Today, I was watching a conversation between Rabbi David Wolpe and Sadhguru at Persian American Women’s Conference PAWC on the Mechanics of Mysticism on April 3, 2019 at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. When the Rabbi asked Sadguru on how we can let go of compulsiveness, sadguru answered that everything physical in our universe being cyclic, is the fundamental driver of compulsiveness.
This reinforced my understanding that us attaching ourselves to the Physical Body, even the Emotional, Mental and Spiritual Body drives cyclic behaviour or rhythms in us, the key emphasis here being on Body.
I thought of writing this blog today to share some of my discoveries which may be interesting to many.
Firstly, I will parallel the human body to organisations, where I am more involved. In my opinion even the organisations have these bodies.
- Physical Body being the infrastructure, machines, equipment,…
- Emotional Body being the various targets and goals, performance indicators, decisions,…
- Mental Body being the various policies, guidelines, procedures, processes, instructions,…
- Spiritual Body being the greater good, common purpose, culture,…
Even organisations need to balance these bodies with cyclic routines or rhythms, as we do with our bodies – rhythms such as periodic maintenance, daily/weekly/monthly meetings, continual improvement, fireside chat, huddle, or open dialogues. The world class organisations have mastered these rhythms, and some have standard calendars for these rhythms, like a sheet with music notes for the orchestra. Whereas many others are still struggling with making choices to implement these rhythms. I thought that those who are still struggling to implement these rhythms, may in fact be in a totally different plane, of the higher consciousness, which is infinite, timeless, is not cyclic in nature and surely not materialistic at all, as understood by me. I came to this hypothesis from the many interactions I have had with the business owners, especially of the MSMEs, who have a powerful and noble purpose, many a times, not linked to material ambitions. I am sharing my understanding of these rhythms for any organisation.
Before concluding this blog, let me elaborate my understanding of the higher consciousness. Firstly, I believe that the last of five elements of life (Earth-Pritvi, Water-Jala, Fire-Agni, Wind-Vayu and Space-Akasha) is the higher consciousness and not akasha, space or aether. I also believe that the higher consciousness is even within each atom occupying the atomic space too and this constitutes 99.9999999% of our human body. Likewise, ~3.6×1013 times the diameter of our earth is the diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy, our Galaxy, among the estimated 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.
Keeping this infinite magnitude in mind, I believe each of us must use this opportunity to experience the material world and work on creating and nurturing rhythms for balancing our Physical, Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual Bodies, by living in the present and working with meticulousness without worrying of the outcome – the essence of Karma Yoga.
I want to conclude with this quote by Yehudi Menuhin:
“Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.”
What are the rhythms in your organisation?
Happy Reading!
Thanks for the post. I too watched the same Rabbi and sadguru conversation. Your comparison of life cycle applied to body and organization is a perfect one.
I too give similar analogy for flow .
Example blood circulation in the body and the material / information flow in the organization. For both when there is slight stagnation / disorder results in some immediate I’ll effects and some long term effects.
You can relate merits about keeping good and healthy circulation and similar analogy can be drawn to other aspects of business and human body.
Thanks a lot for your post.
Read about those FIVE Elements . Nice analysis about “Essence of Karma Yoga”
& inspiring.
It is a good learning .
I liked the analogy Dinakar. Indeed it is the rhythm that governs. But, how do we account for entropy? A gradual destruction of a rhythm?
Do Japanese call this rhythm as “Kata”?
Thanks, Mohan. Like any life cycle, even these rhythms in one entity die down over time is my belief. That is why a continuous renewal or realigning the purpose (another yearly rhythm) is equally necessary to prolog the life of an organisation – again common sense, though.
An interesting read indeed, Dinkar. I like how you have juxtaposed the cyclic rhythms of the human body to organizations. After all, organizations are, in many ways living breathing entities. But I was scratching my head as I read one sentence, where you say that organizations “…still struggling to implement these rhythms, may, in fact, be in a totally different plane, of the higher consciousness, which is infinite, timeless, is not cyclic in nature and surely not materialistic at all…” I was not sure how any organization, especially the for-profit businesses, are not materialistic. You do say that you come to this understanding from your interactions with business owners. But speaking as a business owner myself, how can one in my position not be materialistic about their organization, I do not know.
Very keen observation, Shardul. It is really a mystery to me too. I formulated this hypothesis, since most of them continue hoping and praying for the best, maybe since implementing these rhythms in fact will bounce back to them to get the basics right. Thanks a lot for your observation.
The analogy is very good and apt. There are definitely repetition every where,
There are surges in life, balancing it is the
the essence of life.well explained Dinakar