READ ALL THIRD EYE STORIES

Mail to author


Rajeev Chandrasekhar is an entrepreneur, Rajya Sabha MP and former President of FICCI

What does spirituality mean to you?
It is about my personal faith and what I believe in. I am a Hindu and a lot of my beliefs were shaped by my grand-mother. When I was a kid, she taught me the prayers and a belief in God the old-fashioned way. To this day, I spend every night ten minutes reciting the same prayers. When I travel, I always have a picture of our God, an avatar of Krishna revered in Kerala, by the name of Guruvayurappan. I derive a lot of strength from it.

What is fascinating to me is that without teaching or imposing my kids anything, they picked it up on their own. Every morning before they leave for school, they go to the prayer room, put the tika and then push off.
Basically you need some core sense of who you are and what you want to be at the heart of all that you do. Whether you do right or wrong, there must be something that defines what you live for and what drives you. So in the absence of anything else, religion and spirituality are what centres me.

What then is your centre?
It is a sense of self-confidence and self-belief. I am an entrepreneur and a politician. All my life I have gone and done stuff completely new. I took risks and went down a path that was brand new to me or to my family.
Yet, I know that success did not come only thanks to hard work and competence. There is a third dimension, call it luck or fate. And to reinforce it, to make sure it aligns in your favour, it is important to constantly reiterate your values and what you are about.

... contd.