How do we avoid passion while working as leaders in the corporate world?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
So, at work we have to show a lot of passion, especially if you are in a leadership position in a company or in a profession, but if this is a painkiller then we have to draw a line. So, how do we draw the line? So, first. How will we identify that line? So, how do we identify that line where we should draw it? The first thing is, in terms of analysis, analysis is separating, dividing something into its components.
Synthesis is uniting things together. So, in terms of analysis, we need to separate our life into material and spiritual, so that we give due time to the spiritual, so that we have time for, say, directly spiritual activity like worshipping the deities, hearing the Bhagavad Gita, chanting the holy names, but having done that, having made sure that we give due time for our spiritual side, after that we don't have to constantly be differentiating, this is material, this is spiritual. For a devotee, everything can be spiritualized and if our purpose of life is to serve Krishna, then even our material, professional, family, all these things are also spiritualized in their intention.
When Arjuna was practicing archery, he was not thinking, what is archery, it's mundane, I should just be chanting the holy names, he was diligently practicing, to what extent was he practicing? Now, we know the famous story that one night when suddenly the light went dark, the lamp got extinguished by a gust of wind, he could still eat, he thought, if I can eat in dark, why can't I shoot in the dark? And so he practiced, that's how he attained expertise in shooting targets in darkness, shooting invisible targets more specifically, and that proved a decisive, critical skill eventually in the Kurukshetra war. So he, when he was doing his Kshatriya dharma, he did not cut corners there, he was not just minimizing it or denigrating it as material, he did it diligently, Yudhishtira Maharaj, he did the Rajasuya Yajna, now to do that Yajna requires a huge amount of effort, what is its purpose? He, as a devotee, if he was celebrated as the king of all kings, and then he glorified it, when Krishna is the supreme person, people would take him seriously, so he, just as he tried to excel, he was a king, so as a king he tried to excel, one way to excel as a king was by performing the Rajasuya Yajna, so he did that. So it's not that, as devotees, we are, we are not meant to be ambitious, it is not that we are not meant to be zealous, diligent, the word passion has a negative connotation in the Bhakti philosophy, but the idea of the drive, the drive to achieve something, if we separate our material life and spiritual life entirely, then we are actually limiting the scope of Krishna, Krishna doesn't exist only in the temple, Krishna is there at our home, Krishna is there in the office also, yathah pravrtir bhūtānāṁ yena sarvaṁ idam tataṁ svakarmanātma-bhyarce siddhiṁ vindati māṅgala.
So, I just quoted this verse, 18.46, svakarmanātma-bhyarce, by your work worshipping, but who is that lord whom you are worshipping, Krishna tells about two things, yathah pravrtir bhūtānāṁ, from whom everything has come, yena sarvaṁ idam tataṁ, by whom everything is pervaded. What this means is, Krishna is saying that I am not as existing in the spiritual world and you think that you have to do direct spiritual activities to worship me, Krishna says I pervade the material world also comes from me, I pervade the material world also, therefore by your work also you can worship me, so karmanātma-bhyarce. So, as devotees, when we are doing our profession, we should do it diligently and we shouldn't constantly be thinking that this is material, this is spiritual, when it needs to be done, just do it wholeheartedly, do it in a mood of devotion, what should not be done is, we should not think that because I am doing my work in a mood of devotion, therefore there is no need for me to do any bhakti at all, that will not work because when we are doing our worldly activities, although in intention they are spiritual, in association they are not spiritual, because we are having materialistic association at that time, materialistic environment is there and that will erode our spiritual desires, we may start with the intention that I am doing this for Krishna, but over a period of time, our ego, our pride, our greed may take over, that's why we need time for devotional activities, we need time for serious devotional activities, but once we have given time for devotional activities, remaining time we can focus wholeheartedly in doing whatever we are doing.
Now, regarding drawing the line, that also has to be done according to time, place, circumstance, that means, let's suppose say, if we are travelling, like we were coming here and we got caught in a traffic jam, then if there is a lot of congestion, then the vehicle moves slowly, but once the road gets cleared, then the vehicle moves fast, we make sure that the vehicle moves fast, so like that, we are basically going in the right direction, but sometimes we move slower, sometimes we move faster, so like that sometimes in our material life, there will be congestion, too many things come up at that time and we may need to give time for those things, so at that time our spiritual life may get relatively slowed down, but after that, it's not that in our material life, there are constantly emergencies, constantly problems keep coming up, but the problems are not emergency level problems, so if constantly emergency level problems are coming up, then that means, we have overloaded ourselves too much, see in our material life also, it is natural to want to grow, it is natural to be ambitious, but say, if I have muscles by which I can lift up 10 kg weight, if I try to lift 11 or 12 or 13, I can still do it and my muscles will grow, but if I have capacity to lift up 10 kg and I lift up 25 kg, that is going to cause a breakdown of my muscles, so like that when we are working in our life, in our professional life, if we find that we are constantly in anxiety, constantly we are firefighting, constantly there are emergencies, that means, we have got into something which is not compatible with us, which is got into things excessively, then we may have to cut something, but it is not that we are meant to be lackadaisical or we are meant to be apathetic in our material life, whatever time we spend, we spend it wholeheartedly and sometimes we may need to spend more time, but overall our life should be directed towards Krishna and the exact proportion, that will vary from person to person, that is something, there is bhakti, as we practice it, bhakti pareshaanubhava virakkiranya pracham, the practice of bhakti gives us pareshaanubhava, it gives us the experience of Krishna, who is transcendental and when we get that experience of Krishna, that is so fulfilling an experience that virakkiranya pracham, one becomes detached from other experiences, one does not crave for other things, so there is what can be called as organic renunciation or naturally emerging detachment that comes, so if we are young and if we have lot of drive to achieve, artificially restraining ourselves will not be sustainable, now what exactly will be artificial restrainment, that we will have to observe over a period of time, that means if we are at a crossroads in our life and we are thinking should I do this or should I do that, should I take a higher paying job which is also having more demands, should I take a lower paying job which is less demanding, this is something which is a major decision and we cannot take it on the impulses or on our basis, just on our feelings, we need to observe what is our overall temperament, so for taking major decisions in our life, it is good to do some kind of writing down, to do some kind of journaling where we write down the pros and cons of things, why do I want to do this, what are my apprehensions about doing this, write it down systematically and when we get things out of our head, that itself brings some detachment and objectivity in our thinking of those things, as long as they are inside our head, maybe I should do this, maybe I should do that, we just keep going round and round, they consume our mental space, get it out and keep it written down, so when we write down our apprehensions and our aspirations put together, then that becomes like a snapshot of our mind, we take memories, physical camera, we take snapshots, but we take a snapshot of our mind and then we, after one week, after one month, after three months, after six months, if we again write down, we want to write everything down, but basically any additional thought that comes up, we write it down and then after six months, we see that consistently, this is what has been happening, then that is not just a passing impulse, it is the stable state of our mind, that is our temperament, but if we find that now I am feeling like this, after one week I feel something different, then I start to know all these factors also have to be considered, then after one week I think something else also, then gradually accumulate that and then think in a more detached way, in a more objective way, not necessarily detached way, in an objective way, we are detached from those feelings and then we arrive at a mature decision, so that line of how much is enough, that is something which we have to, no doubt we use Shastra, but we are all individuals and we have to make the decision based on what is best sustainable for us, it is something like eating, how much to eat, nobody can tell us, should I take two chapatis or four chapatis, should I take five chapatis, some people they just eat, there is little imbalance in their eating and they get upset, there are other people who treat their tongue like a conveyor belt and still they seem to go on nicely, so they are physically different, so what will be a healthy diet for different people, even in the Pandavas, Bhima's diet was phenomenal, when Draupadi was married, Kunti told her how to serve food to the Pandavas, she said whatever food you get, make it in two divisions, one division goes to Bhima and the remaining is divided into five and you will all take it, that's how they would eat, that is Bhima's meal and Kunti did not tell it in the mood of making fun of Bhima, that you are eating so much, that was his meal, so all of us are different and what will be that line for us, that is something which we are observing ourselves consistently over a period of time, can learn. Thank you very much.