Life Inc.

You were born to join this cosmic organization called Life Inc. You were selected because of your only essential and desired qualification: being human. You were appointed to live a cosmic role, carry out certain cosmic responsibilities and be measured by certain cosmic KRAs. It was made ‘known’ to you on your date of joining (which in this case happens to be your date of birth too) and you were expected to bring this knowing to your cognition through an awakening of your consciousness.

But alas! Despite several wake up calls you are still not completely awake. In the need to acquire what you think you don’t have, you have forgotten to require what you already have. Your design of what you believe must happen has made you resign from what is meant to happen. Pursuit of indicators like happiness, success and wealth has drawn you away from the indicators of your cosmic engagement: peace, joy and love. You don’t even fear being laid off your cosmic engagement. For you are still not in touch with where and what is your existence in-laid. You have to, your are meant to serve the super-ordinate cosmic mission. And only in living your cosmic responsibilities will the cosmic mission be actualized.

Your stint with Life Inc. is for a life time. There is no scope for voluntary or involuntary attrition. Even despite your ignorant disengagement from your cosmic roles and distraction from fulfilling your cosmic responsibilities, you are repeatedly being brought on track through blessings in disguise which you often label as misfortunes. More than anyone including you, the CEO of this cosmic organization has faith in you humanness to bring you back to the very cause of your existence. One day, some day…

(This is the preface to my book-in-progress titled Life Inc.)

Kill the Buddha

For quite some time now I am getting to experience two apparently contradicting scenarios. 

Seven out of ten people, with ten-plus years of work experience I meet, would like me to believe that they are passionate about making a difference to the lives of people.

And eight out of ten individual contributors I meet would like me to believe that they have manager-mentors who restrict their growth and performance.

When I scratch the surface I realize there isn’t any contradiction but a strong correlation.

It’s is extremely gratifying for the ego to see people looking up for guidance. And this egoistic need has led to a proliferation of home-grown, self-proclaimed masters – called by different names like mentors, coaches, guides, gurus and trainers. In their need (and often greed) to be worshiped by their proteges for their knowledge and expertise, they, most often unconsciously end up hooking on to the guided in a toxic co-depending relationship, leading to a sense of powerlessness. The Global Workforce Study (2007-2008) conducted by Towers & Perrin engagement, no wonder, relates the quality of leadership and learning to employee engagement, retention and performance.

This is an institutional reality. Look around. You will see it at workplace, in social circles and even in your own families. About institutions propagating cults of organized religion, lesser said the better.

Seth Godin, the author of famous bestseller Linchpin, advises employee-protégés in one of his recent blogs, “The opportunity of our age is to get out of this boss as teacher as taskmaster as limiter mindset. We need more from you than that.”

It’s a call to all. A call to come out of the minimalistic mindset of doing what pleases the immediate authority and seek self -mastery instead.

Self-mastery, as phrase explains itself, is becoming one’s own master. It’s a journey which starts with acknowledging that, as human beings, we are not left in lurch to learn how to live maximally. It’s about a faith in a guiding spirit which lives in each one of us to guide us to our destiny.

I remember when I started my career more than two decades ago, feeling lost in the corporate jungle I had approached my manager to guide / mentor me so that I have a smooth sailing. He did not respond directly but the next day came to my desk and handed me over a copy of this book "If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him", by Sheldon Kopp. Kopp aptly summarizes the theme of his book in his quote, “A grown-up man can be no man’s disciple. The most important thing that each man must learn is that no one can teach him. Once he accepts this disappointment, he will be able to stop depending on … the guru who turns out to be just another struggling human being.”

That was the end of my search in the outside and beginning of my search in the inside – for a guru. I believe I have lived a fairly joyful career, a fulfilling life and a meaningful journey, thanks to not being gullible to fall to the designs of any self-proclaimed guru or teacher and held hostage for the rest of my life. I have lived a life of freedom and autonomy.

There has been tremendous learning from the class room of life. Even as I write, my consciousness makes me learn. And, the best part is that, whenever it has come to acquiring a skill or a competency I have always found a teacher at my door-step. Yes, it has been self-learning all the way.

What about you? Are you the sucker or the sucked? Either way there is salvation. Are you ready?

Looking into the crystal ball - Year 2011

Year 2011 is going to be a year of strife, delays, isolation and insight. A year of corrections, confrontations and conflicts. 

This will be a year of sharpening of differences. Between the have-s and the have-nots. The powerful and the powerless.  There will also be a further widening of economic gaps in developed countries. The rich will get richer and the poor, poorer. Religions will also become more polarized reflecting in lesser tolerance and more likely violence. Political differences will also be blown out of proportion leading to possible shift in power equations. Authorities will be put under scrutiny and questioned. The currencies will go through major upheavals. The accepted denominators for economic success will begin to get questioned and proposal for adopting new denominators will be debated.

Details will be sought, frustration will rule and tunnel vision may become the accepted norm. On the whole dysfunction will be heightened to an extent where the world will question the viability of the existing order to begin re-constructing a new order. The inadequacy of linear processes will be severely exposed for the meander to be finally regarded with respect.

2011 is the 305th prime number. Its primacy will prevail in influencing all actions; no matter how powerful they may be, often leading to events of creative destruction / disruption.

While on the surface it may seem to be deterring and dismal, this year brings in disruption that is functional to a deeper process of evolution working towards bringing humanistic harmony in 2012 and the ensuing years.

Year 2011, being the 11th year of the 21st century and the 2000 millennia will continue to aid enhancement and creation of more spiritualistic than materialistic value in the system and sub-systems while making it conducive for advent of many masters who will come forward to facilitate this transformational process with their intuitive powers. Yes, year 2011 is a year of painstaking preparation for the arrival of the master and may be even the messiah.

With the Year 2011 begins the run up to the beginning of the third cycle of economy – the Human Economy. An economy which will no more treat human beings as resources, capital or means for meeting ends but will revolve around upholding humanness and value-creation. Through symbiotic awakening and expression of human limitlessness.  

Year 2011 will also prepare for the emergence of what may be called as networked enterprises. Enterprises, where, notwithstanding their legal identity, for all practical purposes, the process of value creation will happen through intra and inter enterprise networks.
 
In the emerging economy 

• Individual contribution will be sub-ordinated to community or group contribution. The equation will shift from being aggregative to being multiplicative, as mutually eco-harmonic groups of individuals will emerge to create unprecedented synergies.
• The benchmarks of contribution will be revisited and redefined as higher than realized levels of talent-centric contribution.
• Leadership styles will undergo sea-change. Innate influence and inspiration of individuals will replace positional power to guide group performance and participation.
• Institution building will be in focus. Explorations with respect to the very purpose of existence of an enterprise, its drivers and life forces will be instituted as an ongoing process of enterprise discovery. Employee-ship will give way to aligned membership. Clients too will be chosen based on a process of alignment and enrollment.  
• Business will be incidental as multiple bottom-lines, revolving around humanistic growth and evolution, will come in vogue. Practice of human values will be linked to quantifiable value creation and measured.
• The enterprise language will change to one which more appreciative and expansive. Delivery will become enablement; business development will be value engagement and growth, evolution.

Just as technology has been a strategic enabler of enterprise success in the Industrial Economy, Enterprise Learning will be the key enabler of growth and success of enterprises in the Human Economy. Learning, that will be transformational and will call for deeper acceptance of and drawing of insights from situational realities, for individuals and institutions to sail through and evolve.

Healing the corporate soul

This is an amazingly thought-provoking article written by Mohanbir Sawney and published in CIO on November 15, 2002.

Eight years have passed. Corporates have weathered one more recessionary storm. Yet, the voice of wisdom speaking through this article seems to remain unheard. Unless you have a story to prove it otherwise.

 
This is a column about creating value. Like you, I spend a lot of my time thinking, writing and talking about value. But as I look at the crisis of confidence plaguing corporate America, I am forced to consider a deeper question?in our unending quest for value, do we have to compromise our values? What is the relationship between values and value? Indeed, what is the purpose of a business?

Of course, a business exists to create value for its customers and profits for its shareholders. But is profit the ultimate goal of a business? Does a business have a higher purpose? Can this higher purpose be reconciled with the profit motive? And can companies do well by doing good?

Fear is functional ... contd

In my previous blog post I had raised certain leading questions:

How often do we get caught unaware in a scary situation to find an absolutely new way out? How does it all happen? What in us makes it happen?

If we closely examine what made some of the great leaders scale unimaginable heights of accomplishment, we will find fear and the associated pain playing a significant role out there.

In the movie Pursuit of Happyness, a real life saga of Chris Gardner, one of the most successful stock brokers of his time, the fear of starvation and being home-less, drove the protagonist to display unprecedented levels of grit and determination to finally come out successful as a broker, despite all possible odds. It seemed as if he was possessed with some unusual spirit of optimism and self-belief.

Fear, by its very nature, is capable of fanning the sparks of Intent for it to catch the flames of passion. And once that happens, it not only galvanizes all energies in the individual but also magically garners support from outside for the individual to display higher than realized capacities for participation and performance.

  

Question is, why then, are we not always at our best, when we feel scared, frightened or threatened.

Well, what exactly did you do last time when you encountered fear? Ran for help? Took a flight into something that could make you forget it? Or lashed out to an external entity which appeared to be causing the fear?

Fighting or taking a flight from fear is the most common reaction we are conditioned to display. However, if the situation is such where you can neither reach out for help, nor fight or take a flight, an entirely new alchemy happens. 

For the first time you confront fear - face-to-face. In a state of helpless-ness you tend to surrender and yet not give up the hope of staying alive. And at that very moment the transformation happens. Transformation from feeling powerless to 'knowing' the power you are. At that very moment, without any plan, strategy, approach or any such learned and imbibed practice you transcend your self-imposed limits to soar into a space of formidability.

For once, it shows you to yourself the true power within. It belies the smallness that you have been carrying around all these days and gives you an opportunity to begin living life from a perspective of limitlessness.

This was true of Mahatma Gandhi leading the country, against severe odds, to freedom from the colonial shackles. This was true of Subhash Bose marching in with the INA despite complete lack of cooperation from Japan. And this was true of Swami Vivekananda, establishing Vedanta as a way of life in the World Religious congress through his soul stirring speech, after being greeted with mockery by an absolutely alien crowd in Chicago.

It's true for all of us. There is nothing great in them which is not in us. No one is insulated from fear and its associated pain. Christ experienced fear on the cross. So did Buddha. It is not about fear but what we do with it that decides between mere survival and coming alive. 

Osho said, Fear is the basis of all institutions, and how can a frightened mind know the truth? 

What say you?
 

Fear is functional

Since the beginning of history of mankind, if there is one thing that has prevailed consistently in lives of men and women, across centuries, it is fear. 

There is not a single soul on the face of this planet - be it a saint or a sinner - who can claim that he / she has not encountered fear. Ranging from mild trepidation to mortal threat, not a single day passes by without each one of us experiencing fear in some form or other. Fundamentally being fear of loss, it shows up whenever we feel threatened in terms of loss of life or love, respect or relevance.

What could be the reason for fear to be so pervasively present in human lives? As we know, there is nothing in this world that exists without a cause. So, what about fear? Something that we have been conditioned to dread and avoid, what could be so functional about it?

Here is popular Zen story which may speak to you and leave with some insights. 

There was a very well known thief who was considered to be the best of the lot. He was so adept in his art that he had never been caught.

As he grew older his son requested his father to teach him the art of theft that the thief had mastered.The thief replied,”If you wish to learn come with me tonight when I go to work.” 

That night both father and son set out on their mission. The father drilled through the wall a hole for entrance as the son stood watching. The thief was so absorbed in drilling the hole that it would have put any artist to shame. It was as if he were lost in prayer. The son was awed by his father’s proficiency. No wonder, he was a master thief, the guru of so many others in his fraternity.

The son stood trembling with fear even in that warm night. His eyes darted everywhere, watching in all directions, but his father was lost in his work and didn’t lift his eyes even once. When they entered through the house through the hole the son was trembling like a leaf. Never before had he been so petrified. Yet, the father moved about as though the place belonged to him. He took the son in, broke the locks, opened a huge cupboard filled with clothes and jewels, and told the son to get inside.

As soon as the son entered, the father closed the cupboard, locked it and left the house for his home, taking the key with him. As he left, the father shouted, ”Thief, thief!”waking up the inmates of the house. The son was horrified and completely at a loss. He was sitting their in the wardrobe, locked out having no idea of how to escape.

He heard the footsteps of the servant who approached the wardrobe, looking for the thief. The poor boy was completely at his wits end, his mind completely blank. He had never imagined that such a thing can happen and was unprepared to deal with the situation.

Just as he went completely blank, at this very moment, something got awakened in him. Suddenly, as if in the grip of an unknown force, he began making a sound which resembled that of a rat, gnawing at the clothes inside the cupboard. He was astonished with this behavior of his; he had never done such a thing before. The servant brought a bunch of keys and opened it. As soon the the doors opened, he blew out the lamp she was holding and, giving her a push, ran out of the house through the hole in the wall, a whole multitude from the neighborhood chasing him.

There was a great deal of noise. The whole village was awake and looking for the thief. The boy ran for his life – ran as he had never run before. He had no idea it was he who was running. Suddenly, as he reached a well, he picked up a big stone, probably as heavy as he was and threw it in the well – all this without the slightest idea of what he was doing. It seemed that he was possessed by someone else. At the sound of the stone falling in the water the crowd gathered around the well, thinking the thief had fallen in. Thinking that he would have died, they gave up the search and went back.

All this time the boy stood behind the tree to rest a bit, then continued home muttering to himself. When he went in, to his surprise and annoyance, he found his father fast asleep with the blanket over his head. The son pulled off the cover to wake him up but the father continued snoring away. He shook him hard, yelling, "Why did you do this to me? Did you want to see me killed?" The father opened his eyes for a minute and said nonchalantly,"So you have returned? Good. I’ll hear the rest in the morning," and appeared to fall back asleep. The son pleaded with him,"Say something, father. Ask me what I went through or I shall not be able to sleep."

Relenting to the boys request the father woke up and said,"Now you are an expert in the art of theft. You don’t need to be taught anything. Nevertheless, you may share your experience, if you must." After the son recounted all that had happened the father answered, "So my son, you know now that this art cannot be taught. It can only be learnt the way you learnt. You are my son! My blood flows in your veins. You know the secret of success. I am pretty sure that you will carry on this heritage with the same expertise and deftness even after me. As long as you respond the way you did today, you will never get caught. Each time it will be a totally new experience, a new moment. And each time it will warrant a totally new response and the old experience will not be of any use."

Zen fakirs say: ”If you want to enter the house of God, you must learn the burglar’s art.”

Wonder how many of us can relate to this experience. How often do we get caught unaware in a scary situation to find an absolutely new way out? How does it all happen? What in us makes it happen?

Here's an invitation to the readers to may be re-read this story, this time imagining one's self to be the boy and reflect upon the insights that surface in you. 

Would love to hear them, as comments left behind. 

Humanity is sentenced to die

Vultures everywhere
Flying high, watching others die
Waiting to pounce
Seeking to suck
Vultures everywhere flying high

Scavenging birds
Not discerning
Between the dead and the still
Ravenous to feed
Out there on the hill
Swelling with greed
Vultures everywhere flying high



Let them be?
Let the living die?
Let the sucker live?
Let the master die?

I don’t know
Can’t question the flow
So be it
If the master has to die
And let the vultures fly
May be that’s what it is meant to be
For us to feign
To live even as
Humanity is sentenced
To die.