Deep in Everyone, There is Great Strength -Swami Chidananda

Change Management

Deep in Everyone, There is Great Strength

Swami Chidananda

Great strength and potential for creativity exist in the depth of everyone, which can empower one to face change and to bring about desirable change. The powers of Nature are immeasurable and her ways unpredictable. On one hand, everything is likely to change outside us and within us. On the other, we have the power to meet with these, survive them and emerge victorious and renewed.

Kinds of Change:

Three parameters apply to the topic of change:Area,Desirability,and
Cause.

The area of change could be outside or inside. The change could be desirable or undesirable. Lastly, change could be caused by outer agents or it could be brought about by us.

These changes – sometimes expected and many other times a surprise –tend to affect us considerably provided we let them do so.

Changes outside could be of many kinds: in people, technology, economy, weather and so on.

Changes inside again are of different types: variation in physical health, emotional state, motivation, memory, personal values and so on.

Desirable changes obviously bring profit, fame, new opportunities and so on. Undesirable changes cause loss of money, brand value, relationships and so on. When outer agents cause the change, we are at the receiving end. When we effect the change, we could be the harbingers of a new era.

Eye of the Storm: Central to the wisdom perspectives with regard to change is the question, “Who am I?” It may look odd but this query is highly significant because our ability to face anything depends largely on what we think we are. Two leaders, apparently of equal standing, may perform differently as a result of their thought processes based on their mental models. One may think she is sure to lose; she may imagine she has nothing left in her repertoire to handle the situation and so on. She will surely yield to the pressures of the situation and suffer a debacle. The thought, “I am weak” makes her weak. The second leader may intuitively perceive certain hidden strength within her and thereby experience fearlessness. She will then discover new sources of intelligence and energy; she wins. The thought, “I am capable” makes her capable.
Wisdom traditions around the world have always – directly or indirectly – revolved around this great question, “Who am I?” In fact science and spirituality are marked by a constant pursuit of a question each. Science concerns itself with the question, “What is this?” It has accordingly discovered a lot about the world around. Spirituality, on the other hand, engages with the inquiry “Who am I?” The great mystics therefore uncovered countless secrets of the inner world. Hidden powers of leaders and executives are in this inner world of the human psyche. We need a balance of these two streams of human endeavor: the objective science and the subjective spirituality.

You and I start every morning with some idea, a bunch of thoughts, of who we are. How we see the world follows this notion. What we want is based on the mental model of who we are. The notion, for example, “I am an eligible bachelor”, makes a man look for the right lady who could be his life’s companion. The picture, for another example, “I am the team leader”, makes a lady look at seven others (in the team) as people to be given directions. Invariably, we carry thoughts like, “I am x” or “I am y” or “I am z”. These thoughts play a central role in shaping a large number of other thoughts. Desire and fear drive our actions, and both desire and fear arise from the basic thought of our identity. As we think, so we become – goes an old saying. Our thoughts, we add here, are like corollaries while the basic concept of who we are acts like the theorem.

What Changes? Change takes place whether we like it or not. The world changes and we too change. My philosophy teacher, Swami Chinmayananda, used to say with wit and humor, “The only changeless law in the universe is that everything must change.” This space-time continuum we call the cosmos is in a state of flux. Physics would make us imagine the universe is real and we come and go; metaphysics would suggest we are real and the plethora of names and forms come and go. It is all a matter of where our identification lies. As the personality, we are a tiny wave that rises and falls. Behind the personality, as Existence-Awareness, we are the substrate for a billion waves to show up and vanish. To cope with change – good or bad – in an eminent manner, we need to draw from a deeper level of our own existence. Self-inquiry can take us there. Pleasure and pain affect us a lot on one level and have little effect on the deeper plane. If our mind is much burdened with memories, we are then bound to suffer a lot when unexpected changes loom large before us. A lighter mind, not clinging to the past, has the suppleness and flexibility to face even sea changes. Big trees and electric poles fall during a storm but blades of grass remain intact. They bend before the winds and, when things become normal, stand straight and begin to swing gently in light breeze. Do we have the psychological simplicity to go through stormy events? Or are we rigid with false prestige or some unnecessary insistence that outer changes break our backs?

The world changes, when you change: Ordinarily we believe that the world has the capacity to change us. Higher wisdom throws light on our capacity to change the world. First of all, when there is an inner change on our side, the outer world’s impact gets much reduced. Going further, radical change within us can cause significant changes in our surroundings. Is not the world really our own creation? In the apparent tug of war between the world and us, victory can be ours if we realize our hidden potential. The power inside the frail frame of a Gandhi could make the mighty British Empire pause and rethink on many an issue. So was the influence that a Martin Luther King Jr. or a Nelson Mandela could exert on well-built centers of power. Everywhere – in politics, business, science or technology – the power hidden in a human being is generally underestimated. While management and science tap resources in outer nature, spiritual wisdom draws from inner nature, from the human being himself/herself.

---Facing Change: There is hidden power within us that can face incredible changes in the outer world. It is sometimes equated with God, in the language of many religions. They say God functions through us when we surrender to Him. Yet others would avoid the word God and prefer to put it, “When you are silent, (a higher) truth acts through you.” In some traditions like Buddhism, there is no mention of God. When people asked the Buddha, “Is there God”, he maintained noble silence. If you and I were to maintain silence, people would have said, “He does not know.” The Buddha, however, was the Buddha and his was indeed noble silence. In Buddhism too, they talk of great love and compassion that an enlightened one experiences when circumstances are averse or hostile. So it is all about terrific possibilities within the human being where he comes across very hard situations and yet he takes them in his stride. God or no God, there surely is the promise of a deep, inner transformation that empowers David to handle and win over Goliath. We can surprise others (and ourselves) with an ability to handle change with strength and intelligence. It is as though we are not the same persons as before; we are now a force to be reckoned with.
Beneath the field of change, there is the field of the changeless. In India, we use two words bhava and shiva to mean the changing and the changeless realms respectively. When selfish motives and personal anxieties wane, we are able to hold shiva while handling bhava. For an analogy, we may consider somebody taking a holy dip in the fast moving Ganges at the pilgrim center Haridwar at the foot of the Himalayas. Lest she be swept away by the speedy current of the river, the pilgrim holds one of the many iron chains made available at the bathing ghats. She is then safe; she has a joyous time with her immersion in the sacred waters. Coming back from the analogy to the theme proper, a good understanding of higher values of life and a firm adherence to them can go a long way towards enhancing our capacity to face change. We need to remain alert and perceive the changing society; at the same time, we need to hold on to eternal values. A well-known book by Swami Ranganathananda is titled, “Eternal Values for a Changing Society.” How appropriate! Lao Tzu, the Chinese wise man, says, (in his famous work Tao Te Ching), “When you go up the ladder or down it, your position is always shaky; when you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.” The ground here symbolizes changeless values like truth and love. The ladder represents attachment to the gain and loss in the ever-changing world. When success and failure come to you, you do not have to get carried away by them. Acquisitions, mergers, good people leaving you or resourceful people joining you to enrich your team and varieties of such changes can all be waves on the surface of the sea. In its depth, there can be profound silence.

The field of change is described in some spiritual works as marked by sorrow. The Buddha remarked everything is transient and sorrowful in life. A text1 in Hinduism calls the world impermanent and an abode of sorrow. We should not imagine these texts are pessimistic. In fact their main message is that sorrow can end. They show the way to liberation. They throw light on how our own thoughts (mental models) are the basis of the world as we know it. If we slow down, reflect and change the mental models about who we are, what we want and who the people around us are etc, our world changes. At a certain place, a man and his wife experienced some rivalry or competition between them, leading to disharmony. When they changed their mental models, they began to ‘complete’ each other rather than ‘compete’ with each other. They easily discovered harmony between them. A narrowly defined identity of oneself is the cause of insecurity and agitation; a broader description sustained by one’s thoughts can herald peace and cheerfulness. For example, to look at oneself as a department head is necessary for somebody but she should not turn blind to the whole of her life. In the entirety of her life, she is a wife, a mother, a lover of music and an active member of a local Nature Lovers’ Club. “Who I am” and “What my goals are” should have both a local, immediate aspect and a larger, far-reaching aspect. It is like taking a long walk: you should no doubt see the immediate few steps ahead of you but you should also take a look at the distant hill towards which you are going. For the best in us to come out, we have to balance these two visions all the time. An understanding of the limited self and an intuitive grasp of the unlimited Self – together give to us the joy of dynamism and the peace of stability.

Stay Put, Do Not Burn Out: There used to be a slogan in the 90s, when I lived in the Silicon Valley for a few years. They said the work climate was such that most professionals had only two options: Burn out or get out. While such a state of affairs deserves sympathy, much of it is self-created too. If we honestly look within, it is selfishness and greed that make normal times get very stressful. When we are self-centered, small changes around us that are unfavorable to our interests look dangerous and cause panic. When we look at them from broader perspectives, we shall discover many a silver line to the dark clouds. It would be no exaggeration to say that selflessness is the gateway to shiva, the changeless ground that we mentioned before. By the same token, being selfish is the means to be caught and then get tossed by the bhava, the winds of change. As we position ourselves in shiva, we become objective in all matters and keep our cool. Our worries revolving around “I, me and my” subside with increased objectivity. The self is surely the locus of all stress. This self is the product of thoughts, which again are memories and conditionings. The more objective we become, the less is the hold of memories upon us.
Functional and Psychological Self: Memories are again of two kinds: functional and psychological. Knowledge of names, places, mathematics and music is all functional. Such memories are very necessary for us to function in daily life. The second part is the trouble-maker and that is psychological memories. These include pride, hurt, status, personal ambition etc. These are the warp and woof of the illusory self. If this illusion lifts, one is totally free from fear and anxiety. Suppose we have certain amount knowledge of financial matters. We could and we must hone that knowledge to face this world of constant change. There is need to ‘add’ in such knowledge. Necessary groundwork is a must here. On another front, however, we need to ‘subtract’. That is the domain of beliefs, prejudices and preconceived notions. Countless likes and dislikes block our clear perception. When they reduce, our objectivity increases. Spiritual excellence in the form of patience, bravery and, above all, self-awareness, increases when we let go of the baggage of attachments and aversions.
Live Your Life in Two Rooms: As a certain poet put it, we must learn to live our life in two rooms. In this metaphor, one room is for interaction with the world and the second room is for our own inner development. We have to constantly go back and forth between the two rooms. In the first room, which is outside, we meet the challenges of the world with knowledge pertinent to particular issues. In the second, inner room, we nourish our soul with values. Spending too much time in the outer room will make us gross and superficial. Excess of activity in the inner room will turn us impractical and unfit for affairs of the world. Like two wings of a bird, both of which are needed for the creature to fly, material and spiritual insights are both necessary for us to be good players in the game of life.

Be Ready: Knowing the nature of the world, the wise are ever ready for any change. When the going gets tough, the brave (continue to) get going. Change may take place anytime, anywhere, to any of us. If we keep a larger picture of the situation before us, we shall have true inner detachment to cope with the change. Our loss is many times a gain for somebody else. A bit of large-heartedness can help us to be happy about others (people, company, nations) coming up well. The whole earth is one family, goes an old Indian saying2. Others and we are one, on a deeper level. The separate, exclusive self is characterized by “I, me and my”. In the perception of the unity of all existence, there is the experience of “we”. In the absence of broadmindedness, hurt is the result. A little humility can dissolve away all hurt, and, what is more, empower us to come up with right action in the face of crisis. Patience pays, most of the time. What appears bad today turns out to be good tomorrow, in many instances. At the time when we feel hurt or depressed, it is often of great help to have different supports such as engaging in a hobby, involving in a meaningful activity or pursuing an interest dear to our heart.

Effecting Change: Truth is one; the wise speak of it in different ways3. Different religions, which are all versions of the one spiritual science, have all talked about “awakening the giant within the human being.” In all fields of activity, including Management, the transformed human being has the Midas touch on her hands. She becomes the agent of the change she desires and envisions. When the manager has risen above all fear, regret, pride and prejudice, she sees “the indestructible amidst the destructible” as an ancient text4 puts it.

Many spiritual organizations, which are legally non-profit organizations or non-government organizations (NGOs), bring tremendous change in the society around them. Today we realize that the science of management applies equally to corporations and to non-profit organizations. In both the fields, man comes face to face with vested interests, obstacles and hurdles when he wants to introduce something new. A clear vision, feeling a commitment at his heart and being ready to work towards the realization of his dreams are required to bring about desired results. He has to plan out his work, and then work out his plan. The sense of commitment, the feeling of love (for work, for people, for the cause) bridge the gap between vision and its fulfillment. Robert Frost sang5, “And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.”
In this new millennium, we have to take the essence of wisdom traditions to enrich our executive competence. The spiritual wisdom of the East and West alike awakens us to the capacity within us to cause sea change in our surroundings. “The wise man is awake when it is dark night for the rest of the world,” says a verse6, “and where they are awake and active, he is indifferent as though it is time to rest”. This mystic poetry refers to the hidden power in us to see new avenues of dialogue and action, when most people tend to give up. Where majority of people, in their ignorance and immaturity, get excited about some passing glitter and glamour, we would not attach value to such shining tinsel.

Putting it philosophically, without really exaggerating, the best things in life happen when there is an inner change in us, and not when we will it. A new understanding makes us take the bricks that others throw at us and, with them, build a firm foundation for an elegant edifice. Such a new understanding gives to us a totally different feeling about our own identity. Spontaneity, and not the strain of volition, could characterize much of our decision-making. Oneness, and not the divisions of various kinds, could mark our experience of different situations of rift and conflict. Ramana Maharshi, the seer of the twentieth century, observed that the very division between subject and object is false and there is a homogeneous truth that underlies the vast panorama of life. It is of utmost importance for us to live in self-awareness, whereby we notice what is happening in our mind. That seeing has the power to transform the content of consciousness. To see what is, remarked J Krishnamurti, transforms what is. In that transformation we can be a tremendous change agent, and we can also face change in the most eminent way.

Courtesy: Brahmacharini Vibha Chaitanya- Pune