The Futility of War: A Poetic Awakening with L.S. Vishwanath | Podmasana Preview

Podmasana: Global Spirituality, Timeless Wisdom

Apr 08 2026 | 00:04:12

00:00 / 00:04:12

Episode • April 08, 2026 • 00:04:12

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Show Notes

In the next episode of Podmasana, L.S. Vishwanath wrestles with spiritual inheritance versus realization. Born in sacred Kashi into a Brahmin family, he shares miraculous encounters with Shirdi Sai Baba, surviving near-death experiences, and the lifelong challenge of aligning a wandering mind with the Atma. An honest exploration of seeking the higher truth. Full episode releases April 15th.

Topics: Shirdi Sai Baba, spiritual awakening, Hindu spirituality, Brahmin heritage, devotion, miracles, grace, Atma, consciousness, meditation, yoga philosophy, Bhagavad Gita, chakras, spiritual seeking, rebirth, karma, puja, rituals, Kundalini yoga, saints, divine intervention, spiritual transformation, aging, mortality, death, surrender, faith, Varanasi, Kashi, cosmic consciousness

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About Podmasana: More than a podcast, Podmasana is a global journey through the landscape of human spirituality. We weave together transformative personal stories with scholarly depth, exploring how ancient practices illuminate life’s challenges—from grief and illness to aging and adversity. Through carefully curated conversations and compelling narratives, we bridge timeless wisdom with contemporary understanding, offering listeners authentic pathways to consciousness, healing, and the universal threads that bind human experience across cultures and generations.

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Chapters

(00:00:00) - The Poem on War's Waste

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: So speaking of consciousness, of all the things that could have shaped your moral consciousness as a child. It was an English poem by Robert Suthi about war's futility. Young Paturkin finding a skull, asking his grandfather, but what came of it? And getting no real answer beyond it was a great war. Why did that poem strike you so deeply? And how did that early sense of war's wastefulness connect to your spiritual development? [00:00:28] Speaker B: As I said, probably the seeds of cosmic awareness, consciousness were shown earlier. There are other poems and the same. This was a book of poems. There was a poem also by Lord Tennyson. On charge of light Brigade march, 600 guns originally thundered, the soldiers marched. But that didn't strike me as very appealing. But this one did. But futility of war, the soldiers and the primary life, they die on the battlefield, grieving mothers and families. So it struck me as something very wasteful which can be stopped. Nations spend enormous amount on weapons. They still do on weaponry and in the name of nationalism think they're protecting their borders. So it all seemed to be very wasteful to me because in my college days I read a book by Benit Anderson which spoke about nation and nation as imagined community, which has very diverse people based on color, religion, on creed and all that. But somehow the wars, their sense of nationhood so diverse people come together to fight wars. But it is, I agree with Anderson that it is imagined community. People fight over basic religion, their own color, as happened to America. A lot of color prejudices between blacks and whites, they have serious differences between, but somehow they are expected to. Soldiers of course, do their duty. But for example, during the 1962 Indochina War, my wife knitted sweaters for soldiers because they were the Indian soldiers fighting China in snowy mountains. And they were ill prepared. They didn't have proper shoes, they didn't have proper clothing. Hero was probably Gandhi's influence. He never thought such a war will ever occur. He was very friendly to China. But China attacked us. It was big surprise. Sweaters were needed. Contributions came pouring in from many people. People thought, our nation, my nation is under threat from the Chinese. So there was Circassian. But it's not that differences are forgotten. Differences were there, they still persist. Mass greed and so on. You know, the difference between Hindus and Muslims have been there for a long time. Muslim soldiers fought for India, sacrificed their lives. There was one soldier called Abdul, if I remember his name. He died fighting at the border. There were others. So the Indian army doesn't only Hindus, it has Muslims. There's other Christians and so on so but anyway the so the dhoadesh sent to nationhood but still I thought wars were wasteful we should this is again God expects us to live as one family. Hinduism has that concept of Vasudevakutamakam Vajraya kottingam In translated means V1 human family One human family is expected to live and let live and not fight or skill each other.

The Futility of War: A Poetic Awakening with L.S. Vishwanath | Podmasana Preview

Show Notes

Chapters

Episode Transcript

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