Five minutes here.
A clearer head for the day.

"My Top 3 Requests — Give Me Strength, Knowledge and Intelligence." — Vaibhav Datar

I was chanting Hanuman Chalisa and the chopai “bal buddhi vidya dehu mohi… harahu kales vikaar” made a huge impact on me..

What am I asking from my divine. Give me strength, knowledge and intelligence and take away all my problems and diseases. This is a very loose translation. The actual translation needs a full article.

I am not asking wealth or fame or success in the way the world measures but just these three things. This is how my day starts.

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When you study ancient wisdom in context of a fully realised man, this becomes the complete architecture for a man.

Three distinct dimensions. Three distinct disciplines. And when all three are developed together — something extraordinary emerges. Not just a successful man. Not just a good man.

A complete man.

Today, I want to take you inside each one. Not as abstract ideals — but as living practices. Daily disciplines. The actual texture of what it means to build yourself in all three dimensions simultaneously.

Because here is what I have learned after nearly five decades of living, failing, rebuilding, and slowly understanding:

Most men develop one of these three. Rare men develop two. The truly formidable ones develop all three.

Why Three? Why Not Just One?

Before we go into each dimension, I want to sit with this question for a moment. Because it is the question the modern world has essentially answered wrongly — and we are all paying the price.

The modern world worships one dimension of a man at a time.

The gym culture worships Strength — but produces men who are physically imposing and emotionally hollow.

The academic world worships Knowledge — but produces men who can speak brilliantly about life without knowing how to live it.

The corporate world worships a version of Intelligence — the kind that scores well on tests and navigates office politics — while being entirely blind to the deeper intelligence that the ancients were pointing at.

And so we have a world full of men who are: Strong but not wise. Knowledgeable but not strong. Clever but not truly intelligent. And I say this knowing very well, that many will not agree. And that is ok. I am not here to come for agreement but revelation of truth that I have realised and it could be not in sync with your thoughts.

The ancient framework understood that these three must grow together — like the three legs of a stool. Remove any one, and the whole structure collapses.

The First Request — Strength (Bala).

Strength is not the absence of fear. It is not the ability to overpower others. It is not the hard exterior that never cracks, the voice that never wavers. That is not strength.

In the Vedic tradition, Balam — true strength — has three layers. Physical, Mental and Spiritual and each layer must be cultivated deliberately.

The Second Request — Knowledge (Dnyaan).

Two kinds of knowledge - the one you acquire from outside (Gurus, teachers, courses, etc) and the one that comes from lived experiences, your own practices. Information without transformation is a deadly trap we all need to avoid.

The Third Request — Intelligence (Buddhi)

In modern usage, intelligence is almost synonymous with IQ. With how quickly you process information. With how well you perform on standardised tests. With how clever your arguments are in a meeting.

But Buddhi — that I understand from ancient wisdom is the ability to discriminate - to see clearly what is real from what is appearance. I would call it discernment (the understanding of right and wrong).

Living them all together - the Physical strength gives the physical and nervous system resilience to absorb the shock without collapsing. The Knowledge built from honest reflection and lived experience give genuine insight and understanding whereas the Intelligence gives the next step clearly.

This is what the ancients meant by a complete man.