Corporate Yogi: My Journey as a Spiritual Seeker and an Accidental Entrepreneur

By Arvind Lal

'A single bullet took one life and shattered three others. Mine, among them. My brother shot my father. My mother heard the shot. Approximately 1400 kilometers away, in the Armed Forces Medical College at Pune, where I was pursuing a postgraduate course in pathology while serving as assistant warden of the hostel, the telephone rang. It was the night of December 4, 1977, a night that changed me forever.'This book presents Dr Arvind Lal's journey as a spiritual seeker and an accidental entrepreneur. How did a saint from a remote Himalayan village called Hairakhan transform Arvind's life? How did Lal pathlabs become a household brand in India? How does spiritualism shape his thoughts as an entrepreneur? Can work and spirituality gel in a 'karma yoga' form as mentioned in ancient Hindu scriptures? Woven around Arvind's life, this book answers these and many other questions about work, life and spirituality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins India
• Release date: Mar 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9789352776795

Arvind Lal

Honourary Brigadier Dr Arvind Lal, Padma Shri, is a pioneer in bringing laboratory services in India at on par with the Western world. In 1977, he took charge of Dr Lal Pathlabs, the medical diagnostics laboratory. Under his leadership, Dr Lal Pathlabs has become a household brand in India.

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Preface

Every life is a journey, every life story a travelogue. This is mine. Like most people, I could have just blundered along, spontaneously ricocheting from one episode in my life to the next. But I was fortunate in having a guide to help me find my way—Babaji, who turned what could have been a mundane existence into a meaningful pilgrimage.

His influence on my life has been as profound as it is subtle. I admit that from a reader’s perspective, my story is riddled with the elements of a potboiler. Beginning with tragedy, it morphs into a tale of redemption, romance and finally, a success story. Running parallel to the surface narrative is another account of an internal journey, a search for the self under the aegis of my preceptor, Babaji.

I first met Babaji in 1974, at Kudsia Ghat on the banks of the River Yamuna in Delhi, with my parents, Dr S.K. Lal and Vimla Lal. Babaji was conducting a three-day havan and it was his first visit to Delhi. I met Babaji for the second time in 1975, at our home in Green Park in south Delhi. The third was in 1977, at his Ashram at Haidakhan near Kathgodam in Uttarakhand. That was the beginning of a very special student–teacher relationship, one that was to last until he left the earth, in 1984. He was to become my lodestar.

What drew me to him? Physically, he was beautiful to look at. His presence was simultaneously tranquil and thrilling, the closest thing to bliss I had ever experienced until that time. And he had all the answers, to questions asked and unasked, and even those I hadn’t yet formulated in my mind! His compassion was boundless, his powers divine. The rich fourteen years I spent with Babaji made me realize one thing unmistakably: He was not of this earth, but rather the earth was of his making. So, perhaps the simplest answer to the question is: He gave meaning to my life.

In the impromptu narrative of our existence, we try to impose an illusion of control and a semblance of stability to our lives, by setting goals and working towards them. The fact is we control nothing in the world other than our own thoughts and actions. And none of us has an answer to the question, ‘I’ve achieved my goal…now what?’ Thus, each of us needs a guru, to explain the purpose of existence, and the manner in which we should live to fulfil that purpose. He/She rescues us from pointless meandering by teaching us the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of human existence. If I have led a wholesome, productive, healthy, peaceful and successful life, it is entirely by his grace.

India can be a confusing place for spiritual seekers—those who are confronted by a multitude of gods and their avatars. We are a land that boasts of thousands of gods and goddesses. As I was growing up, I would often wonder which god I should believe in and why? The abstractions are boundless. Consider, for a moment, the avatars of Vishnu—Parashuram was the sixth, Rama the seventh. Yet, they coexisted and even encountered each other! So abstruse and transcendent are our scriptures that years of study alone will not help one decode them, without the intervention of a guru. It was Babaji who demystified the Hindu faith for me. He explained the essence of our ancient scriptures and gave me to understand that it all boiled down to just one thing: being a good person. He taught me that it was very easy to be religious, but very difficult to be spiritual.

After his departure from this realm, I would often describe Babaji to people who had not been fortunate enough—from my perspective, anyway—to meet him in person. I would find them listening to me, and many others, raptly, wavering between fascination and disbelief. At such times, the sheer singularity of my experience struck me: I had lived with a god. I had travelled with him, eaten with him, talked to him for hours on end and watched him as he slept. This book is written in his memory—the closest I can come to sharing with the world what it was like to live in the shadow of a god.

Babaji attracted people from all faiths and walks of life—rich and poor, sadhus (nomads) and householders, Westerners and Indians. They were devotees from all religions—Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jews, etc. He did not ask anybody to renounce their religion or to embrace Hinduism. Through his teachings he emphasized the linear route to godliness in this dark age, or Kaliyuga: live your life in Truth, Simplicity and Love (Satya, Saralta and Prem), do one’s duty (Karma Yoga) and recite the Lord’s name (Japa Yoga). These are the five tenets that lead the modern man to self-realization. Babaji was no run-of-the-mill Hindu guru. He manifested in our realm for the specific purpose of spreading the message of Universal Truth across the world, through his devotees.

As Hindus, we believe in the transmigration of the soul. The soul never dies. It only moves from one corporeal abode to another. At the time of death, the soul is released and it is ready to inhabit another body. We also believe in the law of karma. Our karmas are carried from one life to the next. We do not look for empirical proof, because we are imbued with this knowledge, which forms the basic tenets of Sanatan Dharma. Our goal is liberation from the cycle of birth and death. Thus, we are seekers and in our quest for the Ultimate Truth, the guru guides us. If your karma is good, you will meet your guru. Otherwise, better luck next time!

Babaji’s departure left me with a feeling of emptiness. I wept and was inconsolable, as I had not been at my father’s death. The void left by Babaji would never be filled, but I realized that he had left me a set of guidelines. His teachings would henceforth be the sheet anchor of my life.

When I look in the mirror, I see an ordinary Indian, a simple man who does his best to follow the tenets of his guru. I am a product of modern India, fortunate to have been born in an upper-class family and thus having the privilege of receiving a good education. A touch of Westernization was inevitable. My parents were at ease with the English language, as was my grandmother, and my wife, even more so, to the extent that she spoke almost exclusively in English. As a six-year-old, my daughter, hearing the Italy-born Sonia Gandhi speak on TV, commented that the Congress president spoke better Hindi than her mother. I must admit (and not just for the sake of domestic harmony!) that my wife has polished her spoken Hindi admirably, to be able to handle the 400 staff members at South Asia’s biggest laboratory located in north Delhi which she heads.

The household in which I grew up was non-vegetarian and I was an omnivore, fond of all the good things of life. Orthodox Hindus might regard me as a sharabi-kababi (someone who drinks and eats meat), but the fact is that my generation of the Indian upper class was a product of a composite culture.

I see no contradiction between being a man of science and being a spiritual man. After all, Advaita Vedanta (school of Hindu philosophy) reconciles dualities and is nowhere in conflict with science. Hindu cosmology believes that the universe follows cycles of creation and destruction, just as the Big Bang theory says. Hindu timescale divides history into four yugas, beginning with Satyayuga, followed by Tretayuga, Dwaparyuga and finally, Kaliyuga or the dark age, where we are at present. The science of evolution tells us that the oceans of the earth were the cradle of life. Gradually, amphibians evolved and migrated to land. Eventually, earth’s land masses teemed with life. Mammals evolved, and among them the Homo Sapiens too evolved. The naked ape transitioned from being a hunter-gatherer to a farmer, settling on riverbanks and building great cities. Some of the greatest civilizations among them are Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro on the banks of the Indus or the Sindhu river, from which we get the words ‘India’ and ‘Hindustan’.

The agricultural economy of India flourished for millennia, supporting a highly evolved culture, adept in medicine, engineering, seafaring, trade and business. India’s overall prosperity earned the encomium sone ki chidia (golden bird). Its scholars and thinkers made spectacular advances in mathematics, physical and life sciences and evolved a unique philosophy which became the socio-economic substrate of the subcontinent.

Our rishis and munis (sages) were masters of the abstract, and they disseminated deep knowledge without the benefit of the written word. They spoke, for instance, of the nine planets (Navagrahas—mentioned in our prayer rituals), long before Galileo fitted lenses into a tube and turned it towards the skies in 1609 CE. How did these sages know, without access to a telescope? Their stunning insights into the nature of matter and energy, long before Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and other quantum theorists put forward their postulates, are equally mysterious.

This legacy of philosophical and spiritual insights belongs to all Indians, regardless of faith. I am a proud Hindu, but I scrupulously avoid labels such as ‘secular’ and ‘communal’ because all religions are equal in Babaji’s credo. He celebrated Christmas with as much gusto as Hindu festivals. Western and Indian devotees would enact Nativity scenes and exchange gifts. Babaji included the Christ mantra Om Eem Isah Masih Devaya Namah in all our havan rituals.

The Navratri is our main festival, celebrated in spring (Chait Navratri) and in autumn (Ashwin Navratri). An essential feature is the reading of the Shrimad Devi Bhagawad, in which the hierarchy of Hindu gods is described. The Divine Mother is the foremost among the gods and the trinity of Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the maintainer) and Shiva (the destroyer of evil) report to her. The Divine Mother is depicted in three forms: Mahakali, the destroyer of evil, Mahalakshmi, the goddess of wealth and Mahasaraswati, the goddess of knowledge. She is worshipped as Durga, Sheron wali Ma (astride a tiger), Kali, Vaishno Devi and in many other names and forms, depending on geography, customs and traditions. The mother of all creation is also the last recourse for the Trinity, who approach her when all else fails. Her divine abode is Manidweep (the island of jewels).

The avatars of Vishnu figure prominently in ancient Hindu scriptures. Lord Rama appears in the Tretayuga, about ten thousand years ago or around 8,000 BCE. Lord Krishna comes along three thousand years later or around 5,000 BCE, when the Mahabharata—the mother of all wars—takes place. The Bhagawatgita, the seminal teaching imparted by Krishna to his cousin, Arjun, when he gets cold feet on the battlefield, is the cornerstone of Hindu philosophy.

Lord Shiva’s avatars are manifold and the avatar of Hanuman is one among them. He was sent to earth as an ansh or aspect of Shiva, in order to lend Rama a hand in destroying the forces of evil. Endowed with miraculous powers, he is the one god who resides permanently on earth and will remain as long as the Ramayana is read. On Tuesdays and Saturdays, the days on which he is worshipped, immense crowds gather at Hanuman temples across India.

As a student, I participated in theological discussions in college, which often centred around the non-existence of God. ‘Have you ever seen God?’ the self-styled atheists would thunder, mocking our un-intellectual naivety. Of course we have—the Sun is the god without whom there would be no life on our planet! Our gods are everywhere—in rocks, trees, rivers, mountains.

Mother Earth is a goddess, as is the Ganga, brought from the heavens to earth by the penance of King Bhagiratha, in order to bathe (and thereby grant liberation to) 60,000 of his ancestors. Her father, Lord Brahma, allows her to descend but Shiva must break the force of her descent by filtering the waters through his long tresses. Her purity cleanses all sins and thus Ganga jal (water) is an essential component of our rituals. The Gautami Ganga, a tributary of the holy river named after Rishi Gautam, the author of mantras, flows past Babaji’s Ashram at Haidakhan.

We propitiate this impressive array of gods with mantras, the staple of all Hindu rituals. Typically, they are passed on by word of mouth. The oral tradition thrived in our gurukuls (residential schools) and students as young as twelve could memorize long texts. The mantra imparts both knowledge and wisdom. Fools hanker after material wealth; the wise seek only intellect, through which mud can be transmuted into gold. Such is the power of the mantra, desperately needed in a country hungry for innovative ideas. Among the oldest is the Gayatri Mantra, which bestows wisdom and enlightenment through the aegis of the illuminator, the sun god or Savitr.

Om bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ

tat savitur vareṇyam

bhargo devasya dhīmahi

dhiyo yo naḥ prachodayāt

A literal translation of the ancient hymn goes as follows:

‘We meditate on the glory of that Being who has produced this universe; may He enlighten our minds.’

As Babaji said, this is the only road map we need, on our odyssey from this world to the next.

1

A Shot in the Dark

A single bullet took one life and shattered three others—mine was one among them. Only one person—my mother—heard the report, but it would continue to reverberate through time and space, its destructive vibrations contained only by the grace of a god—Haidakhan Baba, whom I consider the incarnation of Lord Shiva—my beloved Babaji.

He, who can look into the souls of men and map their multiple lives, he alone knows the truth of the matter. The facts of the case, as broadcast to the public through the newspapers, can be summed up in two sentences.

My brother shot my father. My mother heard the shot.

Approximately 1,400 kilometres away, in a room on the verdant campus of the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) at Pune, where I was pursuing a postgraduate (PG) course in pathology while serving as assistant warden of the hostel, a telephone rang. It was the night of 4 December 1977.

Until that time, my life was clear sailing. I had graduated from AFMC and become a doctor, like my father. I was enjoying wearing three hats—teaching undergraduate medical students, pursuing the PG programme in pathology and serving as warden of the hostel. I was preparing for my exams which were due later that month. Also, I’d recently become engaged to a slender, winsome young woman, who was also a doctor, and I was quite looking forward to getting married. My parents were in reasonably good health. They lived in a rambling house in the upmarket south Delhi locality of Green Park. My father’s pathology lab, situated on Hanuman Road in the heart of Delhi, was the go-to centre for medical tests, particularly for the capital’s upper and middle classes. The objective of my becoming a doctor was to assist my father and eventually take over the lab.

Dr (Major) S. K. Lal was highly regarded in both medical and social circles, so the family enjoyed considerable standing in Delhi’s society. It helped, I guess, to be a Punjabi in a city dominated by that community, many of whom were first-generation Partition refugees. My father had met my mother after relocating to Delhi, some three decades earlier. It was 1977, a time of intense political turmoil. But we were insulated from the post-Emergency tumult, which resulted in the ouster of Indira Gandhi’s government by the Janata coalition.

I hadn’t set out to be a doctor. Packed off to school at the tender age of two-and-a-half, being by far the youngest kindergarten student at Modern School, I had initially struggled with my lessons. My ayah, Radha, would wheel me to school in a pram and I would howl whenever I was offered a glass of milk, because I was accustomed to my bottle. My mother had to wean me off it, by pretending that a lizard had stolen the bottle’s nipple! I was too young to assimilate lessons and the fact that I was born prematurely didn’t help. My buddy and classmate, Deepa Dhanda was a year older and could process math problems which went right over my head. Eventually, I caught up with the rest, and despite the age handicap, did reasonably well.

But I hadn’t taken biology in school because my ambition was to become a fighter pilot in the Indian Navy. Being adjudged the best naval cadet in NCC (National Cadet Corps) among the students at Modern School, Barakhamba Road, had firmed up my decision. I had even taken the National Defence Academy (NDA) exam but was not destined to don the white uniform, because it turned out that I was mildly myopic. My brother-in-law, Kailash Kohli, a naval officer posted at the NDA in Khadakwasla, told me I’d be able to join the navy in a non-combatant arm like the Supply Corps or as an engineer, but wouldn’t be able to join the executive branch of the navy and fly the carrier-borne fighter aircraft. My military career ended before it had actually started, at the age of fifteen.

Lieutenant Kohli, who eventually became vice-chief of naval staff, suggested a career in medicine. I had always assumed that my younger brother, Anil, would follow in my father’s footsteps and become a doctor. As for me, I’d taken geometrical drawing rather than biology, because my head was full of aircraft carriers and not surgical instruments. At the time, my admittedly somewhat callow view was that if humanities (arts) was namby-pamby, biology was scarcely manlier. Finally, with the help of my principal, M. N. Kapur, I settled on medicine and began studying the subject I had hitherto despised, compressing a three-year course in botany and zoology into eight months. Botany was a challenge, which I addressed by memorizing almost the entire textbook without absorbing a word. I passed the higher secondary examinations, cruised through a pre-medical course at Dyal Singh College and finally did my MBBS from AFMC, Pune.

All said and done, I was happy with my life, even if I hadn’t got my dream job. Dreams change. Destiny opens or closes doors; it’s up to you to walk through them. I had learned to like medicine and loved being at AFMC. I had friends and a trusty Java motorcycle which I had modified into a mean machine like the ones in the movie Easy Rider! With petrol at three rupees per litre and a bottle of rum at six rupees, I ranged far and wide, feeling wild and free. I’d kick-start my bike with a flourish—no matter that it wasn’t a Harley-Davidson—and hit the road; I fancied myself to be an Evel Knievel on wheels. This was especially the case when I had a girl mounted behind me! I’d turn my head almost 180 degrees and kiss her, leaving her breathless at my skill and daring. A bachelor couldn’t ask for more!

If, for my father, there was a fly in the ointment, it was my younger brother. My parents had hoped he’d emulate his father and become a doctor, as he had been wanting to since childhood. Like all Indian parents, they wanted him to ‘settle down’, which translated into becoming, if not a doctor, at least a professional of some sort and getting married. That was the script for sons of upper- and middle-class families in the 1970s, but Anil refused to follow it. He wanted to write his own script, which appeared to consist of drinking and carousing. Far from becoming a doctor, he hadn’t even completed his graduation. He kept talking about dabbling in business, but his proposed ventures never got off the ground. Of late, he had been in a relationship with a girl with a somewhat chequered past.

Anil, footloose and happy-go-lucky, would have tried the patience of a character far less irascible than my father. To say that they had a strained relationship would be an understatement. Not exactly warm and fuzzy even at the best of times, the good doctor lost it every now and then with my intransigent brother. My dad had a bit of a temper and could be sharp and severe when displeased, which was often the case when the younger Lal scion was up to no good.

After I became a doctor, my father had started treating me like a friend, even inviting me to have a drink with him now and then. In those days, such informality between a father and his son was quite unusual. Anil and I had a cordial relationship, perhaps because I met him so infrequently after moving to Pune. We had good times together, but occasionally, his dark side would surface. For instance, the time I wanted to borrow his car for a few days in order to start my internship at the army hospital, because I didn’t have any means of transport in Delhi (my motorcycle came a few days later, transported by my air force friends), Anil threw a huge tantrum, as if he were an adolescent rather than an adult. The medical jargon for such puerile behaviour is ‘maturation arrest’ and that pretty much sums him up. It was small wonder that my father often lost his cool.

The telephone rang, but I wasn’t there to take the call. Juggling preparations for my upcoming DCP (diploma in clinical pathology) examinations along with performing my duties as warden of the AFMC hostel was difficult, and I had skipped dinner at the mess that evening. So a friend and I had stepped out for a meal, just a ten-minute drive