Awakening the Soul

One of these days I received an e-mail probably from one of the readers of this column, Hidden Souls. The reader, it seems was interested in knowing the purpose of Hidden Souls and similar such columns in other mainline dailies. He also wanted to know if the purpose was being served in any measure. The question was more out of curiosity rather than any cynical streak. .On the face of it, the poser was a complex one needing a considered thought. But certainly, it was a valid question. It has been some five years since the column first appeared on these pages. What was the purpose? No straight answers but one and perhaps the major one was to awaken the soul that in this information age has acquired some kind of a conditioned dormancy. There may be many reasons but one reason is the bombardment of the soul with conflicting views that we call information. In this information age it is rather ironical that information over load has become a serious problem leading to intrapersonal conflict. The bombardment is so huge and so frequent that the very existence of the soul is being threatened. The excessive information has made human beings forget the essence of soul, making them oblivious of its very existence. This is something similar to what psychologists face in the case of retroactive inhibition in retention and retrieval of learned material. Due to interference of new learning the learning of the past gets impaired. But this psychological debate notwithstanding, the issue is dormancy of the soul. We often look towards God to help us in this awakening of the soul. But we forget one basic truth, the existence of freewill. God’s job is done with giving us the soul. It is our responsibility to awaken the soul and this has to be done by judicious exercise of freewill. The reason why human beings fail to exercise this freewill judiciously is because of the priming effect on our thought process due to constant bombardment of information. We assume that we are thinking consciously and independently, but we are actually not. Our thinking is influenced by the priming effect, that is, the impact of the immediate context. If this context is conducive to right thinking freewill will be exercised in the right way leading to the awakening of the soul. We must understand that awakening of soul is not about being politically correct or incorrect. It is about being just correct. Unadulterated, pure thought that comes straight from the soul. It is there in all of us, only we fail to retrieve it. But this provides just a part of the answer, because there was another issue that the reader wanted an answer to. Whether the purpose of awakening the soul was being achieved in any measure? This was the real issue and rather too complex to be addressed in simple terms. But then a chance viewing of a recent Bollywood movie ” Gabbar is Back” provided some clues. While accidentally watching the movie while at the dinner table it appeared that yes the Gabbar within all of us is trying to awaken, breaking free from the cocoon of our so called comfort zones. The ways of Gabbar in ”Gabbar is Back” cannot be approved, but the tacit endorsement of his intentions by large majority suggests that the awakening of the soul is possible. Only attempts need too be made more aggressively.

Meaning of a Full Life

We are living in strange times. We live yet we don’t live. This is what Norman Cousins meant what he said, ‘the tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we live’. Naturally, understanding what is like living a full life is difficult, yet some persons do exemplify by the way they live and more importantly the way they die. All deaths are tragedies but some lives are bigger tragedies. And some deaths are glorious, too. One such death that tells us the meaning of living a full life was that of former President Kalam. The beauty of this death was in the way it came. Kalam died in his boots on. And the way he wanted to die- teaching. The death of A P J Abdul Kalam has to be seen in this light. And someone very aptly said- The success of life is measured by how many people smile when you lived and how many cried when you died. Kalam lived truly full life and we need to draw lessons from his life and death as well. In a piece titled Good bye Kalam, Bangladesh daily, The Daily Star gave a fitting tribute to this Scientist, Statesman, Philosopher and  above all a human being by quoting some portions of his speech delivered on the occasion of celebration of 110^th  year of the Dacca Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The basic lesson that Kalam gave to the students present on the occasion was to dream and live those dream. Kalam believed that dreaming is not that which you see while sleeping. Dream is that which does not let you sleep. Kalam practiced what he preached, and that was the essence of the philosophy of life. Living a full life thus is that in which you dream and pursue them with all you heart, all your mind and all your soul. Most of us have lost the purpose of life and are out of touch with humanity. As Robin Sharma writes in is his bestselling book  “Who Will Cry When You Die” – we have email, fax machines and digital phones so that we can stay connected, yet we live in a time where human beings were never less connected. We have lost sight of those things that matter the most. The reasons why we fail to live full life are that we have no time. We do certainly have plenty of leisure but it is not being put to good use. We do not have time to think, we don’t time to dream, in fact we don’t even have time to live. Living like Robots, the human being though apparently worried about many of the species getting extinct, is unaware that it is itself becoming extinct at a much faster pace. Yes, humanity’s survival is at stake. Living without being aware of life, like mechanical entities that are programmed, the human beings are no longer the feeling, thinking dreaming being they use to be. The so called focused and goal centric approach to life is the greatest danger to the survival of the human beings. In the death of Kalam and his life are hidden lessons to the way life is to be lived and the way death should be embraced. Not in those five star like hospitals but out there in the battlefield of life- doing what you were supposed to do.

Values for CEO

The Fast paced present society has thrown up many new entities. CEO or Chief Executive officer is one of them. Though it is difficult to precisely define a CEO, one general agreement is that he is the top functionary of any organization. Of course, defining the organization is again a complex issue. But some general agreement can be arrived at on this term also. So we can conclude  that a CEO is one who takes all the decisions for an organization on behalf of all the members. This entity, the CEO can be identified by some cardinal attributes most being thrust on him by the yes men who invariably surround this CEO, cordoning off the right men whose numbers even otherwise is small. Two of the most common such attributes are omniscience and omnipotence. That is ‘I know everything’ and ‘I can do everything’. So the CEO is just one short of the three attributes ascribed to God, the third being omnipresence. Well, the CEO tries for this also by displaying his name or picture along with some quote or value judgement either copied or cooked allover. Go to any big organization and you may find big hoardings bearing testimony to this. But this does not create many problems. The problems arise when the CEOs start living these rather seriously, thinking as if the world was waiting for them to arrive on the scene and lead it to the promised land. This mind set results in a serious disequilibrium for the organization that was in one state of equilibrium. Most damaging outcome of this mind set is the chaotic situation that ultimately arises because of the simmering discontent. CEO’s are and should definitely be agents of change. But change has to happen with continuity because that is how a system can survive. Forcing change without taking into account the existing state leads to chaos. It is important to understand the nature of the existing system and create changes that would take the system forward. The rule is- slow and steady wins the race. Speed is good as far as it goes but continuing with speed for long is fraught with possibilities of disaster. The job of the CEO is to lead the whole organization. But guided by a bloated ego many believe that  “to move fast move alone.” They may be right, but they need to know that it is more important to move far. And the rule is, if you want to move far move together. Organizations are meant for long distance races where more than speed endurance counts. The trouble with most CEO’s is that they fail to understand this reality and for them organizations seem to be entities that are coterminous with their own stay. So they all appear to be men or women in hurry, driven more by arrogance than reason. Results are that they think God, set ridiculously high targets for the organization members and push them with allurements, threats or sanctions. CEO’s must realize that they are Managers and need to work with and through people who more often than not have different capabilities. Setting unreasonable standards of performance create anxiety, frustration and even rebellion. The impatience due to arrogance turns the CEO’s of today into Megalomaniacs. It is time to rethink the qualities of a CEO. Because more than intellect it is the temperament that matters. Power has to be tempered with humility.