Inspiring Biography of Gaur Gopal Das

Gaur Gopal Das is a life coach, monk and a motivational strategist.

He was born on 24 December 1973 into a middle-class family in Pune, Maharashtra, India.

In 1995, Gaur Gopal Das graduated in Electrical Engineering from College of Engineering, Pune.

He started his career as an electrical engineer in Hewlett Packard (HP).

A year later, Gaur Gopal Das resigned for his job and later settled as a monk and life coach (lifestyle engineer).

Choosing a very different path-

Gaur Gopal Das says that in this world, it is easy to make money but difficult to make a profound difference in the lives of the people.

So, he became a monk to inspire the masses and to enhance the spirituality in them, thus bringing in major positive changes in their lives.

When Gaur Gopal Das was working as an electrical engineer in HP, he was able to make only a small difference in the lives of a very few people through his profession, much like the thousands of regular employees.

He was not satisfied with his job, so he chose a very different path and did not buy the thoughts of the society which expects a person to do a routine job and lead a normal life but instead he made a path of self-discovery and chose the rightful profession which makes him happy, effective and provides satisfaction.

So, Gaur Gopal Das joined International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in 1996.

He became a disciple of Radhanath Swami at Mumbai and was greatly influenced by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

Gaur Gopal Das also authored a book by name, Life’s Amazing Secrets: How to Find Balance and Purpose in Your Life.

This book is also available in the Hindi language, by name, Life’s Amazing Secrets: Jeevan Ke Adbhut Rahasya.

Fixing the broken minds-

Gaur Gopal Das states that he did not quit his profession as an engineer but instead he upgraded his profession from being an electrical engineer to a lifestyle engineer.

Previously, as an electrical engineer he was fixing the machines but now as a lifestyle engineer, he is fixing the people.

Fixing people is more important than fixing the machines because people are the ones who created the machines.

The initial dilemma-

In the initial days, when Gaur Gopal Das quit his job at HP and became a monk, he was feeling that he might be missing his professional life and felt that if he continued his job as an electrical engineer; someday he would have reached a very high position in his industry.

But these doubts and thoughts gave away when he noticed the positive impact and difference he made in the lives of the people at the ashram (monastery).

Initially, Gaur Gopal Das faced resistance from his family when he left his job to become a monk.

His family expected him to do a regular job and lead a normal life but eventually, his family members accepted his decision very well when they noticed that he made a positive difference in the people and in the world.

So, Gaur Gopal Das successfully upgraded his profession from just fixing the machines to fixing the people.

The modern monk-

Gaur Gopal Das effectively uses social media to reach out to the masses and spread positivity to improve their lives.

His messages get easily conveyed as he uses a bit of witty humour to make his talks even more interesting.

Gaur Gopal Das gave many seminars across the world and was also invited by the British parliament to give a talk.

He has also guided many celebrities and corporate leaders.

He guides several multinational companies across the world like Macintosh, Ford, Bank of America, Infosys, Barclays, Microsoft, etc.

Gaur Gopal Das also spoke at several TEDx events.

In 2016, Gaur Gopal Das was awarded Rotary International’s Super Achiever Award for outstanding contribution in the field of spirituality and inspiration.

The great life lessons by Gaur Gopal Das-

Stress everywhere-

Almost everyone around us is experiencing immense stress and pressure in their lives.

Those who have achieved success are facing stress to maintain their position as a successful person.

And those who are working to achieve success are facing difficulty to concentrate and are determined to accomplish their dreams, thereby subjecting themselves to stress.

Both the successful people and the people who are on their way to success are feeling stressed to perform even better.

So, basically no one is stress free.

Attaining success does not free you from stress.

Once you attain success you will find new ways to stress yourself.

As the people attain success, they struggle to find a new purpose in their life because they have experienced success and seen it all.

This enormous stress breaks a person mentally and being spiritual helps one to better cope from the negative effects of the stress.

In order to live a well-balanced life, apart from Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Emotional Quotient (EQ), SQ is also very important.

Spirituality has the potential to better your life, as it renders you with good values, integrity and a good character.

Help yourself-

You cannot help others adequately when you have not fixed your own life.

So, it is a prerequisite to help yourself first before venturing out to help others.

The wrong definition of success-

People have a wrong idea of success because many think that attaining success means possessing the things that the world markets or promotes.

People believe that they become more successful by possessing more material things.

Balancing your life-

When you work badly to achieve something or attain something, you will be subjected to immense stress.

Many people work for long hours without giving the due importance to their other aspects of life like health, hobbies, family and spirituality.

They eventually lose the balance in their lives; as a result they become irritable and lack satisfaction with what they are doing.

So, to maintain balance, you must schedule some of your time to the other aspects of your life.

Sharpen the pencil-

Maintaining balance is akin to sharpening the pencil by which an artist can draw sharp images, without sharpening the pencil he can draw only blunt images.

So, only focusing on drawing without sharpening the pencil wouldn’t help.

One must not think that sharpening the pencil is a waste of time.

Similarly, only focusing on the work without scheduling some time for the relaxing activities will not help.

By relaxing, you can be internally focused and be mentally stable.

If you solely focus on working all the time, you will eventually lose focus and get distracted and will consume more time to complete a task.

So, it is much better to change the priorities by which you can work on yourself.

Steps to maintain balance in your life-

The first and foremost thing is that you must identify the areas on which you need to work (the areas means the tasks which relaxes you and relieves the tension).

Identifying these tasks is important because without identifying you cannot work upon them.

Then, you should take regular breaks and practice mindfulness.

If you don’t take breaks, you will eventually break-down.

And taking breaks will help you to achieve breakthroughs in your work.

You can relax by listening to your favourite music, reading your favourite book, eating your favourite food, meditating, etc.

You must periodically cut out from the outside world and give yourself some time to relax.

Overachievers beware-

Gaur Gopal Das explains the future of the overachievers by citing an example from a book by name, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, by Robin Sharma.

In that book, the lawyer achieves professional success at a very young age and gathers many material things by putting his 200 per cent at the work.

But unfortunately, he suffers from a massive cardiac attack at a young age.

So, basically it is unfortunate if one overexerts himself so much that his health is severely affected and dies early without really enjoying the fruits of his hard work.

Attributing his wisdom-

Gaur Gopal Das is very thankful to the god, his guru and the other monks at the monastery who enlighten him with wisdom.

He is able to motivate billions of people because he himself is a very motivated man; he receives the motivation from the ancient knowledge, by performing spiritual sadhana (practice) and connecting to the god by chanting the holy names.

Gaur Gopal Das is not only a great speaker but also a great listener, which enables him to learn from the monks in the monastery and the other wise people.

Set a standard for your life-

Many people only focus on improving their standard of living by accumulating the material things but forget to improve the standard of their lives.

You must try to improve the standard of your life by which you lead a happy life.

To improve the standard of your life, you must do the things which really makes you happy and satisfied and you must also connect with the people who make you happy.

The best advice to overcome the challenges in your life-

The river Ganga originates from the great Himalayas.

The destination of the river is to merge into the ocean, but it encounters several obstacles in the way, in the form of mountains, rocks, etc.

The river never stops moving even if it encounters obstacles in its path, it eithers flows above the rocks or under the rocks or around the rocks and will eventually reach its destination.

So, the river flexes itself to reach its destination.

Similarly, you should never stop working towards your dreams, even if you face the challenges.

If you face challenges, you should try new methods or strategies to overcome them and keep moving forward towards your goals.

You are the maker of your own destiny-

The situations that you face in your life are your destiny.

You cannot control the situations in your life.

But your responses to those situations are your own choice.

So, when you make the right choices in your life and cultivate the right attitude and work hard, you will definitely succeed and will be in great control of your future destiny.

By making the right choices you might not attain success right away but in the near future you will definitely attain success and you must leave it to time, as you cannot expect the plant to grow in a day (get success in a short time), you can only sow a seed (do the hard work).

The plant will not grow without proper care; similarly you will not attain your dreams without continuous efforts, so you must be persistent until you attain success.

Be peaceful-

Being peaceful in the calm situations is not the real characteristic of a peaceful mind but being peaceful in the middle of the chaos and problems is the real meaning of being peaceful.

You must remind yourself to be peaceful and cultivate the habit to be peaceful.

So, remain peaceful in all the spheres of your life even in the midst of the challenging situations.

As only by being peaceful, you can stay focused and unleash your full potential and give your best.

By practicing spirituality you can experience peace of mind and calmness even in the middle of the troubles which life throws at you.

Become great-

In order to achieve great success, you should try to become great and should not cry at your failures but instead try to reconstruct your dreams.

Also, the great people don’t give up but instead they live up to the challenges.

So, you must be well aware of the challenges you are facing in your life and try to overcome them to become great.   

And the great people don’t go through the troubles but instead they grow through them to such an extent that when they look back in their life at their problems, the problems appear microscopic in size.

So, to become great all you need is great hope and determination by which you can attain the highest peaks of success.

The answer to all your worries-

If you have no problems in your life you should not be worried at all.

But if you have problems which you know how to tackle, then you need not to worry because eventually you will overcome those problems with your knowledge.

And if you have a problem for which you have no real solution, then also you need not worry because when you are sure that your problem cannot be solved, then by constantly worrying about that problem will not solve that problem.

So, spare yourself from worrying too much and lead a happy and peaceful life.

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