| Secret of
Performantial Excellence |
 |
by Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha
[On
16th November 2000, Poojya Swamiji addressed a group of
power management professionals undertaking a two-week
orientation course at the Institute of National Thermal
Power Corporation, in their auditorium, at NOIDA, near New
Delhi. The audience comprised senior managers from various
units of the NTPC in the country and persons from the
medical and engineering fields with vast experience in their
respective areas. The topic was: “Secret of Performantial
Excellence”.]
Right
at the outset Swamiji pointed out that performance was an
expression or a manifestation of the performer. Hence the
focus should be on the performer. Unless the performer is
'excellent', the performance couldn’t be so.
Swamiji
then elaborated on the qualities that go to make the
performer excellent. Human personality, he said, is a
psycho-physical aggregate. The physical part consists of the
body-sense-complex, made of matter and energy. When you
reach the mind level, you transcend matter. It is from this
mind that you have to evolve and develop whatever excellence
you want. All actions proceed from the mind and the results
are also registered in the mind. The mind is the source as
well as the terminus for all actions and their results. So, excellence
of the mind alone will result in excellence of the performer
and his performance.
Therefore
the effort should be to develop the excellence of the mind.
The mind has immense potential lying untapped or unutilized.
The mind can assimilate any kind of input. And it can be
trained to produce the required
effective output under any circumstances. This is
achieved through introspection and right understanding. All
inputs to the mind from interaction with the world should
enrich you and sublimate your personality, instead of
overpowering you.
We
know a great deal about the world but only very little about
ourselves. Knowledge about the object world and the
knowledge about the inner Self should go together in
harmony. There is no reason why they should not. After you
get exposed to the Truths, you must reflect over what has
been said, and what you have heard. Repeated reflection on
the matter will bring in more and more of clarity and
finally these ideas will become your own. That will be the
dawning of excellence in you. Wherever you go, whatever you
do, your excellent personality will be revealed.
The
talk was followed by a question-answer session:
Q.
Swamiji, what is the
method for controlling the mind? The mind is generally
tempestuous and it flitters from one thought to another.
This
is what Arjuna asked Krishna during the Bhagavadgeeta
dialogue. Krishna answered: Abhyaasena
tu kaunteya vairaagyena ca grhyate – by diligent practice and
with a measure of enlightened
dispassion one can achieve control over the mind.
I
would like to tell
you something slightly different. Don’t
try to control the mind. Instead, try to harmonize and
sublimate the mind. Every
interaction should only enrich your mind. Just as you
feed the body to nourish and strengthen it, you also feed
the mind with nourishing thoughts.
The
mind survives on thoughts. So don’t try to control the
mind. We only want the mind to have a harmonious and
beneficial flow of thoughts – thoughts that are creative
and promotional. As is the blood circulating, so is the mind
engaged in thinking. In doing so it always connects the past
with the present and projects a concern for the future. This
flow is not to be interrupted. It
is to be sublimated. This is certainly possible.
Q.
Is
it necessary to seek a teacher’s help to learn about the mind?
We
send children to school so that they may get the right
knowledge about various subjects for conducting day to day
activities and living fruitfully. This is generally not
possible in the household atmosphere. Similarly in this
field too, you need the help of a teacher to facilitate your
pursuit.
Generally,
right from the time of birth, we are given to
looking outward. For day to day problems and for any
difficult situation, we generally search for a solution
outside. But the real solution. to all problems of life lie
within us. We miss it – partly because of our ignorance
and partly because of our bondage
to likes and dislikes. Naturally, to know the secret and
to apply it to our life, should we not go to a person who
knows and is ready to guide us?
For
acquiring knowledge on all worldly topics, we are ready to
go to a person who has specialized in it. Only in this field
of discovering the nuances of the mind and dealing with
their complexities – which is perhaps the most difficult
and subtle field of study – why do we express so much of
doubt and reluctance? You are free to do it yourself if you
can; but will not the instruction and guidance from a person
with the required wisdom and expertise make your progress
easy?
Q.
We
are often confused, Swamiji, about spiritual saadhana.
Please tell us frankly whether it is absolutely essential to
renounce and to go to an Ashram to pursue saadhana.
Let
us not suddenly bring in renunciation. Just think, how many
teachers are there in our society? Compared to the number of
persons who study, only very few become teachers. Similarly,
renunciates or exclusive spiritual seekers and teachers will
also be very few, by the very law of nature.
But
the values the renunciates represent and the eternal message
of renunciation are applicable to all. You need understand
and appreciate those values and try to practise them in your
life. That can very well be done along with your
professional and domestic life. In fact, spiritual knowledge
and dispassion will only enrich your professional and family
life. When you pursue this interactional saadhana sincerely
and diligently,
then indeed will wholesome renunciation take place on its
own accord as a natural consequence of the mind-expansion
process.
Q.
Swamiji, you have been mentioning about mind-sublimation.
Could you kindly explain to us what you exactly mean by
sublimation?
You
know words like purity, divinity, serenity, sublimity –
all of these convey something pleasant and lofty. They
indicate a feeling of elevation, expansion and lightness.
The word ‘mind-sublimation’ specially emphasizes a
transformation of the attitude that makes our gross vision
subtle.
When
a couple gets married, they should feel sublime! Not “Oh!
I have got married and got into problems!” Nor like “Oh!
I have got married and I must enjoy life!” Not at all. The
couple should feel sublime thinking of the great import and
responsibility the institution of marriage bestows upon
them. And when a child is born, the girl, who has suddenly
become a mother, should behold divinity in the child and
feel very sublime and elevated.
Similarly,
a businessman generally has a very constricted attitude
about his business because he thinks only in terms of his
own profit and loss. But truly speaking, is not business a
great and indispensable service to the society? Can the
society live without the service of businessmen? Wherefrom
will you get your food, dress and building material? But,
seldom does a businessman remember the greatness of his
service or the corresponding responsibility involved. As
long as he thinks only in terms of his own profit, his mind
does not get sublimated. Profit you have to make. Can any
business survive without making profit? But, try to
understand that profit is not the only purpose of your
business. Instead, think of it and run it as a service to
the humanity. If you can do so with a broad, comprehensive
attitude, your mind will get sublimated. That will also
bring performantial excellence in your life.
So,
by every action of yours, you should be able to generate an
elevating and sublimating effect in your mind. Is it clear?
Q.
Swamiji,
while mentioning the different constituents of our
personality, you said buddhi is superior to our mind, and
then mentioned something as still superior to our
intelligence. What is that which is higher than buddhi?
See,
we say my house, my watch, my hand, my body, my mind, etc.
What does it mean? That all these are different from me.
Everything other than me is an
object for ‘me’. When it comes to ‘me’ there is
no further division. It is this ‘me’– which you refer
to as ‘I’ – that is the most superior. Superior to
everything. It is in relation to this ‘I’ that all
experiences take place.
Q.
What name do you give to this ‘I’? Is it Paramaatmaa?
The
definition of the word atma is: “aham pratyaya
gocarah – Whatever is perceived as I”. ‘I’ is
called the Self. It is also the paramaatma
and the supreme Truth. It is the One Subject of all the
objects of the universe.
Q.
Swamiji, should the
head rule over the heart?
Well,
the heart should rule the intelligence and the intelligence
should rule the heart also. There must be harmony between
the two. You should not be all emotional and also not all
dry intellectual. There should be a beautiful blend of buddhi
and bhaava.
Q.
Swamiji, where
does the soul go when the body falls?
(Poojya
Swamiji laughs heartily)
See,
from the topic of “Performantial Excellence” you are
dragging me into spiritual discussions that will be most
difficult for you to absorb. Well, I shall explain it as
simply as possible. But, whether you will be able to grasp
it I do not know. I have been explaining this truth to my
regular listeners for decades, but even now they ask the
same question (Swamiji
laughs again).
It
is a very tentative statement to say that when somebody
dies, the soul goes elsewhere. That is not true. If the Soul is all-pervading; how can it ‘go’ or ‘come’? Can
the space enter or leave anything? When you understand the
Self properly, the very question of death will not hold
ground.
In
death, the body becomes non-functional; the spirit does not
go anywhere. Why don’t you try to find out what is this
Soul in the living body – before death? Why do you worry
about what happens to the soul after death?
Q.
You say that every act
of ours should give us joy. If so, what about the
murderer’s act of killing?
I
was telling you that we must be able to do every action in a
sublimating manner and be sublimated by it. This is the
formula I presented for achieving excellence in performance.
Are you asking this in the same light? The murderer derives
his own measure of ‘joy’ by his sinful act of murder.
That is not the kind of joy I meant. The murderer’s
enjoyment does not come under the category of sublimity.
See,
Arjuna had to fight the Kurukshetra war and had to kill his
own most respected preceptor and beloved grandfather.
Initially he could not look at the act with a sublime
attitude. That is why he refused to fight. But finally,
after Krishna’s enlightening instructions he could do it
in a sublime manner. So, there are occasions when apparently
sinful actions become greatly sublimating.
Q.
Swamiji, you mentioned
about the depth of interaction.
What does it mean?
In
any interaction, the sublimating process has very much to do
with the depth of
interaction. Unless you are able to touch a deeper dimension
while acting, this sublimity will not be possible at all.
Whatever may be the action or the interaction, the mind has
to strike a broader and deeper perspective. Only then the
interaction will become a saadhana for you and will result
in sublimation of your mind.
When
a singer sings, if his voice originates from the navel
region and rises through the heart, throat, tongue and the
nasal region, then his music will be soulful and deep. It
will be touching the listeners’ hearts too. In the same
manner, in everything that you do, in everything that you
see, there should reflect the depth of your personality,
your perception. In addition to whatever you perform
externally or objectively, there will be a subjective deeper
note added to it. And this depth should go on increasing as
you progress in your saadhana.
Q.
What
should be the ultimate goal of human life?
The
goal of human life is to have a sense of fulfillment.
Q.
What is that fulfillment?
Fulfillment
is a very common expression. If you say – “Yes, I have
had a good deal from life and I am happy”– it means that
whatever you gave to the world and whatever you got back
from the world were both satisfactory to you. This type of
fulfillment is not easy unless you strike the spiritual
depth and dimension in your personality.
It
is not possible to always do what is right in this world. By
a note of sublimity you can be harmonious with even
disharmonious situations. Sometimes a good parent has to
live with a bad offspring. The father doesn’t approve of
his son’s behaviour, but yet he accommodates it.
Take
the case of Arjuna. He had fought and won so many battles.
But when he faced his own kith and kin in the Kurukshetra
war, he got disturbed. Nevertheless he had to fight! Finally
he got the required spiritual insight from Krishna. This
gave him the needed strength to reconcile with the otherwise
irreconcilable situation.
In
the Bhagavadgeeta, Sri Krishna says that a person with samabuddhi
will always be prepared to accept and reconcile with any
situation. So you must be able to provide a place for
all in your mind – be he a friend, an enemy, a good person
or a bad person. You should not hate or blame anybody.
To
a person who is inimical to you, you can always foster the
attitude: “Well, you may think that I am your enemy. I
give you the freedom to do so. But I have the freedom to
think that you are not my enemy!” This kind of attitude is
possible and good.
So,
to attain fulfillment in this world of contradictions, one
has to rise to a level of transcendence and discover the
deeper laws of harmony and righteousness. Religious piety,
goodness and honesty alone will not be sufficient.
Q.
Can mental tensions be relieved by physical yoga?
Physical
yoga will help you to have a better health, and therefore,
also a better mind. But spiritual pursuit comes under a
deeper and higher yoga. In fact the entire Bhagavadgeeta is
called a yoga-saastra.
Is there any mention of aasana
or mudra in the Geeta, except only once in the 6th chapter? It speaks only about
the mind. It is a scripture of the ‘mind-yoga’.
What
exactly is the mind-yoga? Sri Krishna calls it
buddhi-yoga and Samatva yoga. It deals with the attainment of poise and stability
of the intelligence and fulfillment of the mind. In the case
of body, it is through aasanas,
and it is called yogaasana.
Supreme felicity of the mind can be attained only through
mind-based saadhana. Freedom from all doubts and ignorance
can be had only through intelligence-based saadhana. That is
why it is called buddhi-yoga. The transcendental evenness of
the mind cannot be attained by physical yoga.
Q.
Swamiji, if all people become fulfilled, will not the world
come to an end?
Why?
Not at all! Fulfillment does not mean the end of all
activities. On the other hand it is the beginning of more intense and more comprehensive activity. A fulfilled
person will have a mind as vast and light as the space. He
becomes a mighty performer, and also a great enjoyer as well
as sufferer. It is such people that Nature selects for great
and noble work.
I
gave you the example of the ocean. Many rivers flow into the
ocean. The rivers carry mud, dirt and other impurities. The
mighty ocean simply accepts them all, purifies the water by
its own salinity and then sends the clean vapour up to the
sky, to come back as rain and flow as rivers again.
When
a person’s mind has thus acquired the magnitude and
dimension of his core personality – his own Self –
renunciation follows naturally. He finds that he can no more
be restricted to the boundaries of family relationships. The
entire creation becomes his own ‘family’. With this
greater dimension he begins to welcome more inputs and gives
more and more of useful output to the society and Nature at
large.
Q.
Can
the Knower who is beyond the mind and knowledge be known?
The
knowing power in us is called the intelligence. Now you are
employing your intelligence
only to know about the objects perceived by your senses.
The same intelligence can be turned inwards to know the
knower. Light reveals the other objects. It is also
self-revealing. Similarly the knowing power in us is capable
of knowing the Subject in us. So, the knower can certainly
be known! Only then the process of knowing becomes complete
and fulfilled.
Q.
Swamiji, the mind tells us to do what is right. Then who
tells us to do wrong?
We
have righteous motivations. We also have wrong compulsions.
Our mind is dancing amidst the conflicts between the two.
Now, if you ask who provides these, the answer is: the
world. The world is a place of variety. Because of its
plural nature, various influences flow into our minds. We
are a product of this variety and its influence. We have
inherited this at birth, and the plural tendencies will
continue. Living in this world of plurality, we have to
learn how to handle our mind properly – how to orient it
to dissuade wrong tendencies and cultivate the right ones.
When we start doing this, the same mind will reach a stage
when wrong tendencies disappear or will have no influence at
all.
O
K. We shall conclude our session now. Harih
Om Tat Sat.
* * *
