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Bhagavadgita and Values Bhagavad-Gita is a sermon, an advice, an orientation delivered by Lord Krishna to ArjunaBhagavad + Gita the song of the Lord, the song celestial. (1) Brief History Kaurava-s and Pandava-s- were two warring brothers groups; two factions of the same family and were hellbent on fighting an all-out war. Pandava-s had made every attempt in the book to avoid this war, even Lord Krishna had attempted to mediate, but that attempt had also failed, a huge army had gathered on the battlefield; as many as 7+18 divisions of soldiers had gathered on the Kurukshetra battlefield. Arjuna Vishada Despondency of Arjuna Arjuna asked Krishna with heroic ardor to place his chariot between the two armies. Krishna complied with his wish, when the chariot was placed in between the two armies; Arjuna saw his brothers, preceptors standing in the opposite army, all the near and dear ones were arrayed in front of each other on the opposite sides. Mahabharata shows us that there were four generations of Kuru dynasty on the battlefield intent upon fighting to the finish. Arjuna immediately plunged into the state of melancholy. For him, the battle itself was not an unusual sight as he had experienced many battles in his life and also had immerged as a winner. Yet, the sight had a devastating impact on him. 1.1 Impact Arjuna started expressing his melancholy to Krishna. He said; seeing these relatives, who have come together here, prompted by war, my limbs fail me. My mouth is parched up. My body is quivering, my bow slips away from my hand and my skin burns all over, I am even unable to stand, my mind whirls and I see adverse omens.

Arjuna, as we can see has lost his nerve and deep anguish sailed through his heart. Arjuna was on archer par excellence, he did not know defeat but he never had trembled so much, never had tears welled up in his eyes. Why did it happen? It happened because of two things;1-acute attachment ,as well as, 2- emotional uncertainty of Arjuna. 1.2 Bhagavad-Gita and Corporate World. In corporate world, we have a group of knowledgeable leaders and top-rising executives, having meteoric growth. They are those people, the High Fliers, in an organization, with proven capabilities and they are expected to perform every now and them. External forces like drive about the over thrust of performance, present scenario at the market, market analysts opinions, expectations of shareholders and also of the top management line are there to influence on their performance. There is also a throbbing urge to prove oneself better; better than others and also better and better than ones own previous performance. Thus one wants to be constantly ahead of others and himself, too. This constant pressure to perform leaves an executive in an unsatisfied, unhappy mode. One has to cling to the performance-graph for ones own material benefits but that stress as if arrests, chokes a person permanently- attachment leads to sorrowmoha results into dukkha- and of course you cannot do away with the material attachment either, so that way too, one is sure to receive only dukkha, in both the cases. The inability of an executive to curb the urge of performing better and better, leaves him in a sulking mode- this is Arjunas despondency it is actually a case of burn out- you expect too much from yourself and others are also keeping you on tenter-hooks.So, you are as if running a race about which you do not know anything questions like, Who am I? Why am I running this race?; are generated before a person and then you feel disconnected at personal level, no accord is sought with the personal and organizational objectives, thus eventually only stress keeps on building up with negativity. Vishad-despondency Executive Burn Out: this stress is generated due to immense stress + disconnectedness with personal and organizational objective.

It can lead to total non performance / inability to perform which can again increase the stress, sulking, anger and it will of course deepen the despondency of the executive but again it is a vicious circle. 1.3 Arjuna asks these questions directly. He does not hide anything from Krishna. Arjuna has opened up his heart, he mentally and emotionally accepted the urgent need for help, Arjuna comes forward as a trainee, a student, who should be honest and straightforward enough so that the coach, the trainer, the Guru might be able to guide him, direct him properly. Krishna is also not telling anything new, not innovating anything but just trying to make Arjuna positive, wants to change his mindset totally. These are typical characteristics of an ideal coach. 2.1 To avoid despondency what can one do? We tend to look at our life outside in. What others expect from you, you shape your own expectations accordingly; even organizations tend to do the same. They undertake only popular measures for their growth; they do not bother about their own strength and core competencies; whether they have taken a visionary or shortsighted decision? At this juncture, an individual or an organization usually pays / tend to pay more attention to operational things (how to reduce cost, get more and more orders, accumulate more profit) than the strategic things (what are the customer trends for future, how can I build my capability to meet these future, trends?, how do I develop my people to accept future challenges and how do I improve my internal processes to meet these challenges etc.) This approach of management is known as inside-out approach one should make introspection, on 1- What is the goal of my organization?, 2-What are my core values? 3-Would I be able to always nurture them and never compromise on these values? This knowledge, churned out of introspection, self-appraisal becomes the fixed, steady, everlasting part of a business it is the Atman or soul of the business. When a leader tries to seriously know about his thoughts and aspirations and acts accordingly, the presence of his Alma-matter, effulgent consciousness reverberates through his thoughts, speech and actions. The Alma matter, THE CORE, here; is the Values or basic principles. Stephen Covey calls this leadership as Value Based Leadership

Mr. Narayan Murthy, Bill Gates, JRD Tata etc. are the shining examples of towering leaders with philanthropic hearts, and their feet deeply rooted in values. 2.2 When you accept that you are working in competitive environment, you need to be very clear that you are / your organization is there to make money: you need to earn money for all of your shareholders, so we must follow all the principles, but we should also earn enough money by doing our business. Every organization can have a leader who constantly thinks of the survival, prosperity and growth of his organization; else, he is not an effective leader. Therefore, having principle orientation is utmost necessary but not sufficient to be successful. It is a leaders job of find solutions to the problems faced by organizations, from competitors, internal stake holders. In this process, it is necessary to follow some guiding principles, but being oversensitive about impact of our actions on others will make us ineffective. It is our basic duty (Swadharma) to protect interest of our organization. If one cannot do it then he or she will not be considered as effective executive. So one should be aware about guiding principles but also ensure initiating actions to protect interest of the organization. This is duty of all leaders and executives. In addition, if you think practically, success and failure depends only on your ability to understand problem and initiate solution. If your thinking and actions are superior than your appoints, you will succeed in achieving your objectives. You will gain material rewards and recognition from your superiors and peers. 2.3 Eternal and Temporary. Atma or Soul What does Gita say about Atma? Ch. II. 16, 19, 20, The unreal has no existence; the real never ceases to exist. The seers have realized the truth about both. - Many things in nature are unreal and unreliable while seeming to be real and reliable-the body and the pleasure as well as pain associated with it are unreal.

Atman is Existence, it is real, and it is awareness and pure consciousness. The body of an individual disintegrates and disappears body childhood, youth, old age, the body, and not the soul experience death. Body can be cognized and described (I am fair, I am fat, I am weak) but Atman is beyond the domain of the mind and speech, therefore it is immeasurable Atman cannot be slain, it cannot be defeated, it is not born, nor does it die. It is eternal, constant and ancient; even if the body is slaughtered, Atman cannot be killed. As a man casts off his old, worn clothes, puts on new garments, so the embodied soul casts off worn-out bodies, and enters into new bodies (BG. II 22) 3. Leadership and Bhagavadgita These kinds of visionary, creative leaders are able to see a lot many things, in a different manner than others. Theory of Mgmt. is actually the study of how organizations work. This includes study of systems and people both. A study shows that in modern era, average life of a corporate house is only 11 years. Many times, we have seen, new organizations crop up, they start and grow by making products suitable to customer requirement and gradually they fade away, and are extinguished. They go out of market for many reasons, one of which is more and more superior companies with more good products creep in. What happens to those people, when they go out in other company their ideas, their innovative practices, systems, aspirations go on to the other companies with them people change the company with the set of their old ideas and thinking companies change, they are bankrupted, their products become outdated but actually what remains is their culture and its values. Even products change as per the life-style, but something newer, better is formed strategies which are responses to situations, also change but your core purpose does not change and one should never think of such values to be changing .Thus, we can say that, core values and principles are the soul of the organization. It should be an endeavor of every legendary leader to create and maintain the soul of any company / organization through their principle -centred leadership.

Judging thus, a logically thinking leader or executive should always reflect about his Atman and the atman of the organization. It should be an effort of not only every legendary leader but also of any employee, any executive to create and maintain the soul of every organization through their principle-centered leadership. This principled leadership is the only effective and authentic type of leadership. Such type of leaders can create a positive atmosphere in their departments or organizations, also; can help others introspect and grow. This leadership believes in listening to others views, giving them a feeling of being a member of the team/department. It increases the feeling of unity in the department/organization. 4. What is Swadharma? When you accept that you are working in competitive environment, you need to be very clear that the basic purpose why organizations exist is to protect interests of all its stakeholders. So we must follow all the principles, but we should also earn enough money by running a successful business. Every leader must think how his organization can survive, grow, lead and prosper. Else he is not an effective leader. So having principled orientation is utmost necessary, but not sufficient to be successful in business. It is leaders job to find solutions to the problem faced by organization from competitors, internal stakeholders. In this process, it becomes absolutely necessary to follow some guiding ideology. Being conservative about impact of our actions on others will make us ineffective. It is our basic duty (Swadharma) to protect interest of our organization. If one can do it then he or she will b considered as an effective executive. For a leader to be successful it is a must to understand and follow philosophy, that is, concepts and principles. For the successful implementation of the above points, a leader should have one more thing and that is common sense. The practical thinking based on commonsense differentiates dreaming leaders from successful leaders. Swadharma is basic duty of every employee. In good old days Swadharma was equivalent to loyalty of an employee towards organization and the duties of employees towards the organization, arising out of this loyalty. It included thinking of organizational interest and not individual interest.

Having faith in organization and being ready to wait for our expectations to be fulfilled, and staying with the organization even when your personal objectives do not match totally with organizational objectives, was a common picture. It was also expected that it should be done with selfless attitude and sacrifice, for the greater cause of the organization. Nowadays, this concept of loyalty is not appreciated or followed by many people especially by younger employees. Most important thing is protecting own objectives, my own interests. In addition,it is always the opinion of an employee that as far as my interests are satisfied I will think about organization. They seem to be frequently changing the jobs and get material gains as well. Thus it also appears, that, those people who stay in one organization and one job for a long time do not gain much as much as people above, i.e. those keep on hoping and jumping. Now, the question is; what is Swadharma nowadays? Is it really commitment to personal goals or organizational goals? If there is a conflict, which one should people follow? However, for B. G. these concepts are not mutually exclusive i.e. one does not and cannot exist at the cost of other. Swadharma is not an outdated concept. Nevertheless, may be people were wrong about understanding real meaning of the concept. Swadharma concept in business is similar to Professional approach. My understanding to this policy is achieving (a) Personal Mastery in a certain field and (b) Understanding basic purpose of the organization and align personal interests in achieving the organizational objectives. In short, it is about protecting interests of organization, sincerely and honestly until we are working for the organizational objectives and objectives of ones own job, giving away 100% to the assignment in hand, this is professionalism, and this is Swadharma. 5. Karmayoga - (B.G. II. 47) Seek to perform your duty, but do not lay any claim on its fruits, be you not the producer of the fruits of action; neither shall you lean towards inaction.

There seems to be an anomaly and defeat of purpose in this injunction of the Lord. Not atom moves without a motive. Beings are all busy either to gain something or to ward off something unwanted. In the absence of such a motive, no action needs to be performed. However, the Lord induces Arjuna not only to be motivated but also to be intensively active. Karma in itself is no evil but when it is missed up with desire, it becomes meritless. Karma yoga, in the corporate world is doing your job with focus on long term objectives and not getting bothered by short term results. This is a very effective way of working and helps executives and leaders from burning out in their career. For an executive, to focus on important things, they must develop professional approach of discerning between the eternal and temporary phase of his or her career. One has to think dispassionately, trying to figure out if the decision one is going to make is in line with our objectives. If you think that the decision is in line with ones objective, then only it is productive. Karma is basic roles and responsibilities of every executive and leader towards business. This is fundamental duty of any executive. One cannot be effective in any role if one runs away from Karma. If you are marketing executive, you must ensure how market share of your organization will increase by surpassing our competitors. Moreover, you must do everything to plan and execute superior strategy than your competitors. Irrespective of the success and failures, one must plan and execute all possible actions to the best of the capabilities. Hence, thinking about progress of self and organization is Karma of every employee. One must ensure, with each and every action, that he or she is helping oneself as well as the organization towards progress. Akarma is lack of actions in doing your basic duties. It is either neglecting your job or running away from competition with a thought of success or failure. So if marketing executive is over sensitive about winning over competition, thinking that his success will drive somebody away from the business is not at all expected. Or, thinking that if his or her attempts fail then he cannot meet his personal goals will surely affect the effectiveness of his actions. This is Akarma. And it is not at all in line with the basic expectations of an organization from an individual. In addition, most important thing is that, one cannot escape from Karma, so Akarma is neither

a choice nor effective strategy for individual and organization. The same is applied even to individual growth aspirations. Vikarma - it is the distorted role played by an individual towards his duties and responsibilities. It is always expected that we play our roles with certain rules with some organizational boundaries created by core values, core objectives. It is possible, that people adopt unfair ways and means to achieve business or personal objectives. They can bribe people, buy their competitors, and create wrong impression about colleagues with seniors for some short-term gain. This is Vikarma. Only proper and positive Karma is sustainable in longer run. 6. Prakriti and its constituent elements The Nature of Prakriti Human nature is Prakriti. Therefore, in management terminology, we can say behaviour of executives and leaders who are differ. Conditions and situations cannot always be the same. As we have seen, response of a person will be motivated with an objective to protect their interests. It is very natural and that is Prakriti. But it is very important how we approach this objective. Thinking about organizational interests along with core values, boundaries and larges social interests like triple bottom line People, profit and planet, is Sattva. In Gita also, it is supposed to be purest in form and illuminating in characteristic. Thinking about self interests about career, progress within organization, recognition by satisfying organizational interests is Rajas. But excess of Rajas also brings about greed, dissatisfaction and longings. Thinking only about self interest, at the cost of organizational interests is Tamas. Or, thinking about only short term interests of organization without thinking about its impact on the society or other people is Tamas. Moreover, no human being is free from all three ways of thinking. Although it is an endeavor of every person and every leader to inculcate Sattva and Rajas and keep away Tamas, it is /it cannot be always possible. Self- Atman - Human beings are psychophysical entities, but they are spiritual beings as well.

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Gita preaches us that, the soul or Atman or that covert entity must be activated, its voice should be heard, it is always believed that a selfmotivated individual does not need any extrinsic motivators, if the self is motivated, it is like an ever charged battery of human emotions, feelings and actions. These human beings know their goals and nothing can deter them from achieving these goals. For self motivated individuals the means to achieve goals are as important as the goals themselves. For these people wealth and power are incidental rather than causal factors of motivation. The Gita emphasizes the necessity of recognizing the intrinsic values of human beings. A man should uplift himself by his own self, so let him not weaken this self. For, the self is the friend of oneself and this self is the enemy of oneself. In other words, each person has an innate capacity to optimize his growth potential. Only through his own efforts can he bring himself to his maximum growth. He can take help of a Guru or scriptures to raise him. The final effort for growth, however, has to come from the persons intrinsic self. This is the core of motivation. When people are self-motivated, nothing can stop them from achieving individual goals as well as group goals. In case of a society, when masses are determined to achieve results by themselves, when they try to improve themselves by their selves then even impossible things can be achieved. It is this spirit of Self-help that is continuously advocated in Gita. Incidentally, this very powerful thought lies behind the concept of TQM Total Quality Management, which believes in enhancement of individual quality, aiming at its development. If quality of every person increases then organizational quality also has to increases. It also states that one must focus on Karma, i.e. process and assures that Phala i.e. results will follow. If each one of us decides to help oneself then naturally one stops begging for help and achieve endeavors to goals on our own, placing faith only on ones knowledge and effort. This, in turn, would mean we shall come out of teething culture and be a part of adult culture, rather than asking the institute to this and that we would do it ourselves. This process will move up to the leader finally, the whole of the organization would not only be alert but be moving only in upward or positive direction. Action is the central tenet of the philosophy advocated in the Gita.

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In addition, when people learn to help themselves, they derive a sense of satisfaction, and pride. The Japanese knew the value of self-help and Japan is today a great nation. It is strange yet interesting that even the Americans could not destroy their great traditional heritage or its economic prosperity. Japanese and Chinese economic boom is the result of unique mixture of modernity, traditionalism and spirituality. The Japanese, the Chinese and the Koreans are not very much ready to accept those maxims of managements that were alien to their cultural heritage. They knew that blind copying of western methods would just not bring results. 7. Gita also explains the concept of Lokasamgraha which can be translated as interaction with people and effective networking. These two things are very important for a person working in any organization. In modern and complex organizations, no single person is capable to achieve any objective alone. Every leader needs a team of effective people to understand their idea and take it forward up to the stage of complete implementation. One needs to find to properly select eight people for eight jobs, train them for your purpose, measure their performance, motivate them for the task, continuously coach, and guide them for improvement. Every leader should have this networking or people management competency o succeed in organization. If you want to climb up on the corporate leader, then your functional knowledge becomes very much necessary but not sufficient. You must possess excellent team management or people management skills. 8. Motivation The Bhagavad Gita is more inclined to explain how of , intrinsic motivators and self motivation are more effective than extrinsic motivators. Managements the world over have followed and developed motivational techniques for its employees based principally on any of these theories or a combination of the two approaches:Man is selfish in nature; he needs external drive to work. Hence putting pressure, command and control mechanism is the best way to manage him. Every person has internal drive to grow and excel in life. And hence motivating him, encouraging him, trusting him is best way to manage.

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What does Gita Say? Man has both good and bad elements existing simultaneously in him. Kama( desire), Krodh (anger), Moha (Delusion) and Lobha (Greed) co-exist with Drive to excel Unnati and ultimately to Liberation( Moksha). Self-motivation is the key to happiness and prosperity for a society Apparently, human beings are psycho-physical entities, but they are spiritual beings as well. Besides the physiological and nervous systems of man, there is a covert entity which is his real self, soul or Atmanthe Gita preaches that it is this voice of Atman (the eternal self) that must be activated to motivate an individual. Once the process has been set into motion, it would be difficult to stop it. Self-motivated individuals need no extrinsic motivators, they are there, within their internalized-selvesan ever charging battery of human sentiments, emotions and actions. These individuals know their goals and nothing can deter them from achieving these goals. For self-motivated individuals, the means to achieve the goals are as important as the goal itself. Usually, they work for the larger interests of society rather than for their personal gains. Wealth and power are incidental, rather than causal factors of motivation. Human DignityThe Core of Self-Motivation The Gita emphasizes the necessity of recognizing the intrinsic values of human beings. (A man should lift himself by his own self, so let him not weaken this self. For the self is the friend of oneself, and this self is the enemy of oneself.) In other words, each individual has an innate capacity to optimise his growth potential. Only through his own efforts can he bring himself to his maximum growth. He can take the help of a Guru or scriptures to raise himself. The final effort for growth, however, has to come from the persons intrinsic self. This is the core of motivation. When people are self-motivated, nothing can stop them from achieving their goals and group goals as well. Implications of Self-Motivation Let us now think of the picture of a self-motivated society which the Gita pleads for. Realising that the core of human motivation is self-motivation, the Gita preaches the mantra of self-help and human dignity. Let us visualise its implications for organizations. When the masses are determined to achieve results by themselves, when they try to improve themselves, by their selves, then even the impossible can be made possible. It is this spirit of self-help that is advocated in the Gita. Incidentally this is core thought behind very powerful concept of TQM Total Quality Management movement. It believes, we must improve quality of work of all employees and then organization quality also

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improves. It also states one must focus on Process ( Karma ) and results ( Fala ) will be achieved automatically. If each one of us decided to help ourselveswhat would it mean? In the first instance, it would mean that we shall stop begging for help and achieve the goals ourselves. This, in turn, would mean that we shall come out of what I term as the teething culture to that of an adult culture. Instead of asking the organisations to do this or that, we shall do it ourselves. This, in turn, would move the organization, the leader. . A whole organization would not only be alert but be moving in action. Action is the central tenet of the philosophy advocated in the Gita. The Lord says: Lokesmin Dwidha Nishtha Pura Prokta Maya Anagh Dnyana Yogen Sankhayanam Karma Yogen Yoginam. Thirdly, when people learn to help themselves, they derive a sense of satisfaction and pride which is hard to describe. They walk with their heads held high, their eyes gleaming with satisfaction. The Japanese know the value of self-help and Japan is today a great nation. It is strange that not even the Americans could destroy its great traditional heritage nor its economic prosperity. Japanese economic boom is the result of a unique mixture of modernity, traditionality and spirituality. The Japanese refused to accept those maxims of managements that were alien to their cultural heritage. (The western maxims should go with the Japanese maxims or else they had to be thrown out.) They knew that blind copying of western methods would just not bring results. Mr. Rensis Likert a well known person who has contributed to development of Behavioural Science said regarding human as follows: . . . Thus these results suggest an important conclusion as to the nature of human motivation. An examination of the results presented here and of results from other research shows that every human being earnestly seeks a secure, friendly and supportive relationship and one that gives him a sense of personal worth in face to face groups most important to him . . . Human nature seems to motivate each of us to establish and maintain these friendly supportive relationships in those face to face groups in which we spend most of our lives. Either we successfully establish these friendly and supportive relationships or we crack up. It is not surprising, therefore, that we see people generally striving for a sense of dignity and personal worth. We all seem to seek recognition and a sense of importance in terms of the values and goals which we cherish and which our most important face to face groups also cherish.

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To say that people seek friendly and supportive relationships, does not mean that they seek to be coddled. Quite the contrary, people seek to achieve a sense of importance from doing difficult but important tasks which help to implement goals which they and their friends seek. In conclusion, it may be stated that an effort was made to emphasize the necessity of self-motivation for our socio- economic set-up. The Gita suggests two lessons for us if we are to prospertreat an individual with utmost dignity and help him to help himself. If this could be achieved, employees will feel proud and make organization proud with their performance. 9. Yajnachakra The concept of Yajnachakra is based on cyclic nature of human life cycle. These are rituals which believe human beings get their share from nature which they term as God . So it is duty of every human being to recognize the same with gratitude and offer some of the gains back to the nature / gods / society. And if this is followed by everyone, will uplift quality of human material and spiritual aspects and uninterrupted progress of mankind. Bhagavad Gita explains this with example of Yajnachakra - Cycle of Sacrifice. What is Yajna Chakra? Chakra is cycle, and yajna is sacrifice. In Chapter 3 of Bhagavadgita it is said that a person should always serve to God. Whatever a person partakes should be first offered to god. Bhagavad Gita says that as every person is bound by actions one should perform action meant for god, without any personal attachment he should try to serve god. Lord created human beings in this universe along with sacrifice and was advised that if human nourishes God with sacrifices then the god will also nourish human in return. Being nourished by sacrifices the Gods indeed will give the coveted enjoyments. A person who partake the remnants of sacrifice, he becomes free from all sins. Viz a Viz it says that a person is equivalent to be a thief who enjoys what have been given to him, without offering to others and he is treated as unholy persons who cook food for self, incur sin. From Managerial aspect if we look this Yajnachakra, we replace the word God with stakeholder then it will be that a cordial relation has to be maintained with the stakeholder at every step if we like to be happy and prospering. Entire cycle has been explained in Gita as follows-From food are born the creatures, the origin of food is from rainfall, rainfall originates from

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sacrifice, and sacrifice has action as its origin, action has the Vedas as its origin, the Vedas have the immutable as their source, hence the all pervading Vedas are forever based on sacrifice. In corporate world, where we think primary motive of the leaders and shareholders is to get money and get more and more money, we wonder how this concept can be implemented. But analysis of fortune of 500 companies revels that organizations which sustain as business leaders for many years, are built on a foundation of creating wealth for society & ecosystem surrounding them. If they give back what they gain from surroundings, they will get goodwill, good brand image, good employees, many customers and good profit. This is what Mr. C K Prahalada has said - Idea that corporations can simultaneously create value and social justice. This is what Dr. Sumantra Ghoshal has said - Corporations are not merely profit machines reacting to market forces; they are run by and for humans, and have a symbiotic relationship with the world around them. There is no inherent conflict between the economic well-being of companies and their serving as a force for good in societies This is importance of Yajnachakra to the corporate. True, organizations of 20th century were basically aiming self progress. But they forgot that organizations are part of the larger society. They consume natural resources available for making their products. And hence if they are not sensitive to what is happening around, what is impact of their product and organization on society then they cannot survive in longer term. So now every corporation is very serious about Corporate Social Responsibility. If you get resources from the society and make profit and progress, you must be prepared to share your gains with the society. This can be achieved by being a Good corporate citizenship. So be a good corporate, pay all the government taxes, take care that your organization does not create pollution in any form which will affect quality of human life and also share some of your surplus to the underprivileged people, parts of the society. This is called as Sustainability movement which has a mantra. Focus of triple bottom line- People, Planet and Profit. All corporations which are listed on stock exchange now publish status of their organization with sustainability. They share their profit for social cause, encourage their employees for ESOP Employee Social Options Plan. They support employees to go on sabbaticals and take up the jobs like teaching (a campaign from Times of India to create English teachers for rural areas) etc. They do tree plantation etc.

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So a responsible corporate is now- a- days aware that He should achieve sustainable growth to this corporation - not by threatening society interest. He should achieve results by not harming interests of the society He must share his gains back to the society in some form. He must encourage all employees and managers to understand this philosophy and actively participate in the same. Last but not least - create focus of shareholders on People, Planet and Profit. 10. Daivi Sampad Asuri Sampad Separateness of the Divine and Undivine In the corporate world, we can see all types of leaders and employees. Take example of Satyam Computes. Its promoter and CEO Mr. Ramalingam Raju cheated employees, government and shareholders. For his lust to get more money ( Moha & Lobha ) he devised frequent means to get more money. There was No Truth, No Purity and No rule in his life as said by Krishna in this chapter. Further he got himself to Evil Deeds and in the blindness cleaving to their errors, caught Into the sinful course, trusted this lie as if it were true and this resulted in downfall of himself, his management team and his organization. Same happened with Enron Corporation, Lehman Brothers and many other corporations. Krishna has described their thought process so well as below stated in Bhagavad Gita chapter 9 and chapter 16:It is said that the persons with the demonic thoughts do not understand what is to be done and what not to be done and purity, good conduct and truthfulness does not exist in them. They always strongly plan for ruining the world. The actions of such persons always will be full of insatiable passion filled with vanity, pride, arrogance, adopting bad objectives due to delusion, and having improper resolves. These people are bound by hundreds of shackles in the form of hope, giving themselves wholly to passion and anger, they endeavour to amass wealth through foul means for the enjoyment of desirable objects. They always think that this has been gained by me today and tomorrow I will acquire this much wealth, my enemies have been killed, I am the Lord. The so called good deeds performed by such a person is always with a motive and not selfless. In reverse to this the persons with godly thoughts are having the quality of fearlessness, purity of mind, nature of doing charity and control of the external organs, sacrifice, study, austerity and rectitude. The other qualities being non injury, truthfulness, absence of anger, renunciation, control of the

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internal organ absence of vilifications, kindness to creatures, non covetousness, gentleness, modesty, freedom from restlessness, vigour, forgiveness, fortitude, purity freedom from malice, and absence of haughtiness due to which they always think for the benefit of the stake holders first and then about their family and personal gains. No need to say further. These are the characteristics of many leaders and many employees today. The most important thought is they are born again and again to do same wrong things. So if a bad employee or bad leader is punished from one organization, they start new business, join new organization and indulge in same thing again and again. But still we see good organizations. Good leaders. Who prove taste of time for generations and build a foundation of sustainable, reputed organization. This is Divine leadership. But it is not very easy to follow. It takes long time to establish such organizations. *****

Questions 1. Explain the relevance of Arjuna Vishada in todays Corporate World. 2. Explain the concept of Swadharma and its linkage with the basic approach to work. 3. What are the characteristic features of Motivation as per the Bhagavadgita? 4. How do you understand Yajnachakra in Corporate life?