Lose your ego and bow down!

Gautam Buddha was once travelling from Shravasti to Varanasi. When he got tired, he rested under a tree, on an ancient podium. A poor farmer saw Buddha and came to pay his respects, but before bowing down before him, he prostrated himself in front of the podium. Buddha asked him why. He replied: "I'm uneducated but it is our village tradition to bow to this podium. I feel a certain reverence towards this podium and I feel very happy when I follow the tradition."

Buddha blessed him and told him to continue the tradition. Buddha's other disciples asked him: "We don't understand this. You don't teach any prayer. You don't support tradition. Why didn't you advise the poor farmer to be free from this blind faith? Just the other day, you scolded a Brahmin Agnidatta for doing the same thing!"

Buddha replied: "This farmer bows in innocence. Agnidatta is educated and egoistic. His prayer has no heart. It is important to learn the art of bowing down and being humble. Then, it does not matter where you bow-to this podium or to any temple. Agnidatta is a scholar, and he is proud of his scholarliness. He has a mindset but no humbleness. I had to shake him and wake him up. I don't give the same advice to two people, as every individual is unique."

After explaining this to his monks, Buddha asked them to meditate near the podium. All of them experienced divine light radiating from the podium. Wonderstruck, they asked their master about the mystery of the podium. Buddha replied: "This podium is 'alive'. It's the samadhi of Kashyap, a past Buddha. In my last life, I met him. I was simply a seeker then. Kashyap told me: 'You will be enlightened in your next life. I see it.'" Buddha went on: "Kashyap made me aware of my potential and I have attained it. There have been thousands of Buddhas in the past; there will be thousands in the future. What is important is to learn how to bow down. It rids you of your ego. It makes you divine."

The modern world is becoming intellectual and rapidly losing touch with innocence. Everybody knows a lot but feels very little. The head becomes heavy and suppresses the heart's softness. The head creates a false centre in us and we lose our individuality. Ego is false life.

Osho explains: "The ego is not an individual. Ego is a social phenomenon. It gives you a social hierarchy. If you stay satisfied with it, you miss the opportunity to find yourself. That's why you are miserable. With a false life, how can you be ecstatic? Ego creates miseries, millions of them." You cannot see it, because it is your own darkness. You are attuned to it. All miseries enter through the ego. It cannot make you blissful, only miserable. Ego is hell.

Whenever you suffer, watch and analyse. You will find that ego is the cause. And the ego goes on finding causes to suffer. You are an egoist. Everyone is. Some people are grossly egoistic, just on the surface, so they are not so difficult. Some are subtly egoistic, deep down-they are the real problems. This ego clashes continuously with others because every ego is under confident about itself. It has to be, for it is a false thing. A man who attains his true self will never clash with anyone.

Osho illustrates this with a Zen story: "A Zen master was walking. A man came and hit him. The master fell down, got up and started walking, just like earlier. He didn't look back once. His disciple was shocked. He said, 'If one lives in such a way, then anybody can come and kill you. And you have not even looked at that person... Why did he do it?' The master said, 'That is his problem, not mine.'"

You can clash with an enlightened man, but that is your problem, not his. If you are hurt in that clash, that too is your own problem. It is like knocking against a wall!

Kurukshetra counsel

28 Sep, 2007, 0510 hrs IST,Devdutt Pattanaik, TNN

Of the 18 days of the Kurukshetra battle described in the Mahabharta, nine days were indecisive. The Kauravas , with 11 armies, outnumbered the seven armies of the Pandavas. For the Pandavas, it was critical that Bhisma, the old but very able commander of the Kaurava forces, be killed. So Krishna decided to make Shikhandi ride on his chariot alongside Arjun. Shikhandi was born with the body of a woman which later transformed into the body of a man. Bhisma believed that a creature such as this was a woman and so refused to raise his bow against her. The Kauravas protested her entry into the battlefield but the Pandavas saw Shikhandi as a man. Arjun had no qualms about using him/her a human shield, raising his bow at the invincible Bhisma and pinning him to the ground with hundreds of arrows. Bhisma can be seen as a man who is paralysed by his own interpretation of a situation . But any situation can be seen in many different ways. Through alternate interpretation , it is possible to challenge anyone. Defeat is inevitable if one is unable to accommodate an alternate point of view. Had Bhisma accepted that Shikhandi was a man there was no way he could have been defeated. Drona, the commander of the Kaurava army after Bhisma, was a ruthless killer, who broke Pandava morale by killing Arjun's son Abhimanyu and even making his soldiers fight at night, against the rule of war. To defeat him, Krishna spread the rumour that Ashwatthama was dead. Ashwatthama happened to be the name of Drona's son and Drona was extremely attached to him. Ashwattama was the reason for Drona's life. On hearing this rumour, his heart sank. Was his son dead? Yes, said all the Pandava warriors surrounding him. Yes, said Krishna. Drona turned to Yudhishtira, the most upright Pandava. Yudhishtira knew that the Ashwatthama being referred to was an elephant. Still he told Drona - either a man or an elephant, Ashwatthama is surely dead. In the din of the battle, looking at the petrified face of Yudhistira, Drona was convinced that his son was dead and that Yudhishtira gave him the strange answer to break the terrible news gently. He lowered his weapons. Taking advantage of his this, the leader of the Pandava army raised his sword and beheaded Drona. Drona can be seen as a man who is extremely attached to something personal . To break such a man down, that which he is attached to must be destroyed. Or at least he must be given the impression that it is destroyed. His obsession will cloud his judgement; he will not bother to delve deeper and check the facts. Many leaders have strong likes and dislikes and this can be used by corporate spin-doctors and gossip mongers to destroy relationships. Leaders have to be wary of this. They must check facts especially if the news relates to those who matter most to them. Otherwise, like Drona, they will end up beheaded. Shalya who became commander of the Kaurava army on the last day, had, according to the Indonesian Mahabharata , a demon that came out of his ears every time he was attacked. This demon became stronger if the attack against Shalya became more intense. To defeat Shalya, Krishna suggested that Yudhishtira fight him, not with rage but with love. So Yudhishtira walked towards Shalya with great affection. The demon in Shlaya became so weak that it could not even come out of Shalya's ears. When Yudhishtira came close to Shalya, with no malice in his heart, Yudhishtira raised his spear and impaled the last leader of the Kauravas. A powerful lesson here. There are people who become strong in confrontations . Such people must never be confronted. Their point must not be validated through arguments. The best way to invalidate them is to simply agree with them. This unnerves them. They come prepared to face all arguments and, in the absence of any, feel disempowered . Confused, they become vulnerable. Vantage Point PeoplE around him, seeing there is no one arguing their point will doubt their viewpoint and start to withdraw . Thus through agreement can a point of view be destroyed. Barbareek is a little known character whose tale is told in many folk Mahabharatas. He was the son of Bhima by a snake princess and was stronger than all five Pandavas put together. Not wanting him to join the Kauravas, Krishna asked him for a boon. Barbareek was too nice a man to say no. So Krishna said, “Give me your head.” Barbareek immediately severed his neck and offered his head to Krishna with one request that he be allowed to see this great battle from a vantage point. Krishna therefore placed his head on a hill that overlooked Kursukshetra . At the end of the war, the Pandavas asked him who was the greatest warrior in the battlefield. Barbareek replied, “I saw no great warrior on the battlefield. All I saw was Krishna’s discus whirring around cutting the heads of warriors and their blood washing the hair of Draupadi, who had long ago been publicly disrobed by the very same warriors.” It is a good idea, in the middle of corporate political wrangling, to step back and see who is provoking the fight and stoking the flames. Often the two parties involved fail to realise that out there is another man — a Krishna maybe — making them fight for his very own agenda. So ask yourself: are you fighting your own battle in Kurukshetra or are you a pawn in someone else’s much bigger game?

Make Vishnu's four symbols your management tools

Make Vishnu's four symbols your management tools

Hindu Gods are distinguished from each other by the symbols they carry. Shiva , the ascetic, for example, is identified by his trident and rattle drum. Brahma, the priest-teacher , is identified by his books, rosary and pot. Vishnu, the leader-king , is identified with four symbols: conch-shell trumpet or shankh, discus whirring around his index finger or chakra, a mace or gada and a lotus or padma. Come to think of it a good leader also has only four tools to get his work done. His very own shankh, chakra, gada and padma . Only, one does not identify his tools using mythological vocabulary. Vishnu’s shankh or conchshell trumpet is blown to announce his presence on a battlefield . In Vedic times, this instrument was used by the commander to rally their troops. Warriors also used this to demonstrate their stamina before their enemies for blowing a conch-shell trumpet was a measure of lung-power and mind control. Every warrior in the Mahabharat from Krishna to Arjun had his very own conch-shell . The conch-shell can be viewed as an instrument of communication. The first rule of leadership is to be an effective communicator. Your team must know who you are, what your capabilities are, what your vision is and what you expect them to do, and why, and how this will help in achieving your final objective. Your competition also needs to know that you are powerful and they must avoid confrontation . Unless you communicate , nobody is aware of your presence. ‘Blowing your own trumpet’ and getting your thoughts across is necessary if anything needs to get done. Vishnu’s chakra, which whirs round his index finger, is both a weapon as well as a symbol of life that Vishnu sustains . As a weapon, it strikes a target, trims the unwanted and undesirable elements like an electric saw and returns to Vishnu’s finger like a boomerang. As a symbol of life, it indicates time (what goes around comes around in this life or the next) and space (the circular horizon of our worldview). The chakra can be viewed as a symbol of review. A good leader’s job does not end with communicating what he desires and what he expects from his team. He reviews their progress regularly by organising daily meetings, weekly meetings, monthly meetings. In these meetings, he checks what has been done and what has not been done. He ensures that the team has not drifted from the goal. He discovers what has worked and what has not. He identifies new creative thoughts and anticipates possible hurdles. This he does again and again and again. Repetition is the key word. With each review, things get trimmed and the vision gets sharper and clearer so that a new horizon of possibilities emerge. To keep your team on track, the traditional method is to use the system of reward and punishment discretly. Vishnu’s carrot and stick approach of leadership is represented through his mace or gada and his lotus or padma. The mace is like a teacher’s ruler, to punish those who do not do what they are supposed to do. The lotus rich with nectar and pollen, that attracts bees and butterfly, is for those who do what they are supposed to do and more. The one he uses to strike down the rule/law/system breakers. The other he uses to reward the rule/law/system followers . Thus he keeps his team on the straight and narrow, ensuring they achieve what they set out to achieve together. The one ensures that errors are not repeated. The other ensures that best practices are always followed. In some organisations, the four tools generate fear and anxiety. When this happens, both the goal and the tools have to be relooked at. Is the goal driven by reality or falsehood ? Is it motivated by greed? Is the conch-shell trumpeting or the rotation of the wheel excessive? Is the mace too harsh or the lotus too stingy? In some organizations , the tools serve no purpose . People continue to do what they are supposed to do, moving in different directions, with no alignment to each other. When this happens, the communication has to be relooked at. Has the message gone through correctly or is the message changing repeatedly confusing all or is there a message at all? The message of ten contains only the goal - what must be achieved. The conch-shell , however, must also communicate how it must be achieved. The aim of the review is to focus on the how - if the prescribed methods are working or failing, the reasons for the success and failure. Often review meetings are not used for review what has been planned - they are used to generate new ideas and discard old ones. New whats and new hows to replace old whats and old hows. Review meetings can generate new insights but it must never be at the cost of the planned agenda. New ideas must be parked, reviewed later and then communicated accordingly. Otherwise , the review loses its purpose and the conch-shell only produces cacophony, with things going in every direction. If all is well, if the what and how are clear, and if short term results show that they are achievable, then the only way to reach the ultimate goal is to make things happen is by using reward and punishment to drive the team. Reward need not be monetary; it can be a kind word, recognition, acknowledgment. Punishment need not be a public humiliation or a cut in incentive; it can be a simple awareness of failure. Good leaders typically reward the team in times of success but punish themselves in times of failure. By taking the ownership of failure, they generate a more powerful relationship with the organisation. Mahabharat tells the story of Kuru who used his own flesh as seed and his blood as water when drought struck his kingdom. This suffering for the sake of his people earned him the admiration of the gods who declared that those who die in Kuru’s field and live as Kuru did would go to heaven. Proof of optimal tool usage comes when Vishnu, the leader, creates Vaikuntha, an organisation which is stable and harmonious , where every individual thrives, where the team works in alignment, and where organisational goals are achieved to the satisfaction of all stakeholders.