Once you step into the world, there is going to be a lot of filth. There is corruption and there is so much nonsense happening everywhere. One set of people, a large segment of people unfortunately have come to think that “Anyway the world is full of filth, let me also become filth.” So they have joined and merged into the filth.
Another set of people develop an allergy to this filth and cannot take it. They usually try to run away from it. They want everything pure. But such a thing will not happen because the filth of the world has, one way or the other, entered our minds. All the nonsense that can happen in the world, you know in your head. So this set of people who try to run away can never do it really. We cannot avoid filth, it is there. Whether we empower that filth or not, is all the option that we have.
What we call as filth can also become great manure. Indian spirituality has always used the lotus as a symbolism because a lotus flower grows best where the filth is thick. This stinking filth which you cannot bear, has transformed itself into a beautiful, fragrant flower. This option is there with us also, every moment of our life.
If the atmospheres that we live in make us, we cannot call ourselves managers. If we make the atmospheres that we live in, only then can we call ourselves managers. Allowing situations to create you is not management at all. Creating the situations that you want is management.
Being a manager means we are going to create whatever we see as the most beautiful thing that has to happen right now. But what we see with life for most people is, let’s say somebody got a job. On the first day, when they went and sat behind that 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 or the world that we live in. This is simply because we have not paid enough attention to ourselves.
You need to make yourself capable, not only in terms of management and other skills, but also as a human being. You need to be like a lotus flower, to be able to go through situations untouched. You need to be able to maintain your beauty and fragrance even if you are in the filthiest of situations. If one has this, he will float through life untouched. If one does not have it, life will eat him up in so many ways.
We must also know that 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. Management is your ability to be capable of inspiring people to do their best. And that is all we can do. If everybody around us is doing their best, that is the best possible management that can happen.
This is not going to come with manipulation. This is only going to come with dedication and love. This is only going to come because you are willing to give yourself one hundred percent to the person who is sitting next to you at that moment.
If you just learn to touch the core of his humanity, then you see that every human being is willing to do his best for you, always. If you just learn how to touch the very core of a human being who is around you right now, you will see everybody is willing to lay down their lives for you. Only if people around you love you and they want to do their best for you, you will not get ulcers doing management.
If people around you are trying to pull you down, you will anyway get ulcers trying to manage situations. If we do not create the people who truly love us and want to give their best, then management is going to be a pain, management is going to be a huge suffering. Only when people around us really want to do their best for you, management can happen wonderfully.
Our lives become beautiful not because of what we do, our lives become beautiful simply because we have included everybody around us as a part of our dream of wellbeing.
(Sadhguru is a Yogi, mystic, visionary and a New York Times bestselling author. He is also the founder of Conscious Planet – Save Soil)