How to transform the mind as a leader?

It all comes down to this basic question as human beings have been for a long time been concerned about transforming their mind. Is there any way in which one’s mind can transform or is this process simply a vicious circle?

You live trapped in a vicious circle, a world of intense difficulties, a world beset by complex problems and challenges, one of which we would be bad enough, let alone a stack of them. But when we add together all the political, social, cultural and environmental issues we face, the world looks appalling. It is this demand to be constantly safe in any relationship, whether socially, economically, culturally or intimately. This breeds sorrow and fear because the seeking for security is inviting insecurity. Because have you ever found security in any relationship other than with yourself? That is why you need to comprehend that being completely insecure and following others will constantly unbalance any system: socially, culturally, politically, economically and even between people and ourselves.

The reason we experience such a global mess is not simply because we have a wrong system for doing things - whether these are technological, political, religious or cultural. But we follow the wrong people assigned to tackle today’s challenges, be it in higher education, the economy, politics or the arts. These self-called ‘accolade-driven’ ‘know-it-all’ would rather evolve and learn from human instincts, telepathy, perception, intuition and gut feeling. But because science is driven by thought and knowledge, with issues required to be scientifically proven to gain acceptance, such an approach is not tolerated. How long can you afford to ignore this?

It might be that our systems are fine, but they are in the wrong hands of the wrong people, as so many are self-seeking, lacking wisdom, lacking courage, lacking clarity, lacking compassion and lacking consciousness fragile people.

They are terribly afraid of failure and social pain themselves but don’t mind if others become victims because they are negligent in terms of understanding what needs to be done. You are unwilling to cooperate, unwilling to open up with others who do not think as you do. But it is us individuals who are wrong.

Because you do not know how to be, you often fail to accept yourself and change yourself to become more comprehensive, creative and mindful. You refuse to be confronted with your inner-self. Instead, you continue craving for more, wanting to go further and higher, failing to cooperate, failing to be humble, and failing to be your true self. You are pushing yourself and keep seeking to learn something more from someone so that you will better understand themselves and to change themselves as they become a more creative and humble person and more cooperative person. Most would love this idea, but as long you cultivate this insane “urge” that you must improve, it will be your biggest obstacle. Why are you in need of constant improvement? 

You are burdened by this urgent feeling that you must constantly improve and crave because if you do not, you may feel at risk of being socially, economically and culturally excluded. This is the critical reason you follow the wrong people. The question of why you need to improve yourself is perhaps more relevant than ever before.

If you are in desperate need of constant improvement, you fail to accept how you are or what is real. This undoubtedly prohibits your self-improvement, because it leads to, and repeats, the opposite direction, spiraling us into an endless, vicious circle rather than leading us to a plateau of peace. 

Your real self is the spirit that you reach when you are in stillness when you cultivate calmness. How do you do that? You start by observing yourself internally, listening very carefully to your emotions, feelings, impulses, affections, sensitivities and your thoughts that reinforce your inner-separation between yourself and what we experience, until you are no longer driven by your consciousness but are simply witnessing what is happening. That is what I would call real progress for leadership in the 21st century.  

But because you are enticed by today’s intangibles – reputation, greed, lust, sex, power, authority, title, position and image – sooner or later these become a burden to you as they can be attained with so little effort. You want to seek distance from yourself because somehow you are disquiet about yourself. You want to get rid of yourself and be someone else.

So then you turn to the arts – literature, history, art, music or philosophy – believing we can derive satisfaction from those pleasures until we realise they are not the answer either. So you creep further to spirituality and psychology, yet soon you realise these are not the answer either. Then you slide to culture and religion, seeking an ultimate reward that is not based on material goods, yet which will never satisfy us. You keep digging deeper into yet another new territory, but in that quest, you are merely repeating yourself in wanting to be better, because you are not. You are not better, because you truly, simply desire to be.

All these global ‘do-gooders’, both those who do ‘good’ for themselves and those who do ‘good’ for others, are trouble makers, unbalancing the system because doing good things is amazingly destructive. Doing ‘good’ is conditioned, stemming from the lack of comprehension of others. As long as you don’t comprehend, you become followers and crave to be an ideal person. You become pedantic, pompous, academic and righteous, dry and dull.

This progress is unfortunately what most people around the world have chosen to cultivate. Because how do others know what is good for them or the others? If we seek to improve ourselves we do not need to follow. We simply shall improve and trust ourselves. But because we do not trust ourselves we seek assistance to be better. The truth of the matter is we do not know how to interfere with the way the world is as it is a complex inter-related organism. But if we are truly aware of our inner-workings - which is true virtue - we realise there is little we can do to improve ourselves.

And the same goes for the global society. Surely you can demand to change our global society, sharing tremendous enthusiasm and inspiration, believing a new social revolution will initiate changes for the better for each of us. But has there ever been a revolution that ever set anything right? Assume you are stuck and do not know what you can change for the better: that is probably the worst thing the global industrial society could ever hear. But the entire notion of self-improvement is a hoax, another product of ‘global short profit maximisation’. This is not what life is about, is it?

What happens if you acknowledge that there is nothing we can do to be better? For some, this will be a relief. For others, it may be the end.

Accepting that there is nothing you can do to improve yourself or improve the world should give us a breather because you simply watch what is currently occurring in the world, observing what happens socially, culturally, ethically and emotionally. You should question why you keep separating the world socially, economically and culturally. You should not be in a hurry to know what it is, because you won’t know. Such knowledge requires a much more profound understanding because it is not materialistic, it is not spiritual, it is not cultural, nor is it social. It is us, people, comparing, over-analysing, craving, expecting and striving to become better.

But rarely does anyone spend time doing so. If you watch what is happening, you will see that you let the wrong people do far too many things of far too much weight and bearing of importance, placing the world in the shambles it is today. If you question that you are constantly wanting to improve everything and everywhere, - by fixing labels, improving people`s reputation, gradations, judgements - you shall watch what truly happens because the great things you do are happening. We start to realise how we live and what we do to each other. If we give ourselves a chance to free ourselves from constant improvement in our own nature and environment it will begin to take care of itself. Because we are not getting in the way of ourselves all the time and great things in life are beginning to happen.

Once you realise that something is terribly wrong, you see that things begin to rotate on their own without purpose, all because you avoid facing your real selves.   

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