Good morning, everyone,

I’m so honored to be with you all at this auspicious time and place for your Baccalaureate Ceremony this year. 

And I’m forever grateful to Dean Tiffany Steinwert for her very generous invitation to speak today. Dean Steinwert is one of the most important and impactful interfaith leaders in the world, and she’s doing the most difficult interfaith work of all today by bringing together Stanford and USC, the Tree and the Trojan. They said it couldn’t be done, but somehow, she managed to pull it off!

We come together this weekend to commemorate Baccalaureate, which is usually a time of great celebration. But given the crises that have consumed the world and this campus, there are so many here at Stanford right now who are wrestling deeply with anger, with grief, and with fear – making this a Commencement season unlike any other.

And yet, as fully realized human beings, we all want to turn our pain into hope, we all want to turn our fear into love, and we all want to be part of the solution to the world’s great challenges and not part of the problem.

When I graduated from college in the late 1900s, I really struggled with to translate my ideals into action, how to embody my spiritual values, and how to uphold the highest Hindu ideals of dharma.

But at that time, as an Indian American, I didn’t really have any role models to look up to. Today, Indian Americans are well represented in every domain – in entertainment, in politics, in academia, in technology. In fact, I think being Indian is now a prerequisite for being a tech CEO! And while Indians are still underrepresented at the Olympic Games, we completely dominate the National Spelling Bee! 

But when I was growing up in the United States, there were only two Indians in the public sphere – Deepak Chopra and Apu from the Simpsons.

All I can say is thank God for Deepak Chopra, or as I now call him – Uncle Deepak.

Recently, as we were discussing the many challenges young people face today, Uncle Deepak told me that there are five major crises that students will encounter upon graduation.

The first four crises of war, justice, health, and sustainability are well known to all of us and there are so many heroic students here today who will devote their lives to solving these existential challenges.

The fifth crisis, however, is the most urgent and the least understood. And without solving this crisis, we can’t solve the other ones. And the only way to solve this crisis is for all of us to solve it together. We all have to be part of the solution of the fifth crisis.

The fifth crisis is a crisis of JOY. 

We have a full-blown crisis of joy in the world today, and maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise. …

Because it’s hard to feel joy when you wake up each day with devastating news about the crises of war, justice, sustainability, and health. And it’s hard to feel joy when you’re just trying to get by each day amidst the intense pressures of school, work, and the world.

But the harder it is for us to feel joy, the more important it becomes for us to embrace it. In a culture that is defined by burnout and exhaustion, embracing joy is our critical lifeline. And in the age of anxiety and outrage, embracing joy is our act of defiance.

But how do we embrace joy at a time of so much pain?

We do so by realizing that even though we can’t control everything, the things that we can control are powerful beyond measure. 

What can we control?

Well, we can control our beliefs, our thoughts, our perspectives, and our values.

We can control how honest we are, who our friends are, what books we read, and how we commune with nature.

We can control how much time we spend on Tik Tok – actually, I think the algorithm controls that!

We can control how often we exercise, what we eat, how we interpret situations, and how many risks we take. 

We can control how kind we are, how grateful we are, how much effort we exert, how much time we spend worrying, and how we judge or don’t judge others.

And most importantly, we can control how many times we say “I LOVE YOU” to the people we love. 

By controlling these things, we proactively create the internal conditions to generate joy for ourselves and for each other. And by doing so, we become the gatekeepers and guardians of our own joy. We should never cede control of that to anyone else. … 

2500 years ago, the Buddha taught us about the fundamental truth of suffering. According to the Buddha, to live is to suffer. Everyone who has ever lived has also suffered. And that shared experience of suffering connects us all across space and time.

But the Buddha also taught us that no one wants to suffer. That’s also what connects us as human beings – our shared aspiration to be free from suffering, and our inner potential to create joy for ourselves and for each other. 

And so, for the Buddha, and for all of us, joy is mindset, joy is a practice, and most importantly, joy is a choice that we make for ourselves. 

When I was a college student, I fortuitously met His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet under the tree of the Buddha’s enlightenment in a small village in India, and he quickly became the inspiration for my life and career. 

And when my wife was a medical student in South Africa, she first met the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who encouraged her to help heal the world as a physician, and to think about her medical practice as her spiritual practice.

Over the years, these two men, a Buddhist monk and a Christian priest, became lifelong friends, Nobel Peace Prize laureates, and distinguished guest speakers right here at Stanford. 

And despite the fact that they both witnessed and experienced extraordinary pain and multi-generational trauma in their lives and in their communities, when they finally wrote their book together, they didn’t call it THE BOOK OF SUFFERING.

Instead, they called it THE BOOK OF JOY. … 

In thinking about the nature of joy, they wrote, 

“Joy is the reward of seeking to give joy to others. When you show compassion, when you show caring, when you show love to others, do things for others, in a wonderful way you have a deep joy that you can get in no other way.”

And that’s really why we are here this morning. We are here to show love for our graduating students. And we are here to give joy to each other at a time when we need it most.

And so, as we come together to celebrate achievement and honor excellence, may we all be inspired to bring our own gifts of love and joy to the altar of humanity. May we recognize once again that we are not isolated beings but deeply connected, in mystery and in miracle, to this community, to this university, and to each other. 

And may we all say together AMEN. …

AND NOW FOR THE MOMENT THAT WE’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR: 

I ASK ALL GRADUATING STUDENTS TO PLEASE RISE 

LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE NEW GRADUATES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY

 Please remain standing. You’ve earned this moment. We all have. …

(I’m not crying, you’re crying…)

TO THE NEW GRADUATES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY – you represent the best of your generation, the most multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-national, multi-lingual, multi-disciplinary, multi-hyphenated generation in human history. You are technologically savvy, intellectually curious, spiritually evolved, globally connected, civically engaged, socially conscious, politically astute, hopeful and resilient, and wise beyond your years. You are innovative and creative, positive about the future, ready to tell new stories, and prepared to solve new problems. 

As you walk your path with passion and purpose, and as you find your place and way in a rapidly changing world, may you embrace the words of the great American theologian and civil rights leader Howard Thurman, who said:

“Don’t ask what the world needs,

Ask what makes you come alive and go do it.

Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

 Graduating students:

As you embark upon your exciting new journey and write the next chapter of your life’s story, may you go with peace and prosperity, may you go with blessing and inspiration, may you go with love and joy, AND MAY WE ALL SAY TOGETHER AMEN. …

LET’S HEAR IT ONE MORE TIME FOR THE NEW GRADUATES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY!

PLEASE BE SEATED

Well folks, we have eagerly spent many years waiting for this intimate moment of togetherness and celebration. Indeed, many students here didn’t get a high school graduation because of the pandemic, so this weekend is long overdue and very well deserved. Let’s make sure we’re all fully present in this moment with ourselves and with each other. Let’s not take any of this for granted. 

And let us remember that it is with love that we come, with love that we go, and with love that we shall remain with one another.

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR INCLUDING ME TODAY FOR THIS VERY SPECIAL BACCALAUREATE CEREMONY

PLEASE TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOURSELVES AND EACH OTHER.

SHABBAT SHALOM, EID MUBARAK, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY. … 

AND CONGRATULATIONS TO THE CLASS OF 2024!