Learn Ancient Wisdom from Modern Teacher Srikumar Rao
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Dr. Srikumar Rao stops by the Spiritual Dope podcast again!
This time we discuss his latest book Modern Wisdom, Ancient Roots: The Movers and Shakers\' Guide to Unstoppable Success
Profound wisdom that will make you startlingly successful if you apply it.Do you feel that time is rushing by while you have accomplished only a fraction of what you are capable of? Is there an undercurrent of anxiety in your life that will not go away?
It is possible for you to reach orbits of achievement you never dreamed of and without any stress. It does not require hard work. It requires you to change your thinking. When you alter the dysfunctional models you hold, your experience of life improves immediately. Both success and tranquility can be yours.
In Modern Wisdom, Ancient Roots, unconventional and highly successful coach Dr. Srikumar Rao distills and condenses valuable life lessons, from ancient masters, sacred writings, and his own experience, into quick-to-read, easily digestible chapters.
Through Dr. Rao\\u2019s compelling narratives, you will learn how to:
Achieve great success while remaining as serene as a Zen monk
Feel radiantly alive every day and bursting with gratitude
Bounce back from disaster so quickly that others didn\\u2019t even notice you were down
Jettison dysfunctional mental models that prevent you from soaring
Banish the incessant mental chatter that is sapping your energy
Bring joy into your life and annihilate your fears
Inspire others to reach heights they never dreamed possible
And this just scratches the surface. As a bonus, the book includes a self-assessment to help you implement the chapters\\u2019 lessons. If you apply the concepts in it, Modern Wisdom, Ancient Roots will make you prosper in all areas of your life
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Find out more about the Rao Institute here: https://theraoinstitute.com/about/
and see if Creative and Personal Mastery is a fit for you!
Learn more about Srikumar Rao\\xa0and his work from our first interview!
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AI transcription below:
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Intro Guy 0:00
Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you\'ve questioned so much more than those around you. You\'ve even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general appear so limited in their thought process? Rest assured, you are not alone, the world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can\'t quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but needed the answers to questions about you. This world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don\'t seem to have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another hit of spiritual with your host, Brandon Handley. Let\'s get right into today\'s episode.
Brandon Handley 0:43
Hey there spiritual dope. We are back here today. And we have a repeat guest. We don\'t get too many repeat guests. But this one is near and dear to my heart. Dr. Sreekumar Rao, who\'s an elite coach, who works with a select group of entrepreneurs, professionals and senior executives who are already successful and are now ready to make a dent in the universe. They recognize that life is a spiritual journey and wish to imbue that understanding into every facet of their lives. I\'m not going to read off the whole bio there because you have been on before. And I also want to say I went through your course the creative and personal mastery course with you spent some time with you and some of some amazing individuals and had a blast had a great time. And when I understood that you had a new book coming out, I think you\'d leaked that to me. Early on that you had a new book coming out and it is out now modern wisdom, ancient roots, the movers and shakers guide to unstoppable success. When I had the opportunity to be one of the first to read it, I jumped on it. I always love what you\'re putting out, you always put out quite a bit of a great wisdom that I\'m able to you reflect upon and use in my life. So here we are, again. Thanks for jumping on. Before we get started Dr. out I asked a question and the first podcast. And I was I was kind of startled by your passionate response. I asked you if you were a guru, you said absolutely not. There was a very passionate feeling about that. Could you just for me and the audience, what would you what would you say a guru is how would one identify a guru and then we can hop on into your book.
Dr. Srikumar Rao 2:24
In the Indian tradition, a guru is a person who removes ignorance to remove darkness. So there is a deeper context. People are searching for gurus who are also Gianni\'s, that\'s important. A Gani is a person who has completely transcended identification with a particular body mind intellect complex. So, he or she whatever the physical form is, they understand that this is not real, it is a dream. And they do not identify with the dream they identify with the creator of the dream the witness of the dream. So, therefore, stuff happens, but they are not personally affected. Because the identification that I feeling that we have is not there with respect to the body mind intellect complex. That\'s a Gani in India. A guru is both a person who takes you away from darkness and is a Gani. Okay. And, you know, here\'s a very simple rule of thumb, anybody who says I am again, he is probably a person you want to stay away from.
Brandon Handley 4:02
Right? Right. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. That makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up for me, because again, I was, I think that I would associate with you with some as at least at the very, very minimally, someone who helps remove some ignorance, so I can leave it there. Thank you. Thank you for that.
Dr. Srikumar Rao 4:20
credit for what I my unique gift Brandon is I\'m a very good translator. I am not an expert in every any wisdom tradition, but I have read widely in them all. And there are many extraordinarily powerful sages who have existed, you know, in many different parts of the world at many different times. And their teachings have immense value. But they spoke using language and examples that were appropriate to the time and geography that they will read. And modern people in a post industrial society don\'t necessarily relate to that, right? I have taken their essential teachings and translated them into exercises and language that an intelligent person or post industrial society can relate to. So I will translate it, I like to believe that I\'m a good translated, but the power of my ideas come from them, it\'s their ideas, I just say, language in which they\'re expressed.
Brandon Handley 5:27
And that\'s, that\'s certainly one of the things I love about your writing and, and taking some of this ancient ancient wisdom and being able to display it in a story that\'s similar to the surroundings, I might find myself in washing dishes, you know, the story around washing, this is just the way that I might feel in any business setting. And again, you got 60 stories, we got 60s, hold up, we\'ve got 60 stories, plus in here, right, and what the other thing I love about these chapters is that they are the short, they\'re sure I can, I can pick this book up, and I can read something. And it\'s concise, and it delivers a really nice message for me, something I can reflect upon, doesn\'t take too much out of my time out of my day to to do that. If I just read one a day, and went about it that way. How do you? How do you see people using this book? And yeah,
Dr. Srikumar Rao 6:28
the persons who have reported back to me, many of them are members, alumni of my course, creativity and personal mastery, or they know me well, from my many YouTube videos, and interviews and so on. They do exactly what you suggested, they get the book, they read it fast, and then they go back and dip into it from time to time. And though the chapters are short, many of them are quite profound that if you really reflect on, what does it say? And what are the implications of what it says for my life, you\'ll find that they\'re very deep. And if you constantly meditate on that your life will change.
Brandon Handley 7:09
What, what do you feel is different for you with this book versus some of your others, you\'ve got happiness at work you\'ve got, you know, are you ready to succeed? You\'ve got your creative personal mastery on my valley as well as audio, how do you feel yourself that this is different, a different approach for you,
Dr. Srikumar Rao 7:30
different stories, different modes of expression. But essentially, the teaching that I do is always the same. It\'s the same throughout all the books throughout these as well as it\'s going to be the same in the next book that I\'m working on. But the expression is different. And sometimes you can hear the same thing, but a particular person or a particular mode of expression suddenly makes an impact with you.
Brandon Handley 7:56
Yeah, I\'ve certainly I\'ve certainly felt that. And as even as I told you, as we started this, I\'ve gone through some of the books before, are you? Are you ready to succeed? I\'ve gone through several times. And each time I read it, it\'s like a brand new book, even even gone through the and gone through this. This was it is a brand new book. And one of the things that I enjoyed a lot about this is that some of your previous books had the exercises as a part of the chapter, right as part of the reading materials. This one has these exercises towards the back of the book, to go through the different chapters. Is there any any logic behind that? Or is that just how you did it this time?
Dr. Srikumar Rao 8:35
Oh, that\'s what my editor suggested, frankly. And I think it makes sense. Because you put it out and you read it and say, gee, this is interesting. How can I apply it to my life? And there\'s a resource at the end?
Brandon Handley 8:47
Yes. Not very, very, like I said, I enjoyed that. And, and it was noticeable. And that that was a difference from from your other books? What, um, a couple of my favorite chapters, you know, have to have to go in here real quick and say, Where\'s this one? What will they think of me? Write chapter 29? Yeah, what would they think? Because we\'re always thinking about that. I\'m always thinking about it. And there\'s plenty of times where I might not take action on something because I\'m worried about what something may think what somebody may think of me and not to give it away. But this right after I got this book, an incident happened to me where I went into a sales meeting, went to this meeting very nervous. And after the meeting, reconvened with the rest of the group, and I said, Hey, you know, what did you think about the meeting? How do you think it went? How did I sound right? I wanted some feedback on how I felt like I did. And the guy on the other side, he goes, Well, Brandon, I really wasn\'t paying attention to you. I was just paying attention to what came out of my mouth. And I was like, That\'s exactly what\'s in this book. You know, they\'re not thinking of me, you know, a couple other times Have lots of chapters stuck out at me, the marvelous prisoner boxing you in right at the beginning of Chapter Three was one that I had noted. And I think the invisible threads that bind us also are all ones that kind of jumped out at me. And again, I think each one\'s going to have its own moment for me. What were some of your favorite chapters as you were putting this together?
Dr. Srikumar Rao 10:23
The wedding guest or the strange disappearance of the wedding guest was a chapter I really enjoyed writing.
Brandon Handley 10:32
Tell us more about that
Dr. Srikumar Rao 10:33
one. Well, it talks about a person who is a wedding guests, actually, he wasn\'t a wedding guest he was a wedding crasher, but you didn\'t have that term in those days. He goes in there, and he creates havoc. And then when they try to find out who\'s this guy, he disappears. And I draw the analogy to your mind, because the mind is always creating problems for you. You look back on your life, and you know, 99.9% of all your problems are created by your mental chatter. But if you look inwards, you know what the hell is this mind? And why is it creating problem, you discover that there\'s no such thing? The mind is simply an unceasing flow of thoughts. And once you start investigating the nature of the mind, it disappears just like the wedding crasher. So it\'s a analogy that most people can relate to.
Brandon Handley 11:33
100% I can always add anytime I\'m trying to pin the tail on my own mind, it\'s, it\'s very, very elusive. One of the other things that you mentioned, and it took me a while to figure this one out for myself, and actually just heard someone give another speech that related to this, but, uh, trying to solve external problems or internal problems with external fixations. Could you dig into that a little bit for us?
Dr. Srikumar Rao 12:02
Sure. This is a story I tell in the book which is relevant to this. So let me narrate that. So there was a guy who was in faultless evening clothes, searching desperately under a street lamp or a jogger runs past. And the Java circles around and say, Hey, you look trouble. There\'s something wrong. And the man says, I dropped my car keys. Since Java says, No problem, I help you find it. So Ben\'s down in this search, and after a few minutes says, look, we\'ve searched this area pretty thoroughly. And there are no car keys here, would you drop them? And the guy says, Hey, drop them over there. And the Java is upset. He says, Well, why the hell are you searching here? If you drop them there? The guy says, well, it was dark there in the slide here. So I thought I\'d switch here. So everybody understands that it\'s kind of funny. It\'s a joke. But what\'s not a joke is that\'s exactly what all of us do. We have this internal lag, that we\'re not good enough that there\'s something missing in our life. And we go outside and try to do things outside, try to get more money, try to get a bigger house, try to get a better spouse, try to become CEO. And there\'s all this drive to fill this internal lack. And the lesson is, you cannot solve an internal problem with external action. Because no matter what you do, no matter what you accomplish, if you have that internal lack, it remains. You cannot solve an internal problem with external action. It\'s no different from dropping your keys there and searching for it here.
Brandon Handley 13:45
I love that story. I always thought that it just meant that he was just looking in the light. But it took me a while to finally figure out what you\'d said there to write that I was looking for this, the answers outside of this other place. And I always thought that maybe the metaphor could also be like, you know, Shine the light internally.
Dr. Srikumar Rao 14:04
Absolutely. Yes.
Brandon Handley 14:08
One of the other ones, I think that it relates to a little bit of what we\'re talking about here is the idea to maybe lessen or rid ourselves of ambition. And one of these stories, right? Can we talk about how that might align to what we\'re saying here to?
Dr. Srikumar Rao 14:26
Absolutely you know, we got it backwards in our society. We talked about ambitious good thing and every young man is story Oh, you know, you can do out and do great things. You have to be ambitious. Ambition, by definition makes you unhappy with where you are. And you got to go out and do something because if you achieve it, then you will be happy here. It\'s setting you up, to be unhappy where you are, because you will be happy when something happens. When you achieve your dream when your ambition pays off wrong, you can do great things. But you can do great things, even as you\'re perfectly happy and content where you are doing we,
Brandon Handley 15:21
on that note, do we how do we unwind some of some of this, right? Because here we go 40 plus years here in this either ambitious drive or trying to, you know, it\'s almost like one of those three stooges skits where I\'m taking a bucket, and I\'m trying to empty out water, and it\'s coming in faster than I can on bucket.
Dr. Srikumar Rao 15:43
Yeah, that\'s exactly the way it is. So what happens is, how do you accomplish stuff, if you don\'t have ambition, have a vision, this is what I want to have. And the vision drives you because that\'s your path in life. So you do it because that\'s your path in life. But it does not have any bearing on your well being. If I accomplish my goal, fantastic if I don\'t accomplish my goal, fantastic. Because here\'s the mistake we all make granted, we think that the purpose of setting a goal and working hard to achieve it is achieving the goal. Wrong. The benefit of setting a goal and trying your level best to achieve the goal is the learning and growth that happened in you and to you as you try your level best to achieve the goal. If you actually achieve the goal, that\'s a bonus, be grateful. If you don\'t achieve the goal, the learning and growth have already happened. So it\'s a no lose proposition. So ambition is a desire to do something, make yourself better, by all means do that. But don\'t do it with the false notion that if you succeed in doing it, then something great is going to happen to you. You just do it because that\'s your path in life. And you\'re perfectly happy as you are and you\'ll be perfectly happy whether or not you reach your goal. You just enjoy the process of getting there.
Brandon Handley 17:13
Is that what a most people talk about the process? As as
Dr. Srikumar Rao 17:18
invest in the process? Do not invest in the outcome? Yeah, yeah.
Brandon Handley 17:22
You one of the questions I have, in my mind, Dr. Rao is when I first got started in this, you know, well, that\'s another question too. In the self help or personal development space, a lot of people were talking about legacy. Right? And I\'m just curious if you\'ve ever thought about what your what you would consider your legacy is in life,
Dr. Srikumar Rao 17:48
I used to think about it. But now I don\'t. You know, my legacy is what it is, if people remember it fine. If they don\'t remember it, fine. Things change. You know, you hear all these people who were, at one time lauded as charitable individuals that did that. And today their statutes are being removed because they were slave owners. Yeah. The bigots. Sure. Who is to determine what it varies by time varies by circumstances, why bother yourself with any of that? The universe will decide and that\'s fine. For me, I just do what seems right for me at this time. And whatever my legacy is, somebody somewhere will decide. And somebody somewhere little later might decide it\'s different. It doesn\'t matter.
Brandon Handley 18:49
It\'s funny because I look at the back of the book and it says self health right and it says self capital s e l f. When somebody says self help or working on the self, what does that mean to you?
Dr. Srikumar Rao 19:05
We\'re always working on ourselves brand and that\'s the only thing we ever do. The universe is benevolent and gives you many tools gives you your business, your partner, your children, your occupation. All of these are tools you use them as skillfully as you can. But in the process of using them skillfully what you\'re doing is you\'re working on yourself. That\'s what all the great sages tell us the purpose of human existence is to recognize that what you think you are a particular body mind intellect complex, is not who you really are. Your pure awareness your spirit. Body is like a suit of clothes that you have that few people call of duty and then you discard it.
Brandon Handley 19:54
You put on do we put on a new one? Do we get a new a new set? Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, kind of as we get towards the end again, guys, people listening, we have a short one today with with Dr. Rao, I wanted to just be able to hop on have a quick conversation with him, you know, appreciate the book, always appreciate what you\'re putting out. It\'s been so beneficial to me it\'s funny as, as as gone through this book and some of your other ones. It\'s because of you I\'ve got this other one a little got the green screen popped out there. But you turned me on to Anthony de Mello, you know, some of your some of your stuff. And it just kind of, you know, similar vein, right, being able to take this, take the ancient wisdom and translate it into something that I can use on a daily
Dr. Srikumar Rao 20:40
basis. Yes, yes.
Brandon Handley 20:44
You\'re also an elite coach. And let\'s talk about, you know, how you don\'t like the term and what terms you like to use.
Dr. Srikumar Rao 20:54
Yeah, I am a coach, I became a coach by happenstance, because what happened is, people discovered me and they read about me, you know, on the web, there\'s a ton of material out there, if you go to YouTube and put my name in the search box, you know, several pages of videos will crop up. So people started looking at that and saying, gee, I want to work with Dr. Rao. So I became a coach by happenstance, because there were people who said, We want to work with you since I became a coach. But in reality, what I simply do is I give them tools for them to understand this is my dilemma. And those tools are very powerful, because I take them from the world\'s greatest masters. So it changed his life, because that\'s what this those masters had. They had the the intuitive insight. And once you understand that, it does change your life. So I\'ve become an effective coach, because I borrowed wholesale from these great masters.
Brandon Handley 22:02
Sure, sure. We\'re always standing on the shoulders of giants, as they like to say. So instead of you know, you are coaching and you prefer the friend, philosopher and guide, right?
Dr. Srikumar Rao 22:16
Let me explain that because what happens typically in a coaching engagement is you decide I\'ve got some area where I need to develop, either you or your boss or your company decide. So this guy\'s got to be needs to be, needs to know how to build teams needs to communicate better, whatever. So you figure out, okay, this is what I need to do, who can help me do it, and you pick up a list of persons who you think can help you do it, and then you talk to them. And you select one and you will agree and say, okay, you know, here\'s what\'s going to happen. Here\'s how long the coaching engagements going to last and here\'s the modality of offered will lead along with me to give exercises, whatever. And at the end of the time, whatever it is, your gap has been fixed. I don\'t work like that. The closest historical parallel to what I do is probably that of Aristotle and Alexander. Alexander was very willful child and his father Philip of Macedonia couldn\'t cope with him. So he asked her is to really talk to my son, I don\'t seem to be making any headway. So Aristotle started working with Alexander and they worked for three years. And you can bet your boots that Aristotle didn\'t tell Alexander how to be a better swordsman, or how to lay siege to a mountain fortress. They talked about poetry, they talked about biology and botany. He talked, he introduced Alexander to Homer and Greek poetry. But at the end of three years, Alexander became the person he became, who then went on to do what he did. That\'s my style of coaching. We talk about a wide variety of things, business, non business, personal marriage, everything. And I don\'t solve any problems, but I do get the framework for analysis and really use that framework they find very often their problem is solved. That\'s fantastic. Permanently.
Brandon Handley 24:18
And I love that right. Makes me feel like two that I should be able to conquer something even if it\'s not like the the wide swaths that Alexander the Great Did you know you\'ve got so much available out there. I went through the creative and personal mastery. Will that be running next year? The course again? And for those of you not familiar, this has been at least for me, I was able to do it online with a group of people that we\'re putting it mildly very successful on made me feel good to be a part of this group and be able to just share conversations from a level level play Is and understand that we\'re all struggling with shot, we, we all have similar dilemmas and you helped immensely in that group. Who would you recommend pop in and take a look at that? Doctor? I\'ll
Dr. Srikumar Rao 25:15
say that again.
Brandon Handley 25:16
Who would you recommend should be popping in and taking a look at creative in person?
Dr. Srikumar Rao 25:21
Everybody should read the syllabus and the read the syllabus, if you nod your head and say yes, yes, this is exactly it is a good idea for you to explore the course.
Brandon Handley 25:31
Yeah, that\'s how it was for me. So Dr. Rao, I know you don\'t have too much time today. I just want to say thank you, again for continuing to share your wisdom with everybody, you know, and in your way, and looking forward to whatever comes back to
Dr. Srikumar Rao 25:47
you, Brandon, it\'s been a pleasure working with you. I\'m glad that you\'ve had me on your show again, please do put it back link to my book. And I hope to see you again in wherever the universe decides it\'s appropriate.
Brandon Handley 26:03
That\'s right. That\'s right. Thanks, Doctor. By Red Planet. I
Intro Guy 26:10
really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dope podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual dough and Instagram at spiritual underscore go. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email through Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This concludes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don\'t forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition.
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