Spirituality
- The Missing Dimension in Professional Excellence
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.
In
all your talks, you are the talker; in all the thoughts, you
are the thinker; you are the subject personality and
whenever we refer to any quality like excellence, honesty,
integrity, etc, they refer to the subject part of man, and
not the object.
A technically skilled engineer can become a failure in
practical terms. What is the reason for his failure? Why is
it that he is not able to bring forth efficiency from within
him? Wherefrom will it come? Certainly not from the merely
inert biological body! It has to come from the deeper levels
- the Subject - of his personality.
Until you are able to understand yourself as a subject
personality, as a spiritual personality and then the
spiritual part is reflected upon, your excellence will not
bloom forth. Always you will be obsessed by failure.
Ambition will overrule your mind, fear will suppress you.
Either ambition, or fear or doubt or an undue fascination
for something or the other will be acting as a constriction
in your mind.
The mind must be able to work without constrictions. If
ambition is the constriction, it has to be dispensed with.
If fear is subduing we must be able to say good-bye to it.
The mind, the spiritual factor, has to be made free,
flexible, light and ever enthusiastic. How to accomplish
this feat?
My dear Souls, all growth is from inside to outside. Even in
a plant or seed, there is no growth that ever takes place
from outside to inside. Any kind of interaction, even
professional interaction, proceeds from the subject, the
interacting spirit and the consequence and outcome of the
interaction also falls on the mind, on the interacting
subject. Everything whatsoever, has its origins in the
subject spirit, it has it terminus and destination also in
the subject spirit. The moment you understand it, your view
would be widened, deepened and elevated.
We generally speak of stress, strain and tension. With any
kind of activity - even if you perform it successfully - you
will find that, before performance, while performing and
after performance, the activity is associated with stress
and strain. What is this tension and stress? Is it something
objective or material, or is it something psychological and
inward?
The tension being psychological, the way to deal with it and
dissolve it should also be psychological and inner. Therein
comes spirituality. The more and more you know that you are
a spiritual being, the dimensions, the potentials, and the
prospects that open up are infinite. You have to draw on
this wonderful spiritual treasure, spiritual store house.
Then you will find that the tensions produced by the
interactions are correspondingly dissolved in your mind.
Who is a spiritual man? One who is able to live and interact
with this world harmoniously, with sufficient integration,
without finding any interaction to be troublesome,
tormenting or producing imbalance or tension. That is the
successful man. We describe him as a stable-minded
person.
In this limited time, I will briefly explain the way
spirituality works. In all your interactions you will find a
number of inputs coming to you - and the inputs come from
persons, places or events. Am I clear? In interpersonal
relationships you will find a number of inputs - some
pleasant and some unpleasant. You may have a very arrogant
boss or a very difficult subordinate; you may have some
intolerant or jealous colleagues. All these are possible. At
home, sometimes, the wife goes on murmuring, creating
troubles or the husband goes on picking quarrels or the
children do not behave the way you want. Everywhere you will
find interpersonal interactions causing tensions.
Whenever these inputs come, you must have the power to
assimilate them. No input whatsoever should make your mind
feel helpless and subdued. You should be able to declare:
"My dear world, throw any kind of an input to me, I
will dissolve it, I will harmonize it, I will integrate it
and get enriched by it." This kind of approach you must
have. I call this confidence, spiritual confidence and
spiritual assurance. Your mind is not inert - it is nature's
product and its capacity is infinite. I say: "The
sky is the limit of the mind."
The body completes its growth at the age of about 21 and you
become an adult. And as an adult you have to live for many
decades. In all the decades of life after the body has
completed the growth, tell me, my dear managers, what part
of your personality is going to grow, if it is not the mind
and the intelligence? They are the spiritual components.
Suppose an image is formed in your mind. Is this image
mental or is it something else? When an elephant is
perceived by you and the perception forms an image in your
mind, in the mind is it an elephant or is it a mental
image of an elephant? Am I clear?
Your mind is imprinted with a number of images. Whatever is
the nature of the images, it is your mind, the image is
mental. If it is mental, like a wave in the sea, why should
you be ruffled? Can you not assimilate it? Can you not
understand it? Why are you fretting and fuming?
Somebody told you something three years back - it was a very
harsh word, unfriendly remark. Agreed that he should not
have made such a remark - but he did make it. Now, the
person has forgotten the episode and is living happily. But
you, on the other hand, even now suffer for no reason. What
is the cause for that? It is your ignorance - not knowing
the capacity of the mind. You are not prepared to assimilate
the inputs from the world.
After assimilating, you must also start expressing it.
Whenever necessary, outputs should be generated. Wherever
commitment is called for, you should be able to generate and
radiate commitment. Where integrity is called for, you must
be able to generate it and manifest it to any extent. If
there is a duty or demand, never hesitate to meet it. Bodily
you may be short or weak, but mentally you are larger than
the mountain. Will you admit it when I say this?
The
ocean is merely a material collection - it is a sheath of
water. The air also is a sheath of matter. What about the
mind? It is a supra-material substance. The mind being
spiritual is far above matter and energy and with such a
mind there is nothing in the world you cannot assimilate.
Various food substances you take and in a matter of three or
four hours the alimentary canal digests them, converts them
into blood. This takes place without your knowledge. But if
the mind has to assimilate something - it can only be done
consciously. For this assimilation to take place you must
support the process willfully. Am I clear? To welcome and
assimilate all kinds of inputs into the mind, arising from
persons, places or events and then, to generate the
necessary outputs whenever required, is spirituality.
How will you have this assimilative power? You will have it
by proper exposure? This is what I am providing you now.
Right from the age of 3 or 4 the child is being exposed to
the worldly knowledge. Similarly, you elderly people also
need to be exposed to the sphere of spirituality. How to
become confident, how to become un-assailable, how to become
invincible, how to become ever resolute, ever ready!
So, exposure is the first factor; reception is the next; and
thereafter, you should reflect upon what is exposed and what
you have received. We call it rumination, introspection,
reflection or contemplation.
Whenever we refer to the qualities like truthfulness,
character, goodness and behavioral elegance - all these are
qualifications referring to what? Are they referring to the
material body? They are referring to the behavior of man,
the mind of man, the intelligence of man and these are
certainly not of the material body. They are primarily
spiritual. So, for any professional excellence, along with
the objective knowledge and efficiency that you have as a
professional, you must also develop the Subject-knowledge
and the spiritual efficiency, which can only come to you by
proper exposure.
I believe I have explained as to what spirituality is and
how spirituality becomes an essential component in the
matter of professional life and its excellence. I have
mentioned also that the sky is the limit of the spiritual
factors and components in you.
Many of you, perhaps, have a subdued personality.
Consequently, you may not be able to shine forth in your
professional field. Adequate maturity is not there. The
spiritual understanding may also be missing. Don't compare
yourself in terms of riches, qualifications, etc. with
others. I always ask: "What are you worth?" Are
you conscious of your worth or are you subdued by the world?
The mind, instead of being over-powered by the world, or the
interactional inputs, should always overwhelm the inputs. It
should be floating with enough of flexibility and
enrichment, impersonality and impartiality. And it is
possible.
I think I have told you what I wanted to by way of exposing
you to spirituality and the spiritual strength in you. May
you all grow spiritually and be wholesome personalities,
capable of excelling in every professional and social
situation you find yourself.
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