Skip to main content

Ideal Leader and Noah's Ark

Date April 9, 2013



Pujya Guruji Swami Tejomayanandaji, provided a brilliant answer to a question at the recently concluded seminar "Management Principles from the Bhagavad Gita" in Singapore. Enjoy.

Question: According to the Geeta who would be the ideal manager and what would be his qualities?

Pujya Guruji Swami Tejomayanandaji:

मुक्तसङ्गोऽनहंवादी धृत्युत्साहसमन्वितः |
सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्योर्निर्विकारः कर्ता सात्त्विक उच्यते ||१८-२६||

muktasaṅgonahaṁvādī dhṛtyutsāhasamanvitaḥ
siddhyasiddhyor nirvikāraḥ kartā sāttvika ucyate 18.26

The best worker, leader, manager is one who is free from egoism and he has no attachment to any power, position, pleasure, etc. He is prepared to act according to the situation and what is required, he is prepared to do it. If he has to give up his position, he will do it, he is not attached to anything. muktasaṅgaḥ-anahaṁvādī - free from attachment & ego. dhṛti-utsāha-samanvitaḥ - endowed with great fortitude and enthusiasm. To achieve great ideas, he has the fortitude to hold on to that idea. Many challenges, obstacles, problems and difficulties may come in the way but he does not get bogged down by that. utsaaha - the enthusiasm is there. Sometimes when someone succeeds, some people say 'he was destined to succeed', but the other man says, 'he was determined to succeed'. That 'utsaaha' is there. If I fail, so what - again you start.

siddhyasiddhyor nirvikāraḥ - In the process, sometimes there will be success, sometimes there will be failure, but he is the one who remains equipoised. Not that once success has come and it goes to your head. Or some failure has happened, so you become depressed. No such thing. Sometimes in business there is recession, it happens often, but some people go into depression - "I want to die" & they commit suicide. When such a thing was happening, someone was feeling this way, someone told him, "learn from Noah, you know Noah's ark. He floated his company when the world was in liquidation!" [laughter].

siddhyasiddhyor nirvikāraḥ kartā sāttvika ucyate - he is the best worker, leader or manager. That is the definition in the Bhagavad Geeta.



PS: The above post on Pujya Guruji's facebook page, did provoke a very healthy discussion. Do click to follow.

Hari Om and Namaskaar until the next post

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Geeta Dhyānaṁ 2 - Vyāsā's Vast Intellect

January 7, 2013 Previously on Geeta Jayanti, I had posted on the eternal debt of gratitude to Mother Geeta that is the basis of Geeta Dhyānaṁ. I love Param Pujya Gurudev 's commentary on the Geeta Dhyānaṁ. Pujya Gurudev's commentary is after the introduction to the Bhagavad Geeta in the commentary on Chapters 1 & 2 published by the the Chinmaya Mission. I personally believe it should be a book by itself. After invoking Mother Geeta, we now pay tribute to the wise Vyāsa Rishi - the Guru whose Jayanti marks Guru Pūrnima every year. Pujya Gurudev starts His tribute to Veda Vyāsā in his commentary on the 1st verse of the Dhyānaṁ. Vyāsa, the father of the Vedās, who, first collected, edited and published the Veda texts and who thereafter, gave us the dialectics of Vedānta in his Brahma Sūtra, himself a great man of realization, was indeed well fitted for the job. The ancient seer had both the mastery of the theoretical science of religion - Hinduism and also the practical expe

In every field, let Dharma flourish - क्षेत्रे क्षेत्रे धर्म कुरु

August 9, 2012 Swamini Vimalanandaji has done a series of talks at the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) called "406 SMS – Sure Mantras for Success from Bhagwad Geeta" (item 406 at this AMA link ). In this she has a very interesting take on the 1st line of the Bhagavad Geeta. धर्मक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रे  १-१ dharmakShetre kurukShetre 1-1 <i> on the holy plain of Kurukshetra... </i> Swamini turns that slightly and says,  क्षेत्रे  क्षेत्रे  धर्म कुरु -   kShetre  kShetre  dharma kuru. Swamini goes on to establish that we can use this mantra to make that: "In every aspect of society,  must be pervaded by Dharma" Hari Om and Namaskaar until the next post

Geeta in Literature - IF by Rudyard Kipling

September 12, 2011 I came across a nice YouTube video that is an animation of Rudyard Kipling reading his famous poem IF . The full text sourced from wikisource is below: If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same: If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And los