What Chanakya’s Oil Lamp Teaches About True Leadership

Chanakya and the Oil Lamp Story | Powerful Lesson on Ethics, Integrity & Leadership by Yogesh Chabria

What can we learn today from Chanakya and a simple oil lamp?

In this powerful video, Yogesh Chabria shares the timeless story of Chanakya and the oil lamp a lesson that reveals the true meaning of ethics, integrity, leadership, and personal values.

Chanakya, one of history’s greatest thinkers and advisors, demonstrated a powerful principle through a simple act: separating personal and official responsibility. This ancient wisdom is more relevant than ever in today’s modern world of business, leadership, and personal growth.

In this inspiring message, discover how honesty, discipline, and ethical decision-making can shape your success in career, business, and life.

Watch till the end to understand why true leadership begins with character.

Transcript

Today I want to share an incident from the life of Chanakya.

Chanakya was a strategist,

The author of the Artha Shastra.

He shared strategies.

Business,

Politics,

Strategy.

And he was the advisor to the chandragupta maurya kingdom to the emperors thousands of years ago around 2000 years 2300 years ago One day,

He was working.

Chanakya was working in the night.

He had an oil lamp called Dia.

Like a candle,

Adia has some ghee.

And he was doing some work.

And it was dark as he was working.

One of his friends comes up to him and he looks at his friend and he turns off the light and he has another lamp beside it.

And he says,

Now you can start speaking.

And his friend is very surprised.

He says,

These two lamps look exactly the same.

Why did you turn off the first lamp and put on the second?

And Chanakya says,

No,

These two lamps look the same.

But they are not the same.

So his friend is surprised.

He says,

What do you mean?

She says the first lamp which I have the oil in it is paid for by the state so the state pays for it the kingdom pays for it and that time I was doing work of the kingdom of the state.

When you have come,

The second Lamb I am paying for this lamp,

The oil in this lamp,

The ghee in this lamp.

Is because you have come here you are my friend we might discuss something we might joke we might laugh so why should i use the money the lamp of the state for my personal affairs and this is such a powerful incident because It shows the value of ethics.

It shows that even when it comes to a lamb,

To be ethical.

If you are doing personal work Do not use the funds of the state or your company.

And this applies even today in the modern world.

It is so important to be honest,

To be ethical I will share two instances with you one of them is of a company called Enron Enron was a very large multi-billion dollar company but because they were unethical they started committing frauds They went bust and they lost billions of dollars.

People lost their jobs.

And another case is from India.

There was a company called Satyam and its founder was Ramalinga Raju.

And Satyam was a tech giant,

Again worth billions of dollars.

People trusted them.

They had a lot of employees.

But what happened is they started committing frauds.

And what were the frauds they started committing?

It started small.

They would have fake invoices.

They would fake how much cash they have.

And as things started,

It started snowballing.

When you are dishonest,

When you are unethical,

One thing leads to another and things start snowballing.

The founder was caught.

He was sent to jail.

He was seven years in jail.

They lost billions of dollars.

People lost jobs.

And he made a statement.

He said,

When I was doing this,

It was like riding a hungry tiger.

I had to keep feeding it because if I stopped feeding it and I got down,

Tiger would eat me up.

What does this mean?

Because he was doing unethical things,

He had to keep doing it over and over and over again.

And this happens with everybody who takes the wrong path.

Who is unethical?

Look at Bernie Madoff.

So many cases.

And what can you learn from this?

There are powerful lessons.

The first is Be ethical in the smallest of things.

Chanakya,

Even with the land,

He was ethical.

Because if you are ethical with the smallest of things,

Those values will transfer.

You cannot say I will be unethical in the small things.

And ethical in the big things.

It's a value system.

If you're ethical here,

You will be ethical there.

The second is.

.

.

Things snowball.

Things snowball.

If you are unethical in one area,

You will be unethical in other areas.

So it is very important.

To bring in the values of ethics and trust.

And it's more important in today's business world.

And the third is As a leader,

Your actions speak louder than words.

If you are unethical,

Everybody around you,

Your team members,

People in your organization,

People in your house,

Will think it is okay to be unethical.

And that becomes like a disease.

If everybody around you is unethical,

You cannot work,

You cannot perform,

You cannot excel.

So bring This.

Energy of ethics and trust so the next time you see a light you see a candle think how you can be ethical how you can be trustworthy how you can be reliable because in today's world a real superpower.

This is Yukish Chhabria sending you lots of love,

Lots of joy,

Lots of blessings.

See you soon.