Inner Management Read online

  Inner Management

  Sadhguru

  Copyright © 2012 Isha Foundation

  First Edition: August 2012

  ISBN: 978-81-87910-55-8

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.

  For comments and enquiries regarding the book please contact: [email protected]

  Published by:

  Isha Foundation

  Velliangiri Foothills,

  Semmedu (P.O.),

  Coimbatore – 641 114, INDIA

  Tel: 91-422-2515345

  Email: [email protected]

  Website: www.ishafoundation.org

  Introduction

  In the Presence of the Master is a series of stirring and insightful discourses given by Sadhguru. In his willingness to share, Sadhguru offers glimpses of the profound wisdom that is otherwise accessible to enlightened beings only.

  In modern societies, enhancing the quality of our life has become one of our main objectives. In this pursuit, we tend to emphasize on enhancing external situations our job, business, family and the abounding accumulation of material things; in spite of all the efforts, our personal and professional lives are too often painfully lacking happiness and fulfillment.

  In this volume, Sadhguru shifts our focus to the inside, pointing out a way to establish a true sense of inner peace and wellbeing by applying "Inner Management."

  Inner Management

  "Our lives become beautiful not because we are perfect. Our lives become beautiful because we put our heart into what we are doing."

  Sadhguru

  If we want to live well, both externally and internally, how well we live here simply depends on how well we manage our surroundings and how well we manage ourselves. Fundamentally, life is management. The quality of your life depends on how well you manage your body, your mind, your emotion, your situations, your home, your communities, nations, your life in general and the world. But generally we are thinking of management only in terms of business management, or industry management; generally we are talking management only with economic situations, not life as a whole.

  In many ways it is unfortunate that today the most predominant factor that rules the planet is economics. The other aspects of life have been totally pushed to the corner. When economics rules, when economics is the only thing that you think about, you will tend to become very gross and unhappy in so many ways. We are conducting various levels of programs for top level executives in major corporations in the world. What I see is, people who have failed in their lives, they are suffering their failure. People who have succeeded in their life, they are suffering their success. If you suffer your failure it is okay, because failure comes easy. But something that you worked for, something that you always longed for, something that you wanted to create in your life, when this happens, if you start suffering it, that is the real tragedy of life.

  If you look at yourself and see, when you were five years of age, how happy you were, and today, how happy you are. If we make a chart out of it, is it moving upward or downward? In twenty-four hours time, how many moments are you really happy? If you look at this, the graph is not going up, it is going down. So that means you are a bad manager because after all, everything that you do in your life is in pursuit of happiness. You educate yourself, you pursue careers, you build families, you run after your ambitions. So many things you do, because somewhere you believe fulfilling those things will bring you happiness. After doing all that, if happiness is not multiplying, if it is going down, that means you are a bad manager of yourself.

  Anybody who does not know how to manage his own body, his own mind, his own emotion and his energies, if he is managing outside situations, he is only managing them by accident, not by intent the way he wants it. When you manage situations by accident, you exist as an accident. When you exist as an accident, you are a potential calamity. When you exist as a potential calamity, being anxious all the time becomes a natural part of life.

  Anywhere you go today, people are talking stress management, especially in the United States. I cannot understand why anybody wants to manage his stress. I can understand if you want to manage your business, your finances, your family or your property, but why would you want to manage stress? It took me a while to understand that these people have come to the conclusion that if they do things in the world, they are bound to be stressful.

  Someone is not stressful because of what he is doing; someone is stressful because he doesn't know how to manage his own inner system. It is not the nature of the job which makes one stressful. You ask the top executive, he is stressful; you ask the office hand, he is also stressful - everybody believes their job is stressful. No job is stressful. If you have no control over your own inner system, you will be stressful whether you do something or not.

  Fundamentally, management means we want to decide the course of our destiny. You want to have a certain kind of situation, both inward and outward. So everybody is a manager in his own capacity, but in different levels and different types. Whether you manage a kitchen where you cook for 4 people, or you manage a large industry where 10,000 people work, fundamentally, if you want to have a good kitchen or a good industry, you must be a good manager of that situation, isn't it?

  If you have to manage 10 people or 10,000 people around you, you have to manage 10 minds or 10,000 minds around you, but if you have no management over your own mind, you managing 10,000 minds is going to be a disaster. If in the process of managing a situation we are destroying human beings, which is happening right now, then this kind of management is no good because after all, the basic intent of every management is human wellbeing. If management is for human wellbeing, it is not just about producing something or making profit, people should rise to their full potential, not just in terms of work, but as human beings. If people work together, they should be able to rise to the peak of their love, peace, compassion within themselves.

  So if this kind of management has to happen, that you and the people around you rise to their peak, then you have to spend a certain amount of time in focusing on your inner management. If this doesn't happen, you will only manage situations by accident. Lots of people have understood management as a way of throwing their weight around. Can I tell you a joke?

  On a certain day, a lion was really feeling great within himself. He was just walking in the forest and came across a little rabbit, he caught him and roared at him, "Who is the king of the jungle?" The little rabbit, terrified said, "You, you, of course you!" He let him go, swaggered around a little bit, then he found a fox, caught him, "Who is the king of the jungle?" "Oh my Lord, it's you of course, nobody else but you!" He swaggered around a little more, caught a few more animals, everybody screamed out of fear, "You are the king of the jungle!" Then he was in full swagger like a manager - king of the jungle, and walked into a clearing. There was a huge elephant standing there. The lion went, stood in front of the elephant and asked, "Who is the king of the jungle?" The elephant picked him up with his trunk, rolled him up, twirled him around and smashed him to the ground. The lion's back broke. Then the lion said, "You could have just told me." But the elephant replied, "You see, I had to make my point." So a lot of people generally are thinking management means just throwing their weight around. Throwing your weight around is not management; any fool can do that.

  If you manage a situation, not just things happening there, people should feel elevated just being in that space. Above all, you must feel wonderful being there. So, if this has to happen, you need an inner dimension. When I say "inner dimension," I am not just talking about the body or the mind, bec
ause both this body and mind you gathered from outside in certain ways.

  For example, when you were a child, this physical body was only this small, now it has become this much. What you call as "body" is just a piece of earth that you converted into food and made into body, isn't it? So this body is just a heap of food that you gathered over a period of time. What you call as "my mind" is a heap of impressions that you gathered from outside. Now you have a heap of food and a heap of impressions. If you are capable of gathering such a large body and so much mind, there must be something more fundamental than this, but that never comes into your experience. You are just lost in these two heaps, trying to make some sense out of it.

  Now as there is a management science for external well being, there is also a management science for inner well being. It is just that most of the time we have not approached it scientifically. We just believe that by doing something, somehow everything will be okay. Right now people are thinking, by educating themselves, by getting a job, by making money, or by getting married they are going to be happy ever after, but after some time, they will discover, it is not so. Though repeatedly it has let them down, still they believe that something else, some other miracle will make everything okay. It will not be okay.

  It once happened, on a certain day a bull and a pheasant were grazing on the field. The bull was grazing on the grass, the pheasant was picking ticks off the bull. Then the pheasant looked at a huge tree which was at the edge of the field, and very nostalgically said, "Alas, there was a time when I could fly to the topmost branch of the tree, but today I do not have the strength even to fly to the first branch." The bull very nonchalantly said, "That's no problem. Eat a little bit of my dung everyday, you will see, within a fortnight's time you will reach the top of the tree." The pheasant said, "Oh, come off it! How is that possible?" The bull replied, "Really, please try and see. The whole humanity is on it, you could try, too."

  Very hesitantly, the pheasant started pecking at the dung, and lo on the very first day it reached the first branch of the tree. In a fortnight's time, it reached the topmost branch of the tree. It went and sat on the topmost branch and was just enjoying the scenery. The old farmer saw a fat old pheasant on the top of the tree. He took out his shotgun and shot him off the tree. So the moral of the story is: even bullshit can get you to the top, but never lets you stay there.

  So if you are seeking a life of fulfillment, joy, peace and wellbeing within yourself, don't try to fool yourself in some way. You must do the right thing, otherwise it won't work. As a manager you know that unless you do the right thing, it doesn't work with the outside. The same goes with the inside; unless you do the right thing, it just doesn't work. You may just fool yourself to believe that this or that will make you alright. Yes, for a moment; but the next moment you crash. Please see.

  Successful people, unsuccessful people, just look at their lives and see, in twenty-four hours how many moments are they really joyful? You go on the street and look, how many joyful faces do you see? Very, very few, isn't it? If you see any, usually they are young faces. Faces over 30 are all long faces. What has happened to them? For most of them, their lives have worked out far better than they ever imagined. If you look at your generation, never before another generation of people have been this comfortable and this well physically as you are right now, isn't it? No other generation has known these kinds of comforts and conveniences, but still, are people any happier than before? This is simply because you just applied external management, not inner management.

  In the process of creating what we want, in pursuit of our happiness, we are just destroying the very source of our life, this planet; we are making a bonfire out of it. But still we are not satisfied, nor are we any more joyful than what people were five hundred years ago. Somewhere we have neglected the interiority. So to turn inward, what is needed? One reason why most young people here have never made any effort to turn inward is because today any thinking person, the moment he can read A, B, C, speak English, and has a few educational qualifications, he develops an allergy towards anything spiritual. This is not your fault. These so-called spiritual people have made such jokers out of themselves. They have presented spirituality in such terrible, ridiculous ways, that anybody who has any sense doesn't want to go anywhere near it.

  Spirituality means, to know something which is beyond the physical. Right now, if you exist as a physical entity - as a body and a mind - whatever happens outside, will happen inside also. If what happens outside also constantly happens within you, then you being peaceful and happy is always accidental. It doesn't matter who you are, how powerful you are, how great a manager you are, external situations will never be one hundred percent in your control. Even if you are just two people in the family, still you don't have absolute control over the situation, isn't it? As the scope and play of your life increases, you have less and less control over the situations in which you live. That is the reality of life.

  Only when a person begins to experience a dimension beyond the physical within himself, then he can play with the physical world whichever way he wants, he can do the best that he can do in the outside world, but the interiority is undisturbed. If your body, your mind, your emotions, and your energies are not functioning the way you want them to, then this is the worst kind of slavery because somebody else decides what should happen within you. If somebody else decides what should happen around you, that itself you call as slavery. But if someone decides what should happen within you, is it not a more horrible way of being a slave? But please see, the whole world is in this slavery. The only consolation is, everybody is like this.

  People are learning management as a science to apply to outer situations; I would like them to understand that there is a whole science of inner management also. If you don't learn that, you may manage businesses, you may manage industry, but still you will not live a life of fulfillment and wellbeing. If you want to live a life of fulfillment and wellbeing and offer the same to people around you, it is extremely important that you know what it means to manage your interiority.

  I don't know how you felt as a child in school. I always looked at the teacher; if he puts his heart into it, I was willing to be there, otherwise I was out. Somewhere, right from my childhood, the education that I received, though they sent me to the best possible schools around, it didn't mean anything to me because my sense of listening and looking at people was such: When the teachers were talking whatever - Chemistry, Biology or Mathematics, one thing I could clearly see was, whatever they were saying didn't mean a damn thing to them. And I was not willing to listen to somebody who talks something which doesn't mean anything to him.

  I have so many things on my agenda; twenty-four hours are packed with too many things. I am not willing to spend an hour or even five minutes listening to someone who is talking something which doesn't mean anything to him. If it means something to him, even if he is talking nonsense it doesn't matter, I am willing to listen to it. But if he is talking great things which don't mean anything to him, I am not willing to listen to him. So as a part of this, almost ninety percent of my college time I was outside, only ten percent inside. Only when I saw somebody who was talking something with passion, I was there.

  I am happy to see if somebody is talking with some passion about what he is doing. It doesn't matter if what he is doing is right, wrong, okay, perfect or not; but someone has put his heart into it, so it is okay. Our lives become beautiful not because we are perfect. Our lives become beautiful because we put our heart into what we are doing. It doesn't matter what we are doing. Whether we are sweeping the floor, or managing the country, or whatever we are doing. If we are putting our heart into what we are doing, it is beautiful to be doing that activity. Living in an atmosphere where people are passionate about what they are doing is itself highly enriching.

  There is always a certain excitement once you are stepping into a new dimension of life. Let's say somebody got a job, the first day when they went and sat
behind their table, that table was the most fantastic place in the world; but within a few years, behind the same table they are manufacturing blood pressure, diabetes, ulcers and what not. This is not because there is something wrong with the jobs that we do, this is not because there is something wrong with the world that we live in, it is simply because we have not paid sufficient attention to ourselves. We have paid too much attention to what is outside.

  People are always thinking great aspirations will make them successful in the world. Aspiration is just an initial starting point, just because you aspired for success, just because you aspired for prosperity, just because you aspired for wellbeing, it doesn't happen. Success, prosperity, wellbeing happens because you have made yourself capable of creating those things. Everybody aspires. Who is not aspiring for success in the world? Even a beggar on the street is trying to be a successful beggar, isn't it so? Every human being is aspiring for it, but only those who have made themselves capable will succeed. Making yourself capable, not only in terms of management skills and other things - though that is needed too - but making yourself capable as a human being.

  It is my wish and my blessing that managers will manage this world, this community and the business and commerce, which is part of our existence today in the world, in a much better way than the previous generations have done; because externally we are better equipped than ever before. If managers and leaders equip themselves for internal management also, I'm sure that they would manage this world, this nation and the communities in a much, much better way than it has been done till now.

  When it comes to management, there is no such thing as perfect management. It is just that if people give themselves absolutely to what they are doing, things will happen. Right now, the whole Isha Foundation with hundreds of centers around the world is run by young people. People who have been with us for fourteen, fifteen years, they are just in their early thirties now; no senior people, no experienced people, just young people, raw hands. I took this as a challenge to make it happen through them, not using any kind of experience. I'm not against experience, but I wanted to make a statement that incredible things can be done, not because we know how to do it. Incredible things can be done simply because we are committed that we want it to happen.