in me than I had in myself.
Nanda was a very erudite man. He could quote Shakespeare and Socrates, and relate their ideas back to the mind and how it works. He had been trained in physics and mathematics, and thus used many scientific analogies in my training. Nanda taught me how to be aware of the power of my emotions, how not to be overwhelmed by the extremes I sometimes felt. During my lessons, he often said that there was no textbook for my mind, that I had to find my own way.
“A teacher can only show the way,” he said, “but you have to climb the mountain yourself. So, the less emotional baggage you take up with you, the easier it is.” Nanda told me to be wary of people who claimed to be more spiritual than me, who might claim that they could “take me up the mountain” on their backs. He was a tough taskmaster, who did not allow me to be lazy with my practice.
These early lessons provided me with the keys I had craved so that I could discover the full potential of my mind. I learned to stretch both my body and mind in ways I had not even imagined possible. A lot of teenagers spend time in the gym pumping iron and taking care of their developing bodies. I took this approach to my mind. As Nanda said, “You have a beautiful, resilient, and radiant mind; you just need to take care of it.”
I stayed in the ashram for five years, running off to see Nanda almost every day. I sometimes practiced with him for over twelve hours a day, spending very little time on my academic studies. However, due to his training, I found that I could perform well without spending much time with my books. Since my mind was so clear and focused, I could study for only a little while, confident that I could recall the knowledge at will.
Although I regarded Nanda as very special, I did not realize how lucky or blessed I was to train with him. As a teenager I did not recognize the true value of what he was teaching me. Only later did I realize that Nanda had planted seeds in my mind that “only would fertilize with the manure of life” (his words). I never forgot Australia, and I missed it dearly. I always felt that Australia was home, so I hankered to return there.
At the age of nineteen, I returned to Australia and went to a university. I studied economics and earned an MBA. Drawn to the promises of corporate life, I followed the herd after graduation. My first serious job was with one of the world’s leading management-consulting firms, McKinsey and Company. McKinsey provides advice to organizations around the world, and in my role, I presented strategies for multimillion-dollar projects to very influential people in powerful companies, advising them on how to increase profitability. I flew business class across the world, staying at five-star hotels and paying for it all with my corporate expense account. I had come a long way from living a life of humility and poverty in a monastery.
As with many similar professional organizations, McKinsey’s corporate culture was one of “work hard, play hard.” Many work-days began at 7:30 AM and finished at 11:00 PM. I had desperately wanted to be successful, and while at McKinsey, I thought I was. I lived the corporate jet-setter life, centered on the next flight, the next deadline, and the next hotel room. But during this time I also forgot the benefits of being still, both in body and mind.
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this: man’s being unable to sit still and quiet in a room alone.
BLAISE PASCAL
McKinsey was a great training ground, because my life was focused on adding value for the shareholders and putting clients’ needs before my own. I was engrossed by it all. I was also amazed by the inordinate amount of power that such large, globally active corporations had. It excited me but frightened me too. In some situations, our work had the potential to drastically change the economy of communities, or even nations, and could impact future generations. What also frightened me was the mental state that some of these executives were in while making these huge decisions. I remember a CEO who was going through a messy divorce. He felt very bitter and twisted by the whole saga, and mentioned that he had trouble sleeping, could not think straight, and felt depressed. He would come into the office dressed in an Armani suit and cuff links, appearing supremely confident, but every now and then he admitted that he felt as if he were falling apart at the seams. On top of all this, he was asked to make decisions that would likely change the lives of thousands of people and the environment for many years to come.
One of the most important lessons I learned during my time with McKinsey was a new way to approach problems, a technique that underpins my business career to this day. I learned that effective decision making requires a hypothesis. The path that leads to a particular decision is guided by research and analysis to support or disprove the hypothesis. At that point, my life was completely based on analysis and logic. My younger life was based on faith, which had allowed me to just believe something was true, but this was no longer valid. Now, I was deeply immersed in a world where facts, logic, and reason were the ultimate evidence.
Some years after leaving McKinsey, I married my university sweetheart, a doctor who practices medicine in Sydney. We bought a house and settled down. I was living the suburban dream and busily climbing the corporate ladder. Life was fantastic.
But when I was about thirty, my life hit a massive brick wall. My wife was pregnant with our first child, and we were as excited as any young couple could be. She is very devoted to her medical practice in one of the more socially and economically challenged parts of Sydney. On a routine check seven weeks before our baby was due, her obstetrician admitted her to the hospital for bed rest; because my wife is a dedicated doctor, bed rest would guarantee the rest she needed. On her second night in the hospital, I got a call in the middle of the night that indicated she was delivering. During the thirty long minutes it took me to get to her, my wife had to undergo an emergency Cesarean section.
On reaching the hospital, I was told that I was extremely lucky: my wife had suffered complications, but the surgical team had managed to save her life. They also told me I was the father of a baby girl, but due to complications she was in intensive care. My heart racing with excitement and hands clammy with stress, I simultaneously felt joy and dread.
At 3:00 AM, the doctors told us that our daughter was in bad shape and they would need to monitor her closely. But by late morning she was much better. Things looked positive and we all felt relieved. I remember touching my child for the first time and realizing how incredible it felt. I also remember the pain of seeing her tiny body with tubes and needles inserted into her soft skin.
After three days in the hospital, her condition deteriorated so severely that we had to make the painful decision to remove her life support. That night was the most devastating night in my life. The sounds and smells of that night are chiseled into my psyche. Such moments define your life, and everything you thought was important falls away.
I can still remember the piercing beep of the monitor that tracked the fluids being pumped into her tiny body; the lightness, almost nothingness, of the weight of her body; the pinkness of her beautifully formed lips; the sharp smell of the hospital antiseptic; and the cries of healthy babies in the ward who wanted to be nursed by their mothers. The total despair of that night was unforgettable. Looking down at her, I realized that a wonderful being who had been a gift was now being taken away from us, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it except cry. As the sun rose, our beautiful baby daughter died silently in my arms. Suddenly my life had become horrific.
My wife and I struggled to maintain both our sanity and our marriage. The grief and guilt were overwhelming. When we came back from the hospital, the grief started to mix with depression, and my life began to nose-dive. I wanted to stay in bed and curl into a ball and cry. When the crying stopped, I felt numb. I struggled to get up and go to work. When I eventually got there, I was incapable of doing much. At that time I worked in investment management with Australia’s largest fund manager. I had to deal with senior executives from top organizations daily. I needed to make significant decisions. I needed to perform 100 percent of the time. Being unproductive
