Daisaku Ikeda as a role model
Reflections by Dr N.Radhakrishnan on
the occasion of the 90th birthday of Ikeda.
The phenomenal growth of the Soka Gakkai and the tremendous
goodwill it has created worldwide over
the years under the leadership of Dr Daisaku Ikeda , a remarkable peace
activist, educator, Buddhist philosopher, poet,
and spiritual leader to millions of followers in around 192 countries offer several vital lessons of leadership.
Ikeda’s services to humanity have been
recognized widely and the worldwide appreciation
of his leadership for peace have been inspiring several groups and institutions
working to promote a warless world to follow his lead. He is held in high
esteem as an exemplar of values and inspirer of youth. He is ranked today along
with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and several other front line living leaders of humanity such as Arch Bishop Tutu, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimmy
Carter, the Dalai Lama from whom future leaders have a great deal to learn.
A strong and
committed promoter of the concept of mentor-disciple spirit which Ikeda
inherited from his mentor Josei Toda and
Mr Toda’s mentor Makiguchi,the founder of Soka Gakkai, the phenomenal success
of Dr Ikeda as a messenger of harmony is a dream come true of Toda that one day
Soka Gakkai which was confined to Japan
during the world war would play a crucial role in spreading the message of
harmony, as Nichiren Daishonin had willed. It is not only the realization of a
dream through hard labor, toil and sacrifice but also the great ability of a
leader to use religion as a dependable anchor in a turbulent sea of everyday
life and steer clear the ship of human
life to a state of happiness and value creation.
Leader as a builder of bridges
A perceptive reader of The New Human Revolution Series the
monumental novelized series of the history of soka Gakkai by Dr Ikeda can not
fail to appreciate the author’s efforts in building bridges of understanding
between peoples of all walks of life people who for reasons of their own making
are spending a precious part of their
lives in creating conditions which bring more misery upon themselves. One
cannot also fail to see here the concern of a humanist who with his profound
religious insight could see that religion was fast losing its importance in
human lives for a variety of reasons like advancement of science and technology
which emphasized materialism over spiritualism. Dr. Ikeda very lucidly and
clearly emphasizes that science and spirituality, science and religion if
properly understood, could offer viable alternative to the vexed problems
humanity faces now.
Leader as Reformer and Disciple
Let me
reproduce the following from my earlier analysis of the Human Revolution to
illustrate the role of leader as Reformer and disciple.
It is quite natural that in a work of
art like The Human Revolution, the agony and the individual aspirations of the
likeminded reformers involved in the struggle get submerged in the collective
efforts. From the pages of The Human Revolution emerge several portraits of
inspired men and women. The author is very fair and shows no sign of ego to
overshadow anybody. The ability displayed by Toda in attracting dedicated bands
of young men and women who like inspired souls worked for kosen-rufu is also
evident in the disciple Yamamoto...
Lives of
great men and women are always a great source of inspiration. When we read
their biographies or autobiographies they not only fire the imagination of the
readers but inspire them indirectly to undertake equally noble activities. One
can see this quality in The Human Revolution. This work has three essential
qualities — (i) authenticity, (ii) creativity and (iii) the message it
delivers. It is very rare that in a work of art all these three great qualities
are interwoven in such a manner that it becomes a mosaic of beauty of the
highest form. You may defeat a man physically, take away all his wealth,
dismember or even kill him but you cannot take away his faith from him. In
other words, man may be conquered physically but his spirit is unconquerable.
This is the message of The Human Revolution. In fact, the strong sense of mission displayed
by the three Presidents - Makiguchi, Toda and Ikeda - hits the reader hard and
raises serious and fundamental issues like, “What is the purpose of life?” and
“What is my mission in life?” Alas, most of us are only worried about
ourselves, our comforts, our families, our immediate gains”.
