Leadership Sutra #9 : Retreat within to treat without - Based on Bhagavad Gita

Leadership Sutra #9 : Retreat within to treat without

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Negative emotions such as: Irritation, depression, frustration, worry, hatred, envy, anger, and so forth. When such emotions take control of our mind, they make our system practically dysfunctional. Just as viruses prevent the user from properly using the computer, these emotions block us from effectively using our own intelligence.

Spirituality with its techniques for yoga and meditation connects us with the divine reservoir of positivity deep within us. By such inner connection, we can purge the negativity and rejuvenate ourselves. Taking breaks for such spiritual connection is the most worthwhile investment of time. It saves us from long phases of inefficient performance. Worse still, our inefficiency may induce further anxiety within us, thereby leading to emotional or even physical breakdown.

The Gita offers perhaps the most dramatic example of a leader needing and taking a break in an urgent situation where a break seemed impossible. Arjuna had to lead his army in a war where in the fortunes of his site depended largely on him. Yet when he found himself on the verge of an emotional breakdown induced by an ethical crisis, he did not try to continue the war when his heart was not in it. If he had fought on halfheartedly, It may well have been disastrous for his side, given the formidable army they faced. Instead, he did the courageous thing of taking a break to regroup and heard Gita Wisdom. That break calmed his mind, cleared his head, charged his heart, and catapulted him back into the war with an unstoppable inspiration that paved the way to success.

Many of the biggest breakthroughs in science have come from inspiration, moments of almost magical lucidity, wherein researchers could see solutions to problems that had earlier vexed them. Such inspiration is of course not a substitute for hard work, but it far supersedes mere hard work in its problem solving and progress achieving potential. To underscore the point that striking success in most fields comes not just by more work, but by better work. And better work may well come by working less, by using the time thus gained to take a rejuvenating break that enables us to work better later.

Leaders usually have systems in place to ensure that the machines or devices in their organization don't get overworked. We may also have some plan to take care of our physical machine - our body - by regulated diet, regular exercise and adequate rest. But do we have a similar program for our inner machine, our mind? Different people seek mental rest in different things such as sports, movies and parties, while these may offer us a break from the demands and pressures of work. They do not offer us a break from the external world that is the source of those demands and pressures. They don't raise our consciousness to a higher level of reality. Spirituality offers us that kind of break by connecting us with the highest spiritual reality, God.

Broadly speaking, spirituality is often thought of as being of 2 types, contemplative and active. Bhakti yoga blends and balances both by encouraging inner contemplation and outer action, inner contemplation on God and outer action for his service. Let's look at the 3 Important ways in which we can connect with the Divine.: ABC (Association, Books and Chanting)

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Strengthen Conviction with association.

In any walk of life, If we want to achieve excellence, we need guides, those who are experts in that field. Similarly, serious spiritual seekers need a guide. The spiritual guide is traditionally known as the Guru. Now the question arises. Isn't spirituality about experiencing God within? Wont a guru come in the way of such experience?

No, not at all. The guru doesn't come between God and us, He helps us remove what is between him and us. Usually layers of ego, misconception and misdirection form a thick wall that deafens us to his voice coming to us from within. To ensure that we don't miss out on such guidance, the Gita 4.34 recommends that we learn from enlightened seers who have seen the truth, for they are capable of showing us the truth. Significantly, the Gita refers to such seers in the plural indicated, indicating that we not just learn from one spiritual master, but also that we place ourselves in a community of spiritualists where in we learn from many through living association. Tell me who your friends are in. I will tell you who you will become. Our aspirations and values are shaped by our association, whatever we are vocation, We grow and blossom when we are in a nurturing, encouraging and inspiring association. Spiritual culture provides a structure and a forum for such nourishing association in the form of programs called Satsang.

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Sharpen the intelligence with books.?

What makes leaders effective is not their capacity to process phenomenal amounts of information their capacity to intelligently perceive and pursue the path to optimal success through the maze of all the information. Specialists can provide the minutiae data from the various relevant fields, But leaders alone can pave the pathway to use that data and the opportunity it creates. Leaders who have sharpened their intelligence can get to the essence of issues without getting caught in the plethora of information. We can sharpen our intelligence by studying the Bhagavad Gita. This ability of the Gita to reveal the most essential of all wisdom is expressed by Albert Einstein: “ When I read the Bhagavad Gita and reflect about how God created this universe, everything else seems so superfluous..” Reflection on the Gita can dissolve geographical, historical, and cultural boundaries that isolate and segregate us, thus enabling us to tap into the universal timeless reservoir of wisdom that is divinity is gift to humanity.

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Sonic Spirituality.

?The 3rd element is chatting. Chanting is a form of meditation, more specifically of mantra meditation. Just as a boat remains steady amidst waves when it is anchored, we can stay unshaken amidst the ups and downs of life when a mind is fixed on Krishna. Krishna manifests Himself in this age especially through His holy names. Hence, meditation on His names by chatting them repeatedly is the recommended form of meditation for this age. Sound also has the power to touch our hearts in extraordinary ways.

Catherine Le Mee in her book, Chant explains:

“The sense of hearing … connects experientially with the heart, and music and sound touches most directly. We do not resonate so deeply with the visual as with the auditory. This may be explained by the fact that our visual apparatus has a frequency range of slightly less than an octave. From infrared to ultraviolet. Whereas our auditory system has a range of about 8 octaves, approximately 60 to 16,000 Hertz or number of vibrations per second. We are sensitive to sound frequency as pitch and light frequency as colour. The frequency of the visual fields are much higher than those of the auditory field. And as is well known, the higher the frequency is, the lesser the penetration of the given material. For instance. A piece of cardboard Shields are easily from the light, but it takes a thick wall to block out sound and the lower the pitch, the deeper the penetration. We are very sensitive to sound. Not just through the ear, but through our holes. Skin and all are organs are affected by it. Music therapy is nowadays used increasingly in many forms of alternative medicine to calm the mind and treat psychological problems.

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In Vedic culture, tapping the power of sound for material and spiritual purposes has constituted a sophisticated science called Mantra technology. The mantra is very special sound vibration which the celebrated Beatle, George Harrison who was an avid mantra chanter, described as divine power encased in sound. The Sanskrit etymological explanation of the word mantra is Manas trayate iti mantra - sound vibration that delivers (Trayate) the mind (Mana) is mantra. A critical test of the benefits of mantra chanting was performed on 3 groups of 62 subjects, males and females of average is 25. They chanted the Hare Krishna Mahamantra 25 minutes each day under strict clinical supervision. The results showed that regular chanting of the Hare Krishna Mahamantra Reduces stress and depression. Also helps reduce bad habits and addiction. Meditation will never take away our work time, it will only take away our worry time. The time we lose daily to anxiety when it saps our energy in slackens are speed. Take out just 10 minutes daily to change the Maha mantra 108 times. The time spent in mantra meditation will not be an expense, it will be an investment, the best investment. Millions through the ages have already reaped rich dividends from this investment. Even today, millions all over the world are enriching themselves.

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Gita Wisdom stands ready to empower all leaders, present and potential, to bring out the best within themselves and offer their best contributions to the world.