Spirituality and Business

Keynote address during panel discussion organized by Artha Forum at Sacramento, USA

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Here we comprehend the summaries of such a kind of philosophy Please go ahead So with respect to leadership we all talk about, people talk about fire it’s a fire of leadership you get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them but by building a fire within so we can push people, leaders are people who don’t just do things but they have to get things done from others and one way to get things done from others is by pushing them there is a characteristic policy but if people can be inspired from within, if there is a fire lit within them then they take responsibility for what they are doing and then they do much more than what they would do otherwise Bhagavad Gita talks about lighting the fire within and one of the messages of the Bhagavad Gita is that this is an example of Krishna Krishna was a speaker himself leadership is not a matter of designation it’s a matter of disposition there can be people who are appointed as leaders they get the designation but if they do not have the disposition of wanting to bring out the best from within their subordinates then often they end up underusing or even abusing the resources that are provided to them so leadership is essentially it’s a matter of designation, it’s not a matter of designation, although different people may be positioned as leaders in different places of society but every one of us at one level is a leader and anyone who takes up the disposition of leadership has the opportunity to make constructive contributions John Maxwell is a leadership consultant and he says that are leaders born or made that’s a perennial question that comes up so he says that every one of us is ultimately a leader so he always tells us that even the most introverted individual will influence 10,000 other people during his or her lifetime so even if we have no post we have no nature of mixing too much with people but still just observing us, people are learning so every one of us is by default in a small or great circle leader or then you speak of people who are actually in leadership positions so we are all leaders and not just at the personal level at a personal level we are leaders but at a social level also many of us are leaders now what is the Bhagavad Gita’s take on leadership go ahead so the Gita is a conversation between leaders the Gita is among the world’s many wisdom literature that are there the Gita is probably having the most dramatic setting war is about to take place armies are assembled elephants are trumpeting, the horses are neighing, the conches are blown the horse hooves are thudding the dust clouds are billowing and there is tension and passion in the atmosphere at that time and you know expert teachers use experiential learning take the students to the field and let them learn from the experience but Krishna he is the consulate teacher he transforms a battlefield into a classroom he transforms a battlefield into a classroom and by his presence and presentation he raises the student Arjuna’s level of consciousness to a level far beyond the battle that is going on outside in fact the outer battle is the smaller distraction that Krishna as a teacher has to overcome that there is a bigger battle going on in Arjuna’s mind in the Bhagavad Gita we just go by its setting oh there is a warrior who lost his school before the war and didn’t want to fight and then Krishna didn’t fight the war so that sort of work would not have had much relevance for millenia, for millions of people who have had nothing to do with battlefield so the Bhagavad Gita enduring relevance is because the battlefield is a setting which catches attention what philosophy has to do on the battlefield so similarly the question about leadership is something there to do what would spirituality have to do with that the Gita uses the most what people might consider anti-spiritual setting a setting of war to demonstrate how spirituality is needed even in such a setting Rajna took time out and needed that time because before he could fight the outer war he had to win the inner war the inner war was between his emotion and his reason the inner war was between his emotions which made him stray from a challenging duty that was set upon him and his reason which was temporarily overpowered so in that battle and this is a battle which all of us go through at different times especially in sports we say that there are players or there are even teams we say they choke under pressure and then they are from winning situation because their emotions catch hold they squander the chances so the battle between emotion and reason is what the Bhagavad Gita addresses in its message its essential message is at the start of the Gita Arjuna has put down his bow in the first chapter 46th verse it is described in the Bhagavad Gita that Arjuna has put aside his bow now Arjuna’s bow represents the human drive to achieve for Arjuna as an archer bow is the tool with which he is going to achieve so the bow in general for all of us represents the human drive to achieve to do justice to our potential to do good to whatever talents we have been given and to make contributions to the world so this drive to achieve when we face challenges, adversities and reversals in the outer world we metaphorically are tempted to put aside our bow why take all the trouble by the end of the Bhagavad Gita it is the Bhagavad Gita concludes the vision that is 18.78 states Yatra Yogeshwar Krishna Pitra Partha Dhanur Dharaha Partha Dhanur Dharaha Arjuna Dhanur Dharaha, he has picked up his bow and he is ready to fight again he is ready to take up the call of duty and what that represents is that the message of the Bhagavad Gita demonstrates the transformational power of spiritual love there what Krishna speaks to Arjuna in the Gita enables Arjuna to restore his morale and to raise his bow and again become ready to fight whatever battles life sends our way so if we see here Krishna demonstrates his leadership potential by inspiring a disheartened friend for whom he becomes a victim but Krishna is a leader in his own right if we look at the background Krishna rose from obscurity and adversity just right in his childhood even before he was born there was a conspiracy of who to kill him and he had to be sequestered away in a pastoral village and that’s where he lived dodging many dangerous assassins who had sent his way and then eventually he came back and he overthrew the tyrant who had been persecuting the world at that time and yet after that Krishna had the right to become a king but he chose not to become a king he had his grandfather Ugrasen be the king so Krishna put contribution above position he did the royal responsibilities but he did not choose the royal designation in a society where often we see that there are leaders who are primarily concerned with what we can get rather than what we can give Krishna is an example of doing contribution without seeking the position so Krishna is a leader in his own way and then we look at Arjuna next slide so Arjuna is also a leader he was not just a dynasty he was born in a royal dynasty and along with that virtuosity he was a great archer there is a time when a leader’s potential different cultures a leader’s capacities are evaluated in different ways in a martial culture so martial skills were considered to be one of the prime determiners of the leadership potential of a person so Arjuna was the topmost archer in a time when there were many celebrated archers so both by his dynasty and by his virtuosity by his ability he was a great archer and then these two leaders engaged in a conversation and this conversation which they engaged in was not just armchair chat on a Sunday night after a full meal that’s casual but when Arjuna and Krishna were discussing this was a very serious talk Arjuna said what am I asking you Arjuna didn’t simply ask Krishna should I fight or should I not fight that is a circumstantial question but the essential question that he has is how do we know what we should do in our life Dharma as was hinted by Mr.Katev that Sanatana Dharma it is not just about some sectarian designation Hinduism as a functional name ok we need some name to designate people who have certain beliefs so Hinduism is fine for that purpose but if you look at essential teachings it is about understanding our own nature if Dharma is anything it is simply harmonising with who we are Dharma is essentially the process of understanding our nature and harmonising with who we are so the Bhagavad Gita is when Arjuna asks what is it that I should do so what is my duty that word duty in English is a pale equivalent of the many rich connotations of Dharma Dharma essentially means not just some duty which some society some country some group has imposed upon us Dharma is the set of activities that helps us return to our nature that helps us harmonise with who we are that is said that what we are is God’s gift to us and what we become is our gift to God so what we are we all have certain talents whatever we have is God’s gift to us but the way we grow those talents the contribution that we make to those talents that is our gift to God so now the Bhagavad Gita talks about not just change of perception that there is we can talk about see see the bigger picture Dr. Kulkarni talked about this so now there is two things there is change of perception and there is change of perspective change of perception there is a glass of water famous example some people see it as half empty others see it as half full you don’t see it as half empty you see it as half full that is a change of perception change of perception means we change what we see or rather change what we focus on the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t just focus on this don’t just change your perception change your perspective perspective means from where we see not just what we see but from where we see so that means suppose we are caught in a hurricane and maybe there is some fire broke out somewhere we will be in a panicky situation but if a helicopter comes overhead and air lifts us we are still in that area but now we are not immediately threatened by that circumstance why because we have been lifted above that situation so when we look at that same hurricane hit area from above we are seeing from a different perspective when we see from a different perspective our not just what we focus on changes but what we see also changes we are able to see a much bigger picture so one of the central threads of the Gita is Yoga Yoga nowadays is in here in America it is mostly about physical postures for improving health in India to some extent Yoga has become exercise for political posture where people are trying to say that Yoga is means to prove India’s greatness to the world which is fine as far as it goes both are ok as far as they go we can use Yoga for good health and Yoga has come from India so credit can be given to India for that but the essence of Yoga is actually connection in the Yoga Sutra Patanjali says that what is Yoga? he says that when the mind keeps going externally it stops going externally and turns inwards that is the essence of Yoga so when the Bhagavad Gita is teaching about Yoga is about turning our consciousness inwards so when we turn inwards actually we automatically go upwards our existence is two dimensional there is a spiritual side to us and there is a material side to us Martin Luther King was referred to earlier as a prominent leader he said that we live in an age of guided missiles and misguided men we have guided missiles we have phenomenal technology today for precisely guiding external objects but unfortunately we have misguided people there are many sobering aspects of this freedom to misguide there are 1 million people who commit suicide every year this count 1 million is more than the total number of people who are killed every year through murders through violent crimes, through terrorist attacks through wars all combined together that means more than the number of people who are being killed by others are the number of people who are killing themselves so why is this? suicide is of course a complex problem but one common denominator when people start thinking of suicide taking steps towards this then they feel that life has no point that life is a dead end that whatever I am trying to achieve in life it’s worthless it’s not going to happen so what that answer is our life has a material side our life has a spiritual side when we focus only on the material side material things are external to us they are not always in our control and when those things go out of control and this happens often in business and in leadership we prepare a lot for certain plans and projects and suddenly some contingency comes up some war breaks out somewhere some natural calamity happens the market crash happens we cannot prepare for everything so if our whole life is wedded in externals then when a storm comes externally we collapse not only is the external world collapsed our inner world collapses but when we understand our spiritual side and understand it not just intellectually but also experientially by the practise of yoga as I said I talked about air lifting a person above a hurricane so the practise of yoga is a practise that lifts our consciousness upwards from the material level to the spiritual so when our consciousness is raised upwards still we can see the problems while a spiritualist can be concerned about problems without being disturbed by problems spirituality is not about rejecting the world as false but it is about rejecting being consumed by the world we know that we are bigger that we are atma which is destructive that means we at our core are bigger than any problem that might be sent out and further when we understand our spiritual identity we are raised upwards after we are raised upwards we look at that problem with greater calmness Lord Krishna says in 18.58 says if you become conscious of me you will pass over all obstacles by my grace if however you act out of ego not caring me you will be lost so what this means in our context is that when we face challenges in the external world sometimes we dwell our problems more and more and more and the more we think of a problem the problem becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and that worry sucks and saps our mental energy and in that way people become disempowered themselves so when we say people are misguided misguided means what is that misguiding what is that thing that misguides that is our own misdirected focus the more we think of problems the more those problems become bigger and bigger so the Bhagavad Gita is essentially saying over here don’t tell God how big your problems are tell your problems how big God is if we are conscious of the supreme reality we are conscious of our spiritual side and we are conscious of the supreme me as a supreme brain we connect with him then my chitta that gives us the reassurance that there is something higher which is always there with us this air lifting of our consciousness to a higher level of reality is something which is repeatable anyone who practises the process of yoga there are different processes of yoga what is recommended in this age is the process of mantra yoga mantra you can envision it as a consciousness which is elevated some of you may have taken a staircase to come up others may have taken an elevator either way it could come up so when our consciousness is caught in small small things then if we practise the process of mantra meditation and practising the process of mantra meditation is not just uttering the mantra uttering the mantra is just the beginning we utter the mantra so that the mantra creates like a spiritual vibration all around us and when we see ourselves in the spiritual vibration our consciousness gets raised upwards when our consciousness is raised upwards Albert Einstein said that problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created those problems so few years ago I was invited at the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations and the head of the Indian division she was speaking that the United Nations was started with very benevolent intention and many benevolent workers and millions of volunteers, billions of dollars have been spent in it and here in almost all the fields where the United Nations has been acting unfortunately things have not improved substantially things have only become whether we talk about war avoidance whether we talk about elimination of weapons of mass destruction whether we talk about ecology things are only going downwards and there can of course be many factors for this but one factor which is as I was talking about ethics now there is the understanding that we should follow ethics but why should we follow ethics if our world view is primarily materialistic where we think that there is no importance given to life’s spiritual side then success means getting more and more and more then if I have to get more and more and more and that is all that leads to success then why should I let ethics come in the way and nobody may say this so bluntly but underlying it without a spiritual world view anything that checks us in gaining more and more that is an obstacle so the question was raised about how how can we be spiritual which requires being compassionate and we live in a competitive world the Bhagavad Gita analyses various activities in its framework of three modes three modes Satyogana, Rajogana, Tamogana these modes we can envision as as subtle forces that shape the interaction between consciousness and things around us so Satyogana, Rajogana, Tamogana is goodness, passion and ignorance illustrate that and then I will come to the subject of competition and compassion so suppose people are watching a movie and suddenly a fire breaks out so now people who are in Tamogana, the mode of ignorance they just get petrified petrified completely and the fire will burn and they will not move at all so there are people in Rajogana they are hyperactive, so normally whenever there is something like a fire they are all stampede towards the exit and that that will create a stampede that will offer more than the fire causing injury it is the stampede that may cause injury people in goodness they are thoughtful there is a fire extinguisher look at the fire extinguisher and they immediately go ahead go to the fire extinguisher and extinguish the fire so these are frames of mental functioning the three modes and we could consider that as if we have a car with different gears these are three gears for our mental functioning for the functioning of our mental injury and so if you put it in another way some people make things happen some people watch things happen and some people wonder what happened so those who make things happen are in Tamogana those who watch things happen what should I do about this they are running around doing 100 things people in Rajogana in passion are active without being productive they are doing this, doing that but not producing results so that is people in Tamogana wonder what is going on so when there is contemplation and action that is Satogana when there is action without contemplation that is Rajogana and when there is neither action nor contemplation this is impulsive response that is Tamogana so competition can also be in different modes all competition is not necessarily undesirable sometimes competition is a spur that brings out the mess within people so there are in sports examples of healthy rivalries there are two players say for example tennis is a team sport the two players they are rivals and each of them helps each other to rise to a higher and higher level so that sort of competition actually helps each of them to become better and the competition can be very fierce in the arena of the sport but outside there is no personal animosity so that sort of competition is Satvik in the mode of goodness where we want to do the best that we can and yes in that process if someone is defeated our purpose is not defeating that person our purpose is doing our best and we live in a world where competition is unavoidable but we don’t have to make it ugly or destructive whereas in the mode of the other extreme, in the mode of ignorance competition means one just doesn’t want to excel one simply wants to destroy the competition destroy everyone else so the idea is if everyone else is destroyed I will get the whole pie but what I have learned to deserve the pie nothing practical so destructive competition is what is definitely undesirable and there can also be rajasic competition in the mode of when there is competition there may not be we may not destroy our rivals but we make the rivalry into something like an enemy where we hold personal animosity towards others so that is something there is we are spiritual beings whereas we are living in this material world in the material world in the outer world there is a fundamentally common paradox that there are finite resources and that’s why for those finite resources there is going to be competition but when there is goodness there is an equitable matching of talents with vocations that means in today’s society often we have unfair competition where say as was mentioned everybody wants their children to become engineers or doctors so then sometimes some students are just not made to be engineers and then they are they don’t have that mathematical skills or whatever they are supposed to compete with others who have those mathematical skills then it’s a difficult competition for them so in sattva guna we recognise that competitions are inevitable but rather than imposing one definition of success on everyone and only if you succeed in this you are successful otherwise you are not so we let people be individuals and develop their own talents and achieve success according to their definitions so that way there is competition but that competition rather than requiring there are three levels of competition there is competition which is artificially created because everyone is pressurised to get through the same thing so if everyone is pressurised to become an engineer to become a doctor then there is unnecessary competition in the medical and engineering fields and many other fields they don’t get talented through this so sometimes there is socio-cultural pressure that increases competition in certain fields that can be avoided and then further if we see there is competition that is natural where the competition rather than being stepping on other’s foot it is more about expressing oneself the best so if all of us develop our talents and we live in an environment where people are encouraged to be their best rather than the best the best is decided by someone else then we compete rather than competing with others we compete with ourselves then we can always be on the path of self-excellence so we can be compassionate towards others in intention in function depending on time and circumstance we may have to be competitive but that compassionate intention comes out even in competition not in the sense that we don’t perform but in the sense that we don’t make success so important that we have to destroy the other person we don’t try to destroy the other person nor do we bring personal animosity to the competition that way there can be healthy competition very good topic thank you so this is off track so regarding the Bhagavad Gita so what Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita is as I mentioned that I was talking about that mind is leading people to it actually it is the mind that mind by mind I mean the inner world which has become turbulent for Arjuna and the inner world has become turbulent for all of us in different ways so if we connect ourselves with the spiritual reality through yoga mantra yoga especially sound vibration can be like a consciousness when our consciousness is elevated upwards we can be concerned without being disturbed so we can deal with problems without being consumed by them and this is especially important for novice because for a leader every small decision can be hugely consequential it can be devastating if some decision turns out to be wrong and this itself creates a big pressure so the avenue to release mental pressure is far more important far more needed for leaders and that’s why Krishna is considered in the tradition to be God he could have spoken the Bhagavad Gita to anywhere and to anyone but he speaks it in a demanding setting and he speaks it as a conversation between leaders to demonstrate the universality of his message the universality, the necessity and the urgency of his message so what the Gita tells us about leadership is that each of us has a spiritual side and the more we connect to that spiritual side the more we can bring out the best in us and we can build the way that we can bring out the best within us. The Bhagavad Gita in this sense has an inside out approach to leadership inside out means the question is are leaders born or are leaders made so there are certain skills of public leadership that everyone may not have everyone may not be a great speaker everyone may not have charisma everyone may not have excellent organisational or delegational skills. These are skills that some people can have, some people may not have but leadership is not shaped only by these qualities leadership is shaped by one’s own disposition of wanting to be a contribution.
If that inner sense of inner disposition is there, then everyone can act as a leader. So the Bhagavad Gita by its inside out approach it does not focus on public speaking skills it does not focus on delegation and management. But what focus is on is what we can do internally by which we can make the best use of our authority our ability to tap our ability is enhanced by our spirituality our ability to tap our ability we have certain abilities but if we do not have inner stability, if we do not have inner clarity we will not be able to use our abilities so our ability to tap our ability is enhanced by our spirituality I will conclude with one example of how this can happen most of us live such a fast paced, stressful life that we all inevitably face stress, anxiety, worry whatever we call it now worry is something very peculiar in the sense that actually it consumes a lot of energy while staying invisible that we never put in our schedule 7 to 7.30 worry time nobody does that but worry is a constant background noise which distracts us it sucks our energy now definitely there are worrying situations in life and sometimes if people don’t pay attention to those situations sometimes children fearlessly run towards a fire and seeing that may make their mother fearful child is fearless, the mother becomes fearful there are situations when we should worry, that means we should be responsible and concerned but when worry consumes us then it sucks our ability to deal with external situations so worry is caused not so much by external uncertainty although that is what often we think is the trigger of worry this goes wrong, this meeting doesn’t work out we can’t meet this deadline what will happen? we often think that the external uncertainty is the cause of worry and this is true to some extent but anxiety has been studied by researchers all over the world and especially because the world health organisation has recognised that in this century mental health problems are going to be the biggest health challenge so an intriguing pattern has been found that external uncertainties are far more in the developing countries than in the developed countries in India if you wake up in the morning and turn on the power switch, you cannot be sure whether the power is going to be there or not which a problem is very rare in the developed countries so external uncertainties are far more in the developing countries than in the developed countries and yet anxiety levels are higher in the developed countries than in the developing countries not only that researchers have also found that when people move from the developing countries to the developed countries their anxiety levels often go up now why is that? if externally there is a greater level of certainty there is a greater level of reliability why is anxiety increasing? so actually anxiety is caused not so much by external uncertainty as it is caused by inner instability inner instability means if we do not have something to centre us internally something to shelter and strengthen us internally then because of that inner instability we remain constantly anxious just like if a person is in a boat, in an ocean in the ocean the waves are always going to be there and a person will be tossed up and down but if that person is instead in a boat and that boat is connected to an anchor then although the waves will be there the waves will be much lesser, the effect of the waves on the person will be much lesser so the boat and the anchor will shelter the person so this is same applies to our life also, to our consciousness also the world is always going to be filled with waves of ups and downs so if we are just caught in the world completely then we will also be shaken shattered and battered but if we are sheltered, so spirituality by the broad culture, the culture that we have which is a spiritual culture that acts like a boat and within that our personal spiritual practises, our own mantra, our own meditation that acts like our anchor so to the extent we are anchored spiritually, to the extent we will find that our anxiety levels will go down we will be able to deal with external situations with greater maturity greater clarity therefore greater effectiveness so the Bhagavad Gita essentially if you see sometimes people think if you become spiritual you are mentioning about how we should have ministers so many times people are afraid if my son is to become minister that means he will renounce the world and that’s not what I want my son to do or my children to do there will be some people who may renounce the world and actually speaking you see the ideal which the Bhagavad Gita teaches is even those who renounce the world do so so that they can contribute to the world in a different way when you are talking about education, when I was in engineering, I was a part of the social welfare organisation I used to go and teach English, Maths, History to slum children near my college I was doing that for quite a few months and one of my friends who was doing this much more than me he used to go to a village and he had practically started raising the literacy level in the whole village and when I used to go to the slums the parents of the children would come and they would see what I am teaching their mothers would be grateful, their fathers would be courteous but later on these children confided to me that many of their parents were uncontrolled alcoholics they would say that when they drink, they become a different person and a whole nice village is coming but then one day my friend came back from the village where he would go for his education programmes he was just devastated and I asked him what happened so he said that he had gone to this village where he also had the problem of rampant alcoholism was much more and he had actually talked with the children, talked with their parents and he told the parents especially the fathers, many of them had persuaded them to regulate or to stop their alcohol consumption and that was considered to be one of the successes of that social welfare organisation but just a few days before there had been elections and the local political candidate had bought three trucks full of free liquor and not just the fathers but even the children had all drunk and my friend was utterly shattered so at that time it led me to the question that yes, we talk about education I am trying to teach maths, I am trying to teach English I am trying to teach history this will help the students to get better jobs but for many people in the world there is a problem which is self-created unemployment is a problem which will be created by the society but a self-created problem is one’s own uncontrolled sentences and when I thought about this this was not, I was in one of the top colleges in India but I saw that the students who were just like that even in my college just one year ahead of me as a student the topper threw up and he ate so because of excessive smoking and drinking six months later he got a job in a top company he got lung cancer and he died so now I started thinking that if I want to make some contribution in life I can become an engineer or I can become a teacher and I will make some contribution but I felt that what was needed more was sharing some knowledge which could empower people from building we can have technical education which can empower people economically to earn and that is important but we also need to empower people in building, empower people spiritually so that they don’t make self-sabotaging choices for some people self-sabotaging choices may just be anxiety but for some others self-sabotaging choices may be much more harmful may be just self-destructive addictive habits so at that time I was introduced to the Bhagavad Gita and then I started studying the Bhagavad Gita I started conducting a programme in the Bhagavad Gita in my hostel so I would invite some Bhagavad Gita teachers to come and teach and then I found that many of my friends became changed I was changed I felt here is a means this positive change was something which happened organically it was not like someone forced us to do something but rather we felt ourselves inspired to make different choices to make healthier choices in our life so there may be so when you talk about priests it’s not just those who renounce the world they can be a small minority most of my friends who study the Bhagavad Gita like me some of them are engineers, some of them are businessmen some of them are professors they are all in the world but they are in their own way priests in their circles they study the Bhagavad Gita they share the Bhagavad Gita’s message and they become spiritual ambassadors in a materialistic world while being a part of the world they are yet a part of the world they are a part of the world and yet they are apart from the world so they are a part of the world in the sense that they are having formations in the world but they are apart in the sense that they are spiritual and actually that is the message of the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna was a warrior and Arjuna would sooner or later have fought the war but what Krishna told Arjuna is change your consciousness change your consciousness and that changing our consciousness is if a leader does that that can have an effect that percolates through the whole society and that is what the Bhagavad Gita does inside the leadership is primarily if you give attention to our spiritual side you can bring out the best within us and you can help others bring out their best Thank you very much So I thank all of you for