The Wall Street Journal: Letting Go of Wall Street

Prabhupada, October 16, 1975, Johannesburg: Money is not required. You require things. Just like instead of money, you are getting papers. Money means gold. Where is gold? Full conversation

By JO PIAZZA

Philip Montgomery for The Wall Street JournalRasanath Das, in blue sweater, in a group meditation Wednesday at Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park.

Rasanath Das was an atypical member of the city’s investment-banker class.

The 32-year-old MBA earned a $170,000 salary working long days negotiating deals at Bank of America. But on his free nights, he slept on the floor of a bare room shared with 13 other Hindu monks in a monastery in the East Village. On weekends, he taught classes on scripture and scrubbed floors and pots.

“I realized I was not dependent on external objects to make me happy. It was like letting go of crutches and being able to walk faster,” Mr. Das said.

His journey from the 1% to the 99% began in 2008. He felt ready to eschew materialism and devote himself entirely to spirituality—that is, until he received a stellar performance review.

“It was like a scene out of ‘Wall Street,’ where Michael Douglas said, ‘I’ll make you a star.’ It was tempting,” Mr. Das said.

Philip Montgomery for The Wall Street JournalRasanath Das, left

He told his boss he wanted to leave for the monk’s life. He resigned, took vows of celibacy and abstinence and traded suits and button-down shirts for the white garb of a Bhakti monk, dedicating his life to devotional Hinduism—and to helping his former banking colleagues find enlightenment.

After quitting, Mr. Das spent his days on monastery business, developing a plan to open a café downstairs and working on scripture teachings.

But the law of karma states that you can never really leave the past behind, and so it was that the financial world continued to lay a claim on Mr. Das, albeit in an unexpected way: During the past year, bankers and companies have sought him out to counsel them on mindfulness and the market.

“I worked with these analysts who were under so much stress. I began to feel it was my goal that they felt enlightened and inspired,” Mr. Das said.

In the past year, Mr. Das said, he has spoken at a gathering for senior banking executives from Citigroup, Bank of America and UBS, at a Good Business International retreat for small-business executives, as well as to audiences at CLS Advisors and Wall Street search firm RMG Search. He said he has also been asked to address a corporate leadership program at Facebook.

Because of his Cornell University MBA and years in the industry, bankers can relate to Mr. Das, whose talks recount his career trajectory in finance and his eventual choice to leave it.

“It’s about sharing a very honest story about my experience on Wall Street…I highlight the aspects of banking that can be self-deceptive and bring that to the fore,” Mr. Das said.

Peter Ressler, the CEO of RMG Search, said he frequently seeks Mr. Das’s counsel.

“We’ve had many discussions about how you merge spirituality with making money,” Mr. Ressler said. “His teachings focus on not allowing fear, ego and selfishness to stand in the way of making the right business decisions for all parties involved in a transaction.”

Mr. Das, whose given name is Chelakara Ramanth, is small and delicate looking. His forehead is marked by two streaks of yellow chandan clay intended to represent the feet of God.

He and his fellow monks rise at 4:30 a.m. for daily prayer, padding barefoot along the monastery’s incense-suffused halls. Sweaters and the odd North Face fleece shield them from the morning chill. Meditation, prayer, chanting and scripture study last until breakfast begins at 9 a.m.

His fellow East Village monks include a Jewish graduate of New York University’s film program, a Ph.D. in quantum physics and a German actor. The monastery shares a wall with the Fine Line Tattoo parlor and is across the street from the drag-queen cabaret Lucky Cheng’s.

Last Wednesday, Mr. Das made another return trip to Wall Street. There, he led a crowd of about 30 Occupy Wall Street participants in a meditation session at Zuccotti Park.

As workers in suits gawked from the sidewalk, he told the protesters that he had worked with many good people on the Street, and that despite what he views as a broken banking system, there are beacons of hope within it.

He said later that the event was, for him, surprisingly therapeutic. “Being here you can sense the stress [among finance workers]” said Mr. Das, speaking in calm, even tones. “There are problems with the system but it is becoming aware of them that will change them.”