Adam Grant, Hidden Potential, and Goswami Tulasidas
One of the greatest joys in my life is discovering new books that challenge your beliefs and push you out of your comfort zone. When you start reading non-fiction, you can figure out in 10–20 minutes if this is a 20-page booklet masquerading as a 300-page book (Outliers) or a brilliant piece of writing that will keep you hooked and give you joy for a long time.
Adam Grant is one of my favorite authors, and I distinctly remember the first time I read his work. I landed at the NYC airport and took a train from Penn Station to Albany. It was fall season, and the route was breathtakingly beautiful. I opened Originals and went straight to the chapter on procrastination. He blew me away by talking about how what we often mistake for procrastination is the brain taking its own time to process divergent ideas and create a cohesive structure from it. He discussed how creativity is often a process of destruction and recreation, and that’s a cognitively complex process, and that’s why most creative people procrastinate.
Hence, when he announced his latest book, Hidden Potential, it piqued my interest. Many intellectuals have discussed how we created merit-based systems that are self-fulfilling prophecies because we identify talent early and give them special treatment. Then we clap giddily because they do better than their peers, completely forgetting that we have given them all this special treatment.
Hidden Potential gently pushes you to challenge the notion of potential being a commodity that gets assigned at birth. Adam uses the brilliant story of Maurice Ashley coaching a group of black teenagers from Harlem who have never played chess and winning the National Junior High Chess Championships against Dalton — an elite prep school in New York City whose students have learned chess since childhood.
Maurice was a Jamaican immigrant who wanted to shatter this myth that dark-skinned kids were less intelligent than their peers. Chess is generally considered a game of geniuses, and the top players are supposed to have incredible IQ and memory to memorize sequences and compute multiple options for every move. That’s why most private prep schools recruit child prodigies and train them since childhood.
Maurice did not have that luxury. He just decided to coach a bunch of high school kids who were interested and could spare the time to learn chess. When he started teaching chess, he knew the kids would run away if he taught them the conventional way. Learning the rules can be tedious, and chess has a ton of rules. Hence, Maurice started by teaching them various ways to checkmate their opponents and introduced rules through that process. He did what psychologists call scaffolding. Maurice provided a temporary structure that allowed students to immerse themselves in the game safely. When he felt they were hooked onto chess, he removed the scaffolding and allowed them to make mistakes and push themselves daily. One of his players loved chess so much that he would lie in bed every day and play a complete imaginary chess game on his ceiling.
The game of chess and the ability to grasp complex situations was tremendously character-building for the kids, and they went on to do amazing things in life, including founding cloud companies, graduating from Ivy League colleges, and becoming award-winning filmmakers. Their success spurred other kids to pick up chess, and minority representation increased significantly in the following years. Here are some fantastic videos of Maurice playing chess and discussing lessons you can learn from it.
When it comes to our work lives, most of us are guilty of never making the giant leap because we never believe in ourselves. That dream job will require you to go to a business school. The salary you are asking is too much for your degree. The course you want to do is too technical for you. You can never write as well as your favorite author. Chess is only for geniuses. You are born creative. You cannot learn about money and economics. Math is too hard for you. You are bad with names. It’s incredible how many self-limiting beliefs we live with, and Adam teaches us that life is all about exploring our hidden Potential and tapping into it.
The Life of Goswami Tulasidas
Goswami Tulasidas is the writer of Ramcharitmanas, which is found in almost every home in northern India. While Maharishi Valmiki wrote the Ramayana, we consider Itihasa — since he witnessed those events, Goswami brought Sri Ram from the altar into our hearts and lives. I had been curious about his life ever since my Guru talked so glowingly about Ramchaitmans and how they can help you build devotion in your heart. It was surprisingly tricky to get too much concrete information about him. I found a smattering of articles and finally bumped into this beautiful video by Brhat, where they discuss key episodes from his life based on the book Manas Ka Hans or The Swan Who Wrote Manas.
As I listened to them speak about Goswamiji, I kept getting reminded about Hidden Potential because Gowswamiji’s life in childhood was incredibly tough. Just like the kids in Harlem found a savior in Maurice, he found one in his guru, Narahari Baba. While Maurice used chess to turbocharge their lives, Narhari Baba chose devotion or Bhakti to transform Goswamiji’s life.
Gowsamiji’s mother died at childbirth, and his father abandoned him, cursing him for the bad luck he brought. He was adopted by a very poor lady called Parvati Amma (mother), who nourished him and cared for him in his first five years. The author states that given her love and care and the stature of his work, it is as if Devi herself came to care for the young child. Goswamiji was called Rambola as a child because the first words he uttered were Ram. He deeply longed for Sri Ram since childhood, and Parvati Amma showed him the power of devotion to Hanuman. One night, when it was raining torrentially, their tiny house would collapse on their heads, and young Rambola was wondering where to go for help. Parvati Amma reminded him that instead of relying on humans, it’s best to rely on Hanuman. Parvati Amma died at the age of five, and the young boy went to a Hanuman temple and started cleaning the premises. He then prostrated to the lord and declared that from now on, he would clean the temple, and in return, Lord Hanuman should feed him.
The devotion of Lord Hanuman and the constant chanting of Sri Ram’s name bring much-wanted love and joy to little Rambola’s life. Please take a moment and imagine the life of a young boy who was thrown out of his the day he was born. He was brought up by an impoverished lady, Parvati Amma, who died when he was five. At that time, he used only his devotion to sustain himself, and such purity helped him meet his guru, Narhari Baba, who later named Rambola as Tulasidas. There are a couple of sublime incidents that narrate the unique nature of a guru and disciple’s relationship. Rambola once saw a picture of Lord Hanuman carrying the Dronagiri mountain with the mystical herb Sanjeevni, which could restore the dead to life. When his guru asked him if he wanted Sanjeevni, Rambola shrugged and said what good would it do him since he was already alive. The guru took a pregnant pause and told him that anyone who does not have Sri Ram’s name enshrined in their heart is already dead.
Rambola also used to keep asking his guru to describe the beauty of Sri Ram. Narhari Baba told him that his beauty was equivalent to all the flowers behind the walled garden near their house. The house belonged to the village headman and was off-limits for most people. Young Rambola was so curious to experience the beauty of Sri Ram that he burrowed under the wall into their garden and started collecting all the flowers into a big heap. Every time he saw the heap, he felt Sri Ram had to be more beautiful and added more flowers. Finally, he jumped into the pond to collect flowers and was stuck there. The guards found him, gave him a light thrashing, and sent him away. When Ram Bola went to his guru and wept at his feet, his guru’s words transformed his life. Narhari Baba told him he could never see Sri Ram through flowers cultivated in other people’s gardens. He will need to plan the flowers of devotion in his heart and cultivate them. Sri Ram will surely come to him.
Goswamiji married a woman named Ratnavali and was deeply attached to her. Amrit Lal Nagar describes how, since Goswamiji was an orphan, he formed a deep attachment with his wife, which often conflicted with his devotion. He wanted single-minded devotion to Sri Ram and felt attached and bound by the relationship with his wife. There is a well-known story about how Goswamiji could not bear separation from her and stealthily visited her when she went to her father’s house. She rebuked him, saying that if he had this level of attachment to Sri Ram, nothing could stop him from achieving liberation.
Her words pierced his heart, and he renounced her and went to Vrindavan. He narrated stories of Sri Ram with such fervor that even Lord Hanuman went to attend them in various forms. You can listen to this sublime narration by Vinay Varanasi of how Lord Hanuman helped Goswamiji attain a vision of his beloved Sri Ram.
I want to conclude by sharing why Sri Ramcharitmans is such a sublime text that it fills you with immense surrender and devotion. Beni Madhav was a devotee of Goswami Tulasidas. He wants to write a biography of Gowswamiji and has a hidden desire in his heart that this work of art will immortalize his name as the greatest devotee of Goswamiji. This is called Tamasic Bhakti because the devotion has an ulterior motive. Gowswamji knows this and tells Madhav that he will get fame. However, since the sentiment behind the book is not pure, the book will never gain fame. That’s precisely what happened, and only scholars hear of Tulasicharit, written by Madhav. However, Ramcharitmans spread to all corners of the world because Goswamiji’s devotion and sadhana ensured he was empty when he wrote the book, and all that remained was Sri Ram.
