge, technology, science, relationships. All of these things potentially are spiritual. They potentially can bring great prosperity, or they can be used with greed, with envy, with arrogance, we can be destructive. So when we change our hearts then we see the beautiful, positive, spiritual potential in everything.
49:26 Brian Rose: Did you ever think that?
49:28 Radhanath Swami: That’s the greatest need in the world.
49:32 Brian Rose: Did you ever think in your 30s that CEOs would be seeking you out and entertainers and PhDs? you ever think that that would happen?
49:45 Radhanath Swami: No.
49:46 Brian Rose: But now it’s a normal occurrence for you to speak with these people.
49:53 Radhanath Swami: A rough life somehow has led me into these opportunities.
49:58 Brian Rose: And when you get to meet with people like Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama and Barack Obama, why do they seek you out? Well, what are those conversations like? Are they like this conversation?
50:17 Radhanath Swami: I wouldn’t say they sought me out but we had the opportunity to be together.
50:25 Brian Rose: Okay and would the conversation be a lot like we’re having this conversation? Are they just exchanging energy and information with you?
50:38 Radhanath Swami: Brian you are unique and wonderful your conversations are very special.
50:45 Brian Rose: Thank you. I guess you’re not answering my question.
50:51 Radhanath Swami: Well, different people. You know, in my life, I’m just trying to serve. And if someone wants me to serve as a guru, then I’ll serve them in that role. If someone wants me to serve with some inspirational words, with kindness, whatever, as a servant. You you know, I don’t want my identity to be anything but a servant of God. And I remember something that really moved my heart. I was with my guru Prabhupada. This was in Brindavan in 1971.
51:34 And he was just sitting with this small group of reporters and journalists, and somebody asked him, are you the guru of the world? I was just sitting on the floor, a few feet away from him, just wondering, how’s he gonna answer that? And he looked down on the ground, he was sitting on the floor too. And I saw tears well in his eyes. He looked so totally humble, he didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then he looked up at the reporters, he said, no.
52:22 He said, I am just the servant of everyone. That’s all. And when he said that, I was thinking, he must be the guru of the world. That’s what a guru is. Not one who thinks they’re great, but one who with profound and deep humility.
52:50 And that humility brings, you know, real courage because we care to serve. And from that time I learned there’s no greater aspiration than to serve. And as I said, I’ve seen people who have so many incredible resources and people who who are so unbelievably skilled and successful, but their motivation is to serve, to actually make the world a better place, uplift people’s consciousness, uplift people’s lives, because that’s an expression of love. And whether it’s big or small, what we’re offering spiritually really doesn’t make any difference.
53:50 It’s the sincerity of our intent that gives that spiritual experience what we can do. There’s a beautiful story in India where Ram was one of the great incarnations of God, and his devotee Hanuman was building a bridge across an ocean, and he was carrying gigantic mountain tops and massive boulders of rock. He was putting it to float on the ocean and there was a little tiny spider who was kicking one grain of sand at a time
54:33 And Hanuman would not step on the spider and the spider was blocking his way and he had this big rock. And Ram told Hanuman that that spider is doing as much as you are. You’re serving according to your capacity and she’s serving according to her capacity. God sees the intent of our heart and the sincerity of our intent and the honesty and integrity of our character. And if we have that, then our life is really meaningful and it’s connected to truth.
55:20 Brian Rose: I love that story, it really resonates with me and the whole service thing. I mean, I’ve had the pleasure of sitting down with some very wise people from all different disciplines and a lot of them come back to that realization that that being of service And of us all being connected is something that they’ve found through many different paths, many different experiences, but all concluding that these are truisms of life. So it’s something I hear very often for me.
55:58 Radhanath Swami: To love means to serve. In this world, one of the purest expressions of love is a good mother for her child. And what’s the child doing for the mother? up all night sometimes, and making the diapers dirty. But for a good mother, her greatest happiness in life is just seeing that little child happy. And when we develop the awakening of the dormant love that is the very deepest potential and the essence of who we are spiritually, and unmotivated, unconditional love becomes the foundation we build our whole life upon.
56:59 And that’s expressed through service. To access that love, we have to go beyond arrogance. It’s a grateful and humble heart. The seed of love can grow very nicely.
57:15 Brian Rose: What a way to start on that path, to start on that path of humility.
57:22 Brian Rose: I know meditation is important for you, but are there other paths that you advise students? You know, some of this is resonating with someone, but they don’t know how to get there. And if they don’t do something, they’re going to go back to their routine that has none of these ideas. What do you suggest people start with?
57:44 Radhanath Swami: associating with people who uplift us.
57:47 We’re very much influenced by the company we keep, like in the Alcoholics Anonymous through the 12-step programs, you know, regularly to be with people who are trying to overcome the same past tendencies, people who give us faith and strength to move forward where we want to go. So, to be an enlightening, positive association is very important. In our tradition, a sadhu is one who enlightens, one who lives with love and lives with compassion. And a moment’s association with the sadhu, with such a person, can open the doors to liberation in our hearts.
58:41 To regularly be with enlightening people is very important. And then to orient, especially our free time, because many people have careers, so they have so many obligations, but in ways that inspire us and enlighten us, bring us up, bring us closer to the truth, to ourselves to God. When we’re with people who have faith in those higher aspirations, a faith awakens in us.
59:27 And then to have a spiritual practice, to put some time aside every day for our spiritual nourishment. It’s very important to have a fulfilling life that we’re balanced. We have our family obligations. We have our career obligations. We have obligations to our health and well-being. We have social obligations. We also have spiritual obligations. You know, we eat every day because otherwise we were physically weak. We sleep every day, otherwise we can’t function properly. But our hearts, our souls need nourishment too, to put some time aside every day for prayer, for meditation, for puja. In our tradition, we chant mantra, we chant beautiful names of God, spiritual sounds, and we chant this Maha mantra, especially. There are many names of God which in the Vedic literatures there’s a lot of emphasis and this mantra Hari Krishna, Hari Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Krishna, Hari Hari, Hari Rama, Hari Rama, Rama Rama, Hari Hari. And the purpose of this, or whatever other meditation and mantra we may have, is to clean the mirror of our mind. The example is given when you look in a mirror, you want to see yourself. But if the mirror has been neglected for a long time, and there’s layers and layers of dust and debris and pollution, then that’s all you see. And when you look in the mirror, you think, I am that dust and pollution. And what is the dust and pollution? Qualities like greed and envy, anger, selfishness, arrogance, illusion. You know, we become so much affected by
1:01:43 These qualities. But when we put some time aside to chant God’s names or do our prayers or meditation, we’re cleaning the mirror of the mind. And as it becomes clearer than we actually see ourselves. And who am I? I’m the beautiful, eternal, living force, the soul, satchitananda, eternal, full of knowledge and full of joy. And the joy is the joy of loving and giving. That’s who I am. And when we actually see from that perspective, then our joy is beyond birth and even beyond death, beyond conditions. And that’s something that if we make it as a priority, that we put some time aside every day, some sacred time, to cultivate our own inner spiritual awareness. We have company of people will give us a really positive, enlightening experience, then the compass of our life leads everything else we do in a direction that will bring about real enlightenment for ourselves and others. It’s like on a ship in the ocean, if it’s really dark and there’s no moon that night and there’s storms and there’s waves, you really need a compass because every direction looks the same.
1:03:37 Life is like that sea. Sometimes it’s a really nice sunny day and other times there’s storms that make us seem kind of hopeless and helpless and we need a compass so that whatever the situation I’m going in the direction that I really want to move and good company having a regular spiritual practice and then applying it by living our life with character. There’s a saying, if you lose your wealth you lose nothing, if you lose your health you lose something, if you lose your character you lose everything.
1:04:23 But how to live with character in a world where there’s so many fears and so many temptations to compromise. We need a strong foundation within ourselves.
1:04:39 Brian Rose: Do you think the world is more complicated today than when you were a teenager and in your 20s?
1:04:48 Radhanath Swami: It’s quite complicated.
1:04:51 Brian Rose: It is, right?
1:04:52 Radhanath Swami: It is. What’s going on? When I was a teenager in the 60s, it’s like the younger generation, a large sector of the younger generation, had very different ideas and were very much battling against what we saw in consistency and hypocrisy of the older generation. But today I see every generation is going through that experience. Yeah.
1:05:31 Brian Rose: And it’s all super-fast and?
1:05:34 Radhanath Swami: Super-fast. It’s on mobile phones and on the internet. Yeah. It appears to me that confusion and depression is very much on the rise.
1:05:47 Brian Rose: What do we do about depression?
1:05:50 Radhanath Swami: again having that inner foundation that gives us strength, strength of the mind. It’s important we cultivate that strength. It’s like this wonderful building that we’re in and I just love Brian how you’ve decorated everything and everything’s so artistic and aesthetic and pleasing to the heart. But something that nobody sees is the foundation that holds it all of. And however nice we make a building, if it doesn’t have a strong foundation, when a serious storm comes, it all collapses. It’s in the Bible. Jesus said, build your house on solid rock.
1:06:45 Because if you build your house on shifting sand, when the storm comes, it collapses. But if you build it on solid rock, no storm can affect it. So that’s a universal principle. In order for for their mental health, we need to give time to actually develop the inner foundation of our mental strength. And what’s the greatest strength?
1:07:18 Happiness. When we have peace and happiness within ourselves, then the storms of life, we deal with them. We experience them, we deal with them, but we’re not so much affected by them because we have something. But when that foundation isn’t there, then when things don’t go our way, or when pressure, or criticism of others, or fear of what the future may bring, or unpopularity, whatever it may be, stress, the stress of studies, the stress of our career. There are so many storms that are coming in our life, and they’re inevitable, whoever we are.
1:08:05 We need an inner foundation so that we deal with them effectively, but it’s not crushing us. But that inner foundation doesn’t happen automatically. It’s not just something we’re born with. It’s something we have to take as a priority to cultivate and to develop. foundation of this building didn’t just form after we built the building. People spent probably months building the foundation before building upon it. So it’s very important in our life if we want to have a quality life and give quality to other people’s lives to give that time and and that priority, cultivate that inner peace, that inner love, and then depression and mental illness becomes something that we can actually really control and deal with.
1:09:18 Brian Rose: Tell me about the environment. I know it’s something that is on your mind and you have these eco-friendly villages you’ve built. I’ve been invited to go to one of those in Mumbai and I’m looking forward to taking you up on that invitation. Please. Is our relationship with the environment a similar thing as in our relationship to ourselves and to each other?
1:09:38 Do we treat it poorly when we’re treating ourselves poorly? How do you see that all winking?
1:09:48 Radhanath Swami: From a spiritual perspective, I do not see how we could actually be in tune with ourself or with God and disrespect the environment because the environment around us is a gift. sacred. Sometimes in the West we say Mother Earth, and in India Bhumi means Mother Earth. So the environment around us is like our mother, and whoever we are, however much we have, or however little we have, we’re all totally dependent on the sun, on the air, on the rain, on the food grains. And these are all gifts. We cannot create them.
1:10:45 You know, we can manipulate them to some extent, but we can’t create them if the earth was not there and seeds do not grow. So to be grateful for these gifts is realistic and honest. And if we’re grateful, we will honor, we will not exploit. When we receive the gifts of nature, we should reciprocate by replenishing nature. Not that we just take and then pollute. It’s unsustainable, and it’s a disconnection from our own self to be like that. So environmentalism is an honest spiritual way of living. It’s not just a matter of leaving the world a better place for our children. It’s a matter of seeing the sacred gift of grace in all of what nature is giving us, all the good things, and reciprocating, replenishing, honoring, and respecting, to see the potential.
1:12:23 It’s like at our eco-village, we walk on the ground and we discovered an ancient science of how to create incredibly beautiful, long surviving bricks out of the earth that we’re walking on. And we’ve built our homes about 500,000 bricks we’ve created just from the ground. So just the potential. We’re walking on the earth, but what is the potential of all the gifts we could use for the earth? And these bricks are environmentally so friendly. And water, when it rains, do we really appreciate the rain? Because water shortages is one of the biggest problems on earth especially in that place in India. So we harvest the water when it’s raining because we understand its value and even during droughts that water is nourishing our crops and nourishing our families and we’re teaching the villagers to do the same. So we have people who have of PhDs from American universities serving hand-in-hand with simple little villagers, and they respect each other because they all know something and they can all help each other.
1:14:07 And in this way, actually living in harmony with each other and in harmony with the environment. When the ecology of the heart is polluted by greed and arrogance and selfishness, then And that’s going to manifest as pollution in the ecology of the world. We have to simultaneously cleanse the ecology within our minds, within our hearts, while at the same time taking positive steps to sustain the environment properly. Otherwise, it’s just not sustainable.
1:14:50 Brian Rose: And how are we doing? Is what we’re doing sustainable? Are we getting better? Is the environment getting better?
1:15:02 Radhanath Swami: It’s at a point where there is such a crisis, potentially looming upon us, that thoughtful people are starting to take it really seriously and understand the sense of responsibility to make a positive difference.
1:15:25 If not for this crisis, most people would probably just go on with their life and not really care, not really care about all the pollution going on and not really care about the exploitations of the resources of nature that are happening. Just let it be. We may not like it, but so what? But because it is such a serious threat to our children, our grandchildren, and ourselves, thoughtful people can’t just settle with going on with the way they’re living.
1:16:06 We have to all be instruments of change. So in one sense, it’s worse than it’s ever been in history, but there’s more people who are becoming aware to make a difference.
1:16:21 Brian Rose: Right, that’s the benefit of that. And why do you do so much? I mean, you have a lot of institutions and hospitals and villages, and you’re feeding so many people.
1:16:35 Brian Rose: I mean, how do you manage to do all of that stuff?
1:16:40 Radhanath Swami: Today, I was looking out at the river Thames here in London, and I saw different types of boats. There were row boats. And there was these Thames cruises with like, kind of like bus taxi service, and then there was the cargo ships, you know, carrying hundreds of tons of cargo, and they’re all going, and they’re all serving their purpose nicely. And then I sell what we call an America tugboats, just little boats that really don’t carry much of anything, but here they’re pushing behind. So I was thinking, I just want to be like that little tugboat. There’s so many people who know how to do so many things, let me just try to push them in the right direction and not get in their way. That’s kind of what my life is, and we have, you know, so many wonderful people with so many skills and so many resources, and if they have a spiritual direction, if they have a value for spiritual character, if they really see that compassion is the deepest virtue of a human being, which reaches its heights in a spiritual awakening, then we could do wonderful things together. The human body has so many different organs and limbs and each one is a different color and a different shape and has a different function. The heart cannot do what the pancreas does and the pancreas cannot do what the knees do and the knees cannot do what the kidneys do and And the lungs can’t do what the brain does.
1:18:52 What’s a healthy body? When every limb and every organ of the body appreciates and recognizes the value of what everyone else is doing, and they live in harmony with that appreciation. If something falls on your little toe, every single part of your body is going to be sending healing energy to your little toe. The brain and the heart and the lungs, they’re not going to think, oh, who cares about the little toe? What’s the little toe doing compared to what I’m doing?
1:19:34 Maximum resources of the whole body is going to go to heal. It’s a healthy social body where human beings recognize the value that each of us have. And we’re here for each other. What’s typical? So my service is, I don’t really know how to do anything, but I’m trying to inspire people who know how to do things.
1:20:14 And I just see every moment of my life incredible, wonderful miracles taking place, and that’s God’s grace.
1:20:22 Brian Rose: What does your life look like? Like what does your week look like? You’re traveling from here in Chicago, and you’re recently in Mumbai, and in San Diego. What is a typical week or month for you?
1:20:37 What are you doing? Are you speaking? Are you at your centers? What’s it like?
1:20:44 Radhanath Swami: There’s so many things, in our eco-village, or our hospitals, or our schools, you know, I just go to inspire people and help give direction, help give vision.
1:20:57 Sometimes people with difficulties or challenges in counseling. Sometimes I’m giving lectures in monasteries, sometimes in temples, sometimes in community halls, sometimes in universities, sometimes in corporations or banks. And whatever situation, I’m just trying to help people to understand that the values that they live by is what’s going to determine the quality of their lives.
1:21:31 Brian Rose: What do the next five years look like for you? Are you writing more books?
1:21:37 Brian Rose: Are you studying more eco-villages? Are you still traveling?
1:21:45 Radhanath Swami: I’m still traveling. I do hope to settle down a little more to write some more books.
1:21:56 Brian Rose: You’re pretty active, aren’t you?
1:22:00 Radhanath Swami: In my own way.
1:22:01 Brian Rose: Let me ask you a question. If I were to ask five of your very close friends, what is his superpower? What is the one thing that you’re able to do better than anyone else in order to have the effect that you have? I would ask Jay or any of these people.
1:22:20 Brian Rose: But what is the Swami’s superpower? What would they tell me it is, do you think?
1:22:27 Radhanath Swami: I have no idea what they would say. Come on. I really, Brian, I don’t have any superpowers, but I love to serve.
1:22:36 And I consider that Krishna, or God’s most precious gift to me. He’s giving me the great joy of serving others. of serving others, and really I don’t want anything else.
1:22:55 Brian Rose: That’s what a great Swami would say.
1:22:59 Radhanath Swami: If I could in any way help a person to have a deeper, more fulfilling life, harmonizing the body, the mind, the soul, God, nature, and each other, then that’s the joy of my life.
1:23:19 And whatever little I have is God’s grace. Nothing’s mine. And to the degree I can actually recognize and appreciate that, I want to share it with others. One thing that I’m just never impressed with, because now I’m 69 years old and I’ve kind of seen a lot in my way of life, no matter what a person can do or what a person has, if they’re arrogant and selfish just doesn’t impress me.
1:24:01 However many things are little things a person has, but actually has a humble and grateful heart and wants to help and serve others, I consider that person great and must bow my head before them. And for those who have that arrogance, they’re all brothers and sisters. better than me in so many ways. If I could somehow or other, in some way, help them to understand that what you’re doing is, in Britain we would say, penny-wise pounds foolish. You’re getting so little and you’re losing so much.
1:24:55 Brian Rose: That’s good advice.
1:24:57 Radhanath Swami: To reconnect with the love that is within our hearts. And what every saint of every tradition throughout history told us, we have that love in our hearts. And they’ve not only told us that, but they’ve lived that. They’ve exemplified that, and I’ve seen that in so many.
1:25:19 There’s an analogy of a deer that lives in the Himalayan mountains. And that deer has a gland that produces a fragrance, which we call musk. It’s such an intoxicating, sweet aroma. That deer smells it and wants to find it and spends his whole life traveling here and there trying to find that fragrance, but never understands that it’s within himself. the story of life. The love, the peace, the pleasure, the meaning that we’re all looking for is within ourselves. And we’re just looking for it everywhere else. But if we find it within ourselves, Ryan, then we want to share it everywhere.
1:26:18 Because that’s the nature of love.
1:26:22 Brian Rose: Tell me, Swami, what was the best day of your life and the worst day of your life?
1:26:32 Radhanath Swami: Well, at this moment, I’m thinking that Being with you is the best day of my life.
1:26:42 Brian Rose: I appreciate that.
1:26:44 Radhanath Swami: You know, the present here and now, if we’re feeling the harmony of our aspiration and our purpose to serve, to love, that moment is the greatest moment of our life.
1:27:04 Brian Rose: Do you remember a bad day?
1:27:06 Radhanath Swami: So many.
1:27:07 Brian Rose: Do you care to share one with us?
1:27:10 Radhanath Swami: Whenever I forget what I just said, then I get caught up in circumstances and people and negative energies and everything like that.
1:27:21 Brian Rose: Did you have any life-defining moments in your younger years that were considered bad, whatever that means, that put you in certain directions, or do you not think about that?
1:27:36 Radhanath Swami: I can’t think of anything very specific at this moment.
1:27:43 Brian Rose: Okay. Mission to the question what scares you?
1:27:48 Radhanath Swami: Scares me is In so many ways seeing the direction the world’s going much greed so much exploitation, which is polluting the environment which is creating so much Separations of people and So many divisions You know, we have to find ways of uniting with each other and appreciating each other so much of the world today governments, religions, whatever are becoming so separated over such petty, stupid, ridiculous things. It’s like when a parent sees children fighting over a little toy, they realize how petty that is. But for the children, it’s very real.
1:28:55 So humanity needs to grow up and see that the petty things that we think are so important really are not. What’s really important is the higher values and principles and character that we’re living and appreciating each other. an analogy of a bird, a crane, and he’s standing on one leg, and he’s in a stream of water. And so many little fish are flying, are swimming by, dozens of hundreds, thousands of little fish are swimming by. And the crane just watches. When a big fish comes, the crane eats it. No, I don’t eat fish. I’m a vegetarian, but cranes do. And the analogy, the lesson of the story, is as we actually make a connection within our own self, the little things of life, we don’t take so seriously. We deal with them, but we don’t really get disturbed by them. We just deal with them accordingly. And all the little petty things just swim by and swim by and swim by. And what’s really actually important in our life, that’s what we feast on. That’s what we put our focus on. But if we’re not focusing on the big issues, on the spiritual dimension of service, compassion, love of God, actually what’s really important, foundationally to humanity and to the world.
1:30:49 If we’re not focusing on those things, then every little thing that swims by us completely obsesses us. Create fear, create temptation. We’re endlessly distracted. We’re constantly being bombarded by weapons of mass distraction. But if we focus on what’s really meaningful, what’s really important, Then all these little things, we deal with them effectively, but they don’t disturb us.
1:31:26 We don’t become distracted by them. And that’s something that’s so important to the world now, in our education system, to teach values of what’s really, truly important in our lives, and to focus there, to give our attention there, to meditate there, and to apply that in the way we live in all areas of our life. And then all the things that happen, we let it pass. But today, people are just fighting over so many petty, passing little things. That’s what selfishness is about.
1:32:17 That’s what arrogance is about, and it’s creating so much conflict in the world. Raising consciousness means raising our awareness of what’s important.
1:32:37 Brian Rose: Tell me Swami, what would we be surprised to learn about something you do in your spare time that maybe we would just not expect? Maybe you like video games, or you like chocolate, I don’t know, something. you can tell us. I don’t know. A reality television. That’s okay.
1:33:12 Radhanath Swami: I like to take long walks and be alone.
1:33:17 Brian Rose: Just like when you were a kid, right? Yeah.
1:33:23 Brian Rose: Swami, I always ask a few questions at the end. I’m gonna ask you if you could pick up a magical phone and call up the 20 year old version of yourself and give that young man some advice. You are probably on your way to India. Maybe you’re in India at this point. What would you tell him? Based on everything you know now, what would you tell that 20-year-old?
1:33:48 The following success secrets are only available inside the London Real Tribe, where you get exclusive access and insights from our high-performance guests on wealth creation, productivity, leadership, morning routines, health, and well-being. To join our tribe community, go Go to londonreal.tv forward slash tribe. Now, let’s continue with the show.
1:34:12 Brian Rose: Swami, thank you so much for the presence, for being with me for the last period of time here. Really enjoyed hearing all about your story and I can picture you on that Pakistani India border, waiting with that guard and all of your knowledge makes much more sense now based on your journey.
1:34:32 So thank you for sharing all that with us and I really appreciate the context and all of these lessons And again, it’s fascinating that we have so many friends in common and places in common. Well, maybe that’s not so strange. And so thank you so much for being here and for everything you’ve done and for all of your great messages. And I really, really enjoyed this.
1:34:56 Radhanath Swami: Thank you, Brian.
1:34:57 Thank you for being you and for bringing out the good in so many. And thank you for allowing me this opportunity be with you today.
1:35:18 Brian Rose: Alright, well until next time, wishing you all the best.
