The happenings in my surroundings compel me to think. A couple
of days back, a thought, which is being reproduced after this paragraph,
occurred to me when I found that many who push very hard fail to deliver
quality output. I also found that the world around me is flooded with things,
material or non-material, sans quality. The memories of many unhurried,
unruffled and peaceful gentlemen helped me to realize that they all could
distinguish between actions and activities.
The thought that occurred to me was;
“Changes occur slowly but continuously in nature. We are a
part of the nature. That kind of rhythm we need to adopt. Dragging and pushing
wear us and our surroundings. We need to learn to roll forward continuously in
the right direction. Rolling forward should become a natural involuntary activity
and finding the right direction a willful and intelligent voluntary action.”
When we have made a decision about the direction we want to
go in our lives as individuals, or have been assigned a job to be performed as
managers or are expected to carve out a path to achieve an objective as leaders;
the first question we seek answers to is, “What is to be done?”. How to do the
job, when to do it or what all must not be done while doing the particular job are
associated questions that also need to be taken care of, but later.
What is to be done, that is, the target before us, can’t be
lost sight of during the entire process of accomplishing a job; as that is the action
we take. Other things like, the way the job must be performed, how
different steps must be timed and what all must be avoided etc. are activities
that need a mechanical treatment. They can be perfected by repeated performances,
reviews, rectifications, discipline and restraint. Hard work, diligence and
continuous practice are needed to achieve perfection in ‘activities’. When
perfection is achieved the activities become so simple that hardly any energy
is spent in completing them. This implies that one’s entire concentration
(intellectual efforts) can, then, be devoted to what is to be achieved.
But, when one is able to devote all his intellectual efforts
towards what is to be achieved; one becomes free to question whether the target
to be achieved is the right target and is expected to benefit us in the
ultimate analysis.
Is it not true that modern man has made himself
intellectually too busy with problems related to methodologies, accuracies,
efficiencies and ease of doing things, etc.; that is, dealing with matters
related to how things must be done; leaving virtually no intellectual space for
finding what must be done for the benefit of mankind?
Can we expect that the next generation will give more
importance and higher priority to exploring what actions would benefit the
human race than what we are doing today? To answer this, let us look at the
education system that is in place the worldwide.
How far it is socially justified to have an education system
that compartmentalizes physical sciences, social sciences, history, politics,
management, humanities, engineering and technology, religion, economics,
commerce, spirituality and so on so forth? Is it not true that we derive a
sense of pride in being rather very meticulous in compartmentalizing different
spheres of knowledge? We say that the modern times are times of expertise. Are
we quite sure that we can put together experts’ opinions from different fields
to find the direction we should move towards for the true benefit of the
mankind? Ironically, we all know the story of four blind men, each trying to
understand a single object, that is, one elephant.
In the last chapter of his autobiography Gandhi wrote;
“My uniform experience has convinced me that
there is no other God than Truth. And if every page of these chapters does not
proclaim to the reader that the only means for the realization of Truth is
Ahimsa, I shall deem all my labour in writing these chapters to have been in
vain. And even though my efforts in this behalf may prove fruitless, let the
readers know that the vehicle, not the great principle, is at fault.
To see the
universal and all pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love
the meanest of creation as oneself. And the man who aspires after that cannot
afford to keep out any field of life. That is why my devotion to truth has
drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest
hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has
nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.”
To achieve a target is easy. To claim and establish that the
target is the right target is too difficult.
If someone is able to identify the right target that benefits
the entire humanity and is also able to achieve it; what would you call him? A
great statesman, a true leader, a spiritually elevated soul or someone with
attributes of all rolled into one?
To identify the right target one has to simplify many things,
physically, intellectually and even spiritually.
PROMOD KUMAR SHARMA
[The writer of this blog is also the author of “Mahatma A
Scientist of the Intuitively Obvious” and “In Search of Our Wonderful Words”.]
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