How can we maintain our principles in a materialistic corporate environment?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So when working in a corporate environment, sometimes people expect us to do all the materialistic things that they are doing. And if we don’t, then they start labelling us and we get isolated sometimes. So how can we function in such a world? We shouldn’t divide the world simply into devotees and non-devotees.
That is one division which is valid. But even among non-devotees, there are people who are in goodness, there are people in passion, there are people in ignorance. And yes, the people in passion may be more.
But even among non-devotees, there are people in goodness. And overall, one of the advantages of postmodern culture, modern culture was very science-centred. Postmodern culture is much more individuality-centred.
You do your own thing. So one of the advantages of postmodern culture is that actually, people usually mind their own business. As long as you are not encroaching on my territory, you do what you want, I’ll do what I want.
So if we are living a life of principles, people may push us a little bit. But if you resist that initially, people won’t resist the way this person is. And most importantly, in the corporate world, its performance is seen.
So if you are good at our job, then people don’t really mind, it doesn’t matter so much what others are doing, what we do in our other time, or how much we socialise or we don’t socialise. So, regarding specifically what all we engage in or what all we don’t engage in, in the corporate world, that will vary according to individual to individual. Sometimes we may go for parties, but we may take vegetarian food over there, or we bring our own food or whatever.
But it’s basically that we wouldn’t bother what people think about me if we knew how little people thought about me. What that means is we think, if I do this, what will he think of me? What will she think of me? But, people have their own life to lead, people have their own problems to deal with. So we can turn it other way, and if we observe someone, maybe say, something doesn’t make sense, why they are behaving.
But how much time do we spend thinking about that? Just as we have our own life to live, they have their own life to live. So, sometimes we create a far greater complex. If I do this, what will others think about me? Just, if we are convinced about certain principles, we live those principles, and people are not really having so much free time to think about everyone else and label them.
Even if they label us in particular ways, if we are professional, if we are functioning properly, then their labels will also change gradually. So, as devotees, actually even in the corporate world, the sattvic qualities are appreciated. There are many people who gossip, but there are also people who like when somebody doesn’t gossip.
They feel, yes, I can trust such a person. So, sometimes that admiration may be not direct because they may feel that I can’t become like such a person. But they admire it.
So, we can try to associate more with the sattvic people in our company, and even if there are few people like that, we create a group, bond more with them. And overall if we live our principles, people will start seeing, okay, this person is different, but if we are doing our job well and we are courteous, we are overall friendly, this person is different, but he or she is a nice person. So, we don’t have to adopt their definitions of enjoyment.
We can just live and do the work which we are doing over there, and overall they will see this is how I am, and they will come to terms with it. If we think that others have to like me, then we are setting ourselves up for misery. Because there will be some people who will like us, some people who will not like us.
And that’s the way the world is going to be. No matter what we do, see, what to speak of non-devotee circle, even in devotee circle, everyone is not going to like us. It’s not that people may actively dislike us, but still that natural bonding which is there, that happens with some people, that doesn’t happen with some people.
So, basically, don’t worry too much about what others think, but focus on we do what we are supposed to do. Thank you very much. Vishwa Prabhupada Ki Jai! Gaur Bhakta Vrinda Ki Jai! Gaur Premanand! Vishwa Prabhupada Ki Jai!