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Wisdom of the Sages

1765: Robert De Niro, Vedanta and the Art of Being Chill

Wisdom of the Sages

David Ramella

Hinduism, Religion & Spirituality

4.91K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

"Just be calm. When things are going well, be calm. Don't think you're on top of the world. Everybody is dispensable." The Bhagavad-gita calls it samathvam. Robert De Niro calls it being chill. Evenness of mind, steady in both the highs and the lows. Fame, wealth, prestige — they come and they go. And when that truth settles not just as a concept but as a genuine inner recognition, something shifts. Detachment arises — not as resignation, not as indifference, but as the fertile ground in which deeper contemplation and bhakti-yoga can take root. In this episode Raghunath and Kaustubha explore that teaching alongside the Srimad Bhagavatam, where the cowherd men of Vrindavan — hearing that Varuna himself worshiped their little boy — begin to wonder: will he bestow his transcendental abode upon us?

Srimad Bhagavatam 10.28.8-11

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

It sounds to me like, it's said that in the mode of goodness, giana manifest, right?

0:06.1

Knowledge manifest.

0:07.9

And this sounds like a person who's gained some knowledge.

0:11.2

You know, there's been enough satfaguna in his life that some truths have arisen in his, in his awareness, that he's developed a strong faith in and it has to do with that

0:25.1

evenness of mind you know uh baghavi gita in the 12th chapter you know where there's that

0:31.6

whole list of of qualities that make one dear to Krishna and uh and so many of them have to do with this evenness, right?

0:41.3

Yonah Rishyati, not dvayshiti, na sotchiti,

0:45.3

not kankshati, right?

0:47.3

One who neither rejoices nor grieves, who neither laments nor desires, right?

0:52.3

But especially this, I think he's saying,

1:11.2

sometimes we hear that we think, oh, one that doesn't agree, but what about not rejoice? Shouldn't we be happy when good things happen? Hey, if you have a successful career, shouldn't you celebrate? And it's not exactly that he's saying, no, but he's saying, but be calm. There's a certain inner calmness that one has to have. He says be chill.

1:13.0

Be chill, be calm. I thought they sort of add a character, be chill, but maybe he does say be chill. He says, just be calm when things are going well. Be calm. He's saying sometimes in life things are going to go up. Don't get too excited about it because we know things are also going to come back down right don't

1:30.5

think you're on top of the world he's also seemed to be giving a bit of um caution uh about your about

1:39.3

perspective i'm a big guy now you know what even if you're the number one A-list actor, that's something that is a very small thing.

1:50.8

And it's something that's going to come and that's going to go.

1:53.8

Don't let that rock you, right?

1:56.6

You always have to be wary because, and now he's going to speak from experience, right?

2:01.7

Because I've seen people.

2:03.2

I've seen them come.

2:04.2

I've seen people go.

2:05.1

This is the wisdom that's meant to come with age, right?

2:08.2

That you observed a bit.

...

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