Lex : Are you afraid of death?

Modi : Laughs, and then says, “Let me ask you a question instead. Life and death are two sides of a coin. But which of the two is more certain?”. Lex answers, “death”. Exactly Modi says. Then he continues. We know, “Life itself is a whispered promise of death”. Yet, life is also destined to flourish. So, again, in the dance of life and death, only death is certain. So, why fear what is certain. Thats why you should embrace life, instead of fretting over death. That’s how life will evolve and flourish, for it is uncertain. That’s why you must commit to enriching, refining, and elevating your life. so you can live fully. And with a purpose. Before death comes knocking. That’s why you must let go the fear of death. After all death is inevitable and there is no use worrying about when it will arrive. It will arrive when it is meant to.

Lex : What gives you hope? Not just for India. But for the entire human civilization?

Modi : I am an optimized at heart. Pessimism is not engrained in my mindset. They don’t align with the way I think. That’s why I gravitate to the bright side instead. If we take a moment to reflect on the history of mankind, we see the incredible crisis humans have overcome with resilience and strength. We also see the major changes humanity has embraced to evolve with the times. And this continuous transformation has been carried over for millennia. In every era it is in human nature to adapt to the ever flowing current of change. And while our progress has gone through cycles of ups and downs, it is those people who can break free from the constraints of these historical cycles and outdated thinking patterns, it is they who can help humanity achieve extra ordinary positive breakthroughs with an unshackled speed and grace, transcending the limitation of the old way of doing things. by embracing change.

Lex : Chants the Gayatri Mantra and asks Modi to help him understand it, and other mantras that guides his life

Modi : Modi chants the mantra. And continues. This mantra is dedicated to the radiant power of the Sun. And is considered a powerful tool for spiritual enlightenment. Many mantras in Hindu Philosophy are deeply intertwined, in some intricate and interesting ways, with science and nature. Each woven into different facets of life. Chanting mantras on a daily basis brings profound and lasting benefits.

Lex : In your own spirituality, in your quiet moments, when you are with God, where does your mind go, what role do mantras play, when you are fasting, when you alone with your self?

Modi : The word meditation is overused to the point, that it feels like a cliche. In Indian languages, we usually refer to it as , “Dhyan”. If I associate Dhyan to meditation, it might seem burdensome to some. One might think this is too difficult. I am not an elightened being. But it is not a rocket science. It is about being un-distracted and focused. He continues with the anecdote of his experience in the Himalayas.

After the talk was over after few other questions, Lex said the following -

“…And in general my travels around Delhi and India reveal to me some early glimpses of what felt like another world. Almost like another planet. Different culturally from anything I have experienced before. A chaos of human interactions. Out there big dynamic personalities and characters. Obviously India is composed of many distinct sub-cultures. And Delhi just represents just one slice. Much like neither New York or Texas or Iowa represent alone America. They are all different flavor of America. On my visit I walked around and roamed rikshaws everywhere. Just aimlessly wandering the streets. Looking to talk to people. About life. Ofcourse like many places on Earth, there are always some people specially those that have something to sell..who might first see me as a tourist, foreign traveller who has some money to spend. Like always, I avoided such shallow directions and straight passed the small talk to meaningful conversations, seeing what they love, what they fear, what kind of hardships they undergo in their lives. The cool thing about people anywhere on Earth, is that they quickly do see the real you, past the facade the strangers put up for each other. If you are vulnerable and honest enough to let them. And I try to do just that. And I should say that for the most part all were super kind, the genuine human way. Even if they did not speak English. They were always easy to understand. Probably more than any other people I have interacted, in India, People’s eyes, faces, body language, all communicated lots of information, lot of emotion. Not reserved at all! When I travel through easter Europe, for example, in contrast, reading a person is much tougher. The meme does have some truth to it. There is always a protective layer between the heart of a person and the outside world. In India, its all there, in full display…. …In general, on the topic of reading people, I do believe that eyes can often say more than words can. We humans are a fascinating bunch.. There really is a deep turbulent ocean behind the surface waves we show to the world. In some sense what I try to do in these conversations, on and off the mic, is to get to that depth. Anyways, the few weeks I spent in India were a magical experience. Traffic alone was a wild time, like the world’s most difficult test for self driving cars. It reminded me of watching Nature documentary videos of swarms of fish, when its thousands of them swimming around in the same speeds, seemingly in complete chaos, and looking at the big picture of it, appears as a perfectly tuned orchestra. I will most certainly travel more all around India in future..

Now, allow me also to comment on one of the books that drew me to India, and to its dep history of philosophical and spiritual traditions. The book is “Siddhartha” By Hemann Hesse. I had read many workds of Hesse during my young teenage years, and then again re-read them much later. It first found me, the Siddhartha, when I was fully immersed in a different kind of literature - of Devotsky, Camus, Kafka, Orvel, Hemigway, Stenback and so on. Many of these explore the same human conditions that puzzled me when I was young. And more so now. But Siddhartha was my introduction to the easter way to looking at these puzzles. Hesse wrote this in the darkest times of his own life. His marriage was failing. World War I was has shattered his past ideals and he suffered from debilitating headaches, and insomnia, and depression. During his period he began psychoanlaysis with Carl Jung. That led him to explore easter philosophies, in a way to heal his fractured psyche. Hesse immersed himself into the translations of ancient Hindu and Buddhist texts - including the Upanishads and the Bhagavat Gita. And so, the writing of Siddhartha, was in an essence, in itself for him a journey, that paralleled that with the main character in the book. Hesse strarted writing the book in 1919, and finished 3 years later, experiencing an intensive psyhcological crisis in the middle. The book follows Siddhartha a man in ancient India who leaves comfort in search for meaning. He feels his personal struggle in every page. Siddhartha’s restlenssness in his disatisfaction with conventional wisdom, his need to find truth with direct experience. Again the book was not just a philosopical exploration for Hesse. It was pscyhological survival. He was writing his way out of suffering, towards his own enlightnement.

I have learnt two main lessons from the book. The first lesson comes from the scene in the book, which to me, is one of the greatest scene in all of human literature. Siddhartha sitting by a river, is listening. And in that river, he hears all of life. All sounds, all voices, all of time. Past, present and future. Flowing together as one. That scene gave me the experience and the notion that while in some ground of human experience the linear era of time does exist. In another sense time is a kind of illusion. And infact everything exists, simultaneously. There are lives - both momentary and eternal. It is hard to describe these ideas in words. I think this must be experienced in personal revelations. I am reminded of the fish story shared by David Foster Wallace. Story goes two young fish swimming along, when they encounter an older fish, swimming the opposite way. The older fish nods and says, “Morning Boys, How is the water?”. The young fish swim on and eventually one turns to the other and asks, “what the hell is water!”. The illusion of forward progress of time is water in this metaphor, as humans are fully immersed in it. But enligtenment in part come from the ability to step back and take a glimpse on another deeper perspective of reality, where all things are inextricably interconnected across both time and space.

Another key lesson from the novel as that one must not blindly follow others. Or learn the world exclusively through books. Rather forge your own path. Thrust your way to the world with the lessons learnt from life that can only be learnt from experiencing them directly. And every experience - positive or negative, mistakes , suffering or seemingly wasted time, in all are essential part of growth. To this point Hesse draws the distinction between knowledge and wisdome. Knowledge can be taught by others. Wisdom can be experienced only by experiencing the full mess of life directly by yourself. In other words, the path to understanding is not through rejection of the world, but in the complete immersion in it.

I often return to the moment in the book, where Siddhartha is asked, what skills he possess. And his answer is simply, “I can think, I can wait, I can fast”. Let me elaborate. Indeed in the first part, “I can think”, as Marcus Aurellius, said that the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your thoughts. For the second part, “I can wait”, patience and waiting is often the optimial decision when facing a problem. Time does bring clarity and depth and understanding. And the third part, “i can fast”, when needed being able to live and flourish, with less, is a pre-requisite of being free, when the mind, the body and the society, all are trying to put you in cages…

Then Lex quotes the Bhagavad Gita - He who experiences the unity of life, sees his own self in all beings, And all beings in his own self, And looks into everything with an impartial eye..