| Spirituality - The Missing Dimension in Professional Excellence |
 |
By Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha
[Poojya Swamiji was invited on 22 Jan 2000 by the Trichur
Management Association to address its members. The association
felt the need of expert advice on achieving professional excellence
and sought Poojya Swamiji's guidance. Here is the summary
of the talk.]
I am very happy to be in the midst of all of you, members
of the Thrissur Management Association along with many of
your friends and relatives.
First of all, I would like to greet you in the name of spirituality
on the one hand and professional excellence on the other.
While I make this greeting, I have a feeling that in spite
of being very intelligent, rational, scientific and astute
in the matter of thinking, many of the professionals are not
able to understand and evaluate spirituality and its role
in professional or other areas of human excellence. This is
primarily because of sheer ignorance.
Now, when I say that you are very intelligent, rational, scientific
and technologically outstanding and immediately juxtapose
my compliment with a statement that you are also ignorant,
you may perhaps be wounded. Rather than getting wounded, I
would like you to search your heart and try to know what this
ignorance is about.
Even the most knowledgeable person will not say that he is
knowledgeable about everything. Compared to what we have known
and mastered, what we are yet to know and master are far in
excess. So, it is not inexcusable if somebody has a large
measure of ignorance. Many do not know what is spirituality
and what it can contribute. There is also some misunderstanding
about its import and purpose.
For more than forty years, I have been travelling around the
world, like a walking university, meeting people, talking
to them individually and also in public assemblies like management
associations, university campuses, medical boards and other
organizations. And, after all this, I can tell you that people
do not understand spirituality and are not able to evaluate
its merits and potential rightly.
Today, I will introduce to you the subject of spirituality
and explain to some extent the relevance and application it
has to professional life, especially in the matter of achieving
the excellence that every professional strives for.
Whenever we use the words 'spirit, spiritual or spirituality'
people generally relate them to life after death or life before
birth. Some will even relate it to ghosts. But alas, it is
entirely different! We have words like matter and energy.
All forms of existence in the universe are traceable to either
matter or energy. But, does it explain everything? Look at
your own body and personality. Is it merely matter and energy?
You may not be a scientist to investigate the universe and
its constituents. But so far as you are concerned, you should
certainly be able to examine yourself and find out - 'Am
I all matter and energy?'
You are not these two alone. You are thinking, sensing, knowing,
remembering, forgetting and so on. Sensation, cognition, thinking,
understanding, intellection - none of these emerge from either
matter or energy. If you were simply an aggregate of energy-matter
combination, you would not have a mind at all. You would have
been absent as far as intellect is concerned. You wouldn't
have any kind of feeling. You would have been at best a robot.
Do we know of any energy and matter that is capable of thinking,
feeling and knowing? Wherefrom do thoughts come? Wherefrom
do feelings proceed? How is it that emotions are constantly
generated in our personality? Can matter or energy be the
source of it? Certainly not. Then what is the source?
That source, my dear souls, my dear managers, is the Spirit.
Spirituality is a subject that directly addresses this issue.
So, when we say spirituality, we are referring to something
very dear and near to ourselves. No, we are referring to something
that is you, yourself. I ask every one of you - Are
you primarily a material person or a spiritual being?
If you are only a material individual, you would have been
a dead body. You are a spiritual person. We know that the
cornea of a dead body can be grafted into a person and that
biological body begins to see. The cornea was in tact, but
the seer was missing. That is why when grafted to a spiritually
vibrant body of a 'living' person, that person begins to see.
Does the seeing really belong to the body or does it belong
to something else?
By 'spirituality', I mean this kind of wonderful source which
encompasses all the powers and potentials that you find manifest
in the whole creation surrounding you.
Today my purpose is to present before you the relevance of
spirituality so far as professional excellence is concerned.
Any person in a profession wanting to gain professional excellence,
must have fairly good mastery of the branch of knowledge he
deals with. And I am sure you professionals are performing
well in this level. I compliment all of you for the object
knowledge, professional knowledge that you have. Mark my words
- object knowledge.
But mind you, a professional is primarily a spiritual person.
In as much as you are a spiritual person, you must have spiritual
knowledge also, i.e., the knowledge of the 'Subject' the 'Knower'
in you. Do you know the difference between the object and
the subject? Whenever I look at the wall, the wall is the
object of perception for me. The perceiver is the subject.
In all the interactions that you have, sensorily, mentally,
intellectually, personally or professionally, are you the
interacting subject or are you the interacted object? Have
you ever undertaken an examination of this nature? If
you want to achieve professional excellence you must know
the Subject in you.
