Questions of questions?

On a recent morning walk with a neighbour, I was recalling a great evening I was at. Time is a Blind Guide is an uncommon name for a music group. It suits the jazz genre, alright, and that is not where the greatness arises from. Thomas Stronen whose facilitation enabled the fusion with Prakash Sontakke, the vocalist and string artist and Adarsh Shenoy the tabla artist, created a near timelessness in cosmic tones – as if to spur the question “So where does great music come from?”

In questions of art, laws of resonance may be a useful guide, but the clue to their labelled identity lay in the art of writing. Canadian author Anne Michael’s first line in her book Fugitive Pieces is the name of this group. 

What questions get answered when such art consummates? To me the fascination left me at a high point of the year gone by.

In the year 2015, we also completed our transition into a new house, where the stated aspiration of the first inhabitants is to be the ‘greatest’ community ever. That was not a high-point, despite being happy about the abode and the surroundings we now have. I recalled for my morning walk companion a lesson from my master coach. It was a question a science journalist asked Einstein for a series on questions that engaged scientists of that age. “What’s the most important question a scientist may ask?” While that got Einstein working his mind, I often recall a sense of wonder in his process of inference. It took the physicist about half an hour to return from his inner rooms to the scientist with the answer “Young man, the most important question a scientist may ask is this – Is the Universe a safe place for humans to live in?”

In much needed hindsight, I realized, that the questions one asks of social relations, do not mirror the patterns of questions we may relate to in pure sciences. The questions we have of human relations are also nuanced, in that questions of law seldom satiate dilemmas of human regards. On the day marked as the birth anniversary of Jesus, laws of biology are to be suppressed to explain birth of the towering figure. When through the trials of life, Jesus was asked to explain the laws of love in legal terms. One now understands that a plane higher than the one in which the questions arise resolve the questions beneath it. Jesus asked of those who followed him to love God with all one’s soul, mind and heart. As of matters on earth, he said “Love thy neighbours as thyself”. 

Psychologically, or spiritually, it is impossible to love others, if one hates oneself. Logically, or legalistically though, we may bind that expectation within governmental constitution. ‘Greatest’ community ever? Sounds like we got our questions confused, or our answers contrived for questions we are not clear on, I thought to myself.

Perhaps, our expectations for social laws to follow patterns of pure science in deterministic ways muddle our reality. It is a case in which our awareness is still-born, or resisted with. This is perhaps why Edward De Bono came up with his po questions that offers at least a third alternative to the dominant frames of reference in our thinking and argumentation. In my earliest reading of his work in a book called Future Positive, the dilemma he posed as example of fallacious thinking resonates even today. It was that of a child asking his father a challenging question as does Calvin of his father in the famous Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. “If God can do everything, can he make a stone so heavy that He himself cannot lift it?”

The distance between who we think we are and what we essentially are. Our inner worlds are unique to each of us, and irrespective of how we may understand commonality of our external worlds a question for me is this:

If we came without material possessions over which people may contest in their biological lifetimes, what will it take us to dispossess impostors of well-being before we explore our inner worlds more completely? Nuclear war, biological terrorism or Climate change?

What are the questions on your mind?

When Breaking Rules is no Sin : Service of the Heart

1 Corinthians 13:13 says “12For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.13But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love”.

In the mindless repetition of this differentiating text from the Bible, I have seen many a wedding solemnized, many a suffering explained away and moments of confusion managed for the temporal convenience of clergy and the laity. The Passion Week is a reminder past the centuries of an unparalleled traverse of the Jesus figure in its intensity and solemnity both. The essence between the text from the Corinthians and the experience of the Now Moment in the present, revealed itself in a pristine view for me today. So, I record them here – partly as a re-discovery of matters spiritual, and partly as an instrument to my own meaning making. And no, I have not gone to the etymological, epistemological or liturgical roots of these terms. So they come minted with the scent of my own till that the world has suffered for me.

Faith is supposed to be a dive into the unknown, and yet, it presupposes a lot. Faith per se is a call to action. On the face of it, it seems a simple, pure and unqualified act of trust. Faith however, rests on the actor’s past. It summons a judgment in the moment between choices in favour of the one choice presented for appeal. Such judgment arises only if the actor has a past experience of matters from which to discern the worth of the judgment call. Hence faith is past-dependent, despite its glory in the present.

Hope is a beacon of aspiration, aligned with an experience yet to be. It signals a poise of uncovering inner potential whether passive, dormant or active. Hope is a form of reliability in unborn futures, separating the moment from the burdens yet to be borne; and yet giving meaning to today’s  yokes. Hope is a tempering of the Spirit, the enmeshment of the Larger Mind within us that connects with what is larger than us.

But spirituality is not just through the mind’s intellect. Spirituality is also through our body and emotions. Transformations happen when we ready ourselves in the moment to receive love. Love exists in the present. We may never know in our lifetimes, as we know it, where Love comes from. It is only in the receiving, that we can recognize Love. In Love, we die to the moment. In this death, we renew ourselves. Mindfulness allows us to integrate what we sense through body and emotion into Love. For Love is a decision, that embeds many a moments of emotion, but is not an emotion of itself. Love is the giving of all you are in the moment you make that decision.

Love can bear all things, if we experience the Presence of Eternity. Forgiving Love is a decision to dissociate feelings and emotions with the person whose acts may have hurt us in the past. Merciful Love is a decision to be in service of the heart, where compassion is a state of accurate empathy with the other’s feelings, and yet, in such service; one breaks known rules of engagement. Love is in the giving. And since each moment is new; when expressed, Love bears authenticity, an originality born of an awareness of the moment.

Integrating the Past and the Future in the Present may seem difficult. In surrender to the moment, not insisting on what we desire, but experiencing from a wholeness to deserve the bounty of resources in the moment, Grace becomes an amazing feature. Grace is the mystical, unmerited mercy, whose gift is like the synesthetic synapse of laughter and tears at the same time. The Presence of Eternity, then alters our perception of time itself. If as the Bible Says, that the Greatest of these is Love, mindful present-awareness has a premium over Past–dependent Faith and Future-oriented Hope. 

Yet, the moment contains the humble connotations of the connected tenses. This is a new meaningfulness for me today. If you let me know what this means for you, I shall be much obliged. 

Spiritual Strength - the Richard McHugh SJ way

Tools of the Spirit are an experience. Also subtitled "Pathways to the Realization of Universal Innocence," it is based on a workshop authored by Robert Dilts and Robert McDonald. The original concept is that there are aids, (prayer, meditation, singing, dancing, parables, rituals and blessings), that bring us more in harmony with the "larger Mind" and "the larger nervous system" of which we are a part. The authors see NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), as a tool to achieve those ends. Richard McHugh (Dick) goes further than this. In fact, he brings to fuse his ‘awareness’ paradigm, partly informed by his Vipasana experience under Goenkaji and partly from his days at Sadhana with Tony D’Mello. Dick does not pretend to know what he does not. So he does not go to the koans or Confucian outgrowth from Buddhist thoughts. He merely stresses bodily delight in awareness through meditative postures endured in silences such as that of Vipasana.

Rev. Richard McHugh SJ, PhD, Master of NLP

What Dick does is to reinforce our connection with larger systems of which we are a part. These include family, profession, community, and the global system. When he does so, he is in the least bit eulogizing Christ, and in fact, chastises Christians for not understanding Christ as someone who asked us to love others as we loved ourselves. that is knowing ourselves more deeply. Experiencing fully, without self-judgment, arrogance or suppression of our sexual energy, Dick leads participants through bodily sensation and kinesthetic movement. We begin to know our limits, appreciate our intentions, the strengths and perception of others. We gradually develop the acuity and the receptiveness to experience grace as unmerited mercy. 


Forgiveness, says Dick, is the ability to give with compassion as we would have given before the hurt. This is possible if in a state of awareness, we can dissociate the feeling from the thought of being hurt. Meaning is to be made, such that we are not attached to the feelings that stifle us from the past. Meaning is to be made in the moment. And meaning is made because we receive it. We receive it only when we allow the unconscious to do its work. We do not know exactly how it works, in the classical scientific traditions of explanation. That is the choice of human discretion we have. The more we resist, the more it will persist. The more we accept it, the more we transform ourselves. 

It is quite tempting to give a procedural rundown of the experience. In fact, that is the easier part. Most practical however would be to refer the original book by the Roberts – Macdonald and Dilts. http://amzn.to/HczXZU . I would rather surrender to the spirits at work within the confines of dignity and beauty. While the rational in me may seek to find coherence in propositional logic, the nature of the proposition of spirituality is incomplete without intuitive inference and the inter-subjective unity in the experience. Empirical evidence is therefore not a direct perception, but as Hindu mystics augur - an atyadhmik atman at work. The self becomes the observer of the self. Perhaps, that is why the individual needs the community and vice-versa. Perhaps, when emotions help us acknowledge interconnectedness through individuals, we realise companionship as a trustful resource in spiritual journeying.


Expressions here are therefore apparently muted, though they come largely from deep realizations of what Dick gives insights in. It is only to the few therefore that the phenomenon of death will seem remote from spirituality.  There are the modern day equivalent of miracles, that Dick facilitates in participant discovery of themselves. His interpretation of dreams and the near instant therapeutic kinesthetic invitation he provides a clear sign of process at work. The Death towards Love, is Spirituality. Love is a decision, and not a basic emotion. That is the paradox many in psychology and philosophy have tried to unravel. Below are some of my insights at the workshop.

1.   A wish could be a fantasy, alright. A want is more concrete. A wish can challenge the Giver. A want can honor the giver. Ask with care.

2.   In Pain, there's a beauty that that endures, as pain passes over. In Suffering, the attachment endures, as the mind fights Reality.

3.   Wisdom comes from forever and the depths of Eternity, just as Meaning comes from the Moment as a gift of the Present time.

4.   Mercy is a compassion that overrides fear, as in a disregard for conventions so as to be in service of the heart. It leads to spiritual wholeness.

5.   Forgiving is to give as you would have given graciously before the hurt. Understanding is awareness of pointless attachment, unmerited mercy

6.   Spiritual presence is like a cosmic perspective through the awareness that you and I are specs of dust that in turn hold the universe.

As I reflect, there is genuine appreciation of the levels of neurological learning, from the environment, behaviors, capabilities, values,  right to the identity. Robert Dilts adaptation of Gregory Bateson's gift from anthropology is a constant reminder of the great intellectual traditions from California. Tools of the spirit, in fact raises us from our own unconscious to the spiritual vision we have for ourselves. 

However, being in the moment, as in Dick’s workshop; I also saw different levels of intent and their manifestations. There were those stuck in analytical freeze. There were others consumed in unworked anchors like those for the need for recognition, fame and the limelight. Others were making journeys from their gender-based roles and learning to move from their deep to the shallows of feelings between masculinity and femininity. The youthfully unattached were curious of their evolving identity, and those who had worn many a life-battle coming to terms with their unrealized identities. 


Perhaps beyond the realm of the personally deepened visions, most people will remember the visually registered symbols that were in the public domain. e.g. A young priest, a young teacher of chemistry and a seasoned nun seemed to agree in a conspiracy of sorts to make Dick’s image and their association with him an unabashedly exclusive veneration. Much against Dick’s known preference for a non-public image, he was photographed in various angles and postures and striking lines of his utterances imprinted in designer bookmarks. First placed on seats on the last day of the seminar, it was next offered as a commercial package. Before the deal was made public, an elderly mother went from chair to chair collecting every single bookmark for herself. It was like each one had their magic card of poker that could deal no higher wild card on the table of the ones playing the game.

The fixation to personalities abounds in our world. I am reminded of a story narrated by Osho Rajneesh. A painter in his Ashram was told to stop painting breasts of women as he needed to mature. Breasts were a fixation in Rajneesh’s opinion, meant for ‘breakfast’ time in life! So the painter went and revised his approach. He had the figure of Rajneesh in the middle – well pronounced, and around this central figure – breasts and breasts and breasts.

Maturation towards inner development is no cakewalk. It is in this week, I realised Dick’s larger mercy, his coming from the space of Spiritual Wholeness, enmeshing his shadows and self-parenting himself past a bi-polar mother and a very misunderstood father of great spiritual resource….His holding cancer of the prostrate as his bodily guest, and ridding himself of the Jesuit cassock for pyjamas that signified his collapsed anchors with the wisdom of India. That is the Mind with the Heart we know, now already at age 82. His willingness to be the child in using mindful sarcasm and the maturity of drawing out others from their child-like state to experience their evolving adulthood, is testimony to a living example of the theory at work. His scholarly sense comes from the distilled understanding of the phase transition that Gestalt theorists missed in their evolution. In hindsight, he feels that had the Gestalt giants like Fritz Perls lived longer, they would have discovered NLP themselves.

He had to contend with a class size of 69 participants and 3 more on his team at our Bangalore session in the last week of March 2012. The march of technology in our environment makes it difficult for Dick to stress his wants in service of the Heart as he would have done in an alternate life-space. His unmerited mercy is a surrender in which the book-marker threesome would feel victors of a feat proximate to their idea of spiritual glory. The keepers of bookmarks in his name have an image; they would get visual anchors to glean through. 


Hopefully, the books they read would also merit attention. Else, I can assure you that the effect of the workshop is enough to ignore the book for a long long while. As of the first day after the workshop - the imprint I have is such that I would think a 5 day course with a day's break in between each would allow for requisite immersion and integration within the self. It is the experience here that is the intelligence and not the abstracted code of reference as in a machine manual! 

Analytical intelligence is seldom a predictor of spiritual wholeness. Besides, there's no place as spirituality that can celebrate the vitality of death, for its inherent lessons of honor and humility. If you see a man willing to laugh at himself, he has a greater chance of being humble and spiritual. This is even more possible because, each of us is innocent. Each of us can learn. Each of us can experience putting to use our creativity from the depth of our unconscious. Judgment is the end in analysis. It is suspended for learning of our greater ultimate selves.


Joy be with you.

Spiritual Intelligence - Makings of a newer consciousness for emerging leadership

George Kunnath and I finally presented our views at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. The homocentric nature of our developmental paradigms alienates us from our own selves. The over-emphasis on cognitive dimensions of life has resulted in skewed development. Restoring the equilibrium can be attempted if we recognize the integration of multiple intelligences. In the cosmos centric paradigm, the key to transformation is in the inner journey of the leader. Attributes of a spiritually intelligent leader are outlined as the Warrior’s Way. 

 Here are some glimpses, assuming as we are the components of a spiritual intelligence.

1.      Compassionate pursuit – A distinct motivation to a cause helps the equanimity with which to regard success and failure. It does not regulate outcomes as much as guides learning on a journey to the purpose oriented direction. The essential centering in the spiritually oriented leader is from the depth of the ‘heart’, where compassionate endearment and enforcement of conduct ensues.

2.      Conquering fears – In psycho-analytic traditions of diagnosis, irrational fears are often the blind spot in awareness for the client. For the mindful leader though, fear is about opportunity for emboldening the self. Confronting one’s fears is therefore about drawing more from one’s reservoir of energy. The leader is alerted to the possibility of an ‘amygdala hijack’ and recovers with a heightened awareness to befriend the unknown.

3.      Conviction in solitude – The spiritual leader has the sense of devotion to one’s cause in that he or she is willing to go it alone, even if nobody is likely to approve of the contribution being conceived. This is akin to what Gandhi quoted and Bunker Roy endorsed of his experience at the bare-foot college “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

4.      Deep connectedness and meaning – Being centred in the self, the leader’s spiritual intelligence integrates with everything around the self. There is a deep connectedness with the environment, peace within oneself and others; and a self-concept that emanates from the sense that one is worthy of love.

5.      Spontaneity in expression – Emotionally intelligent leaders gracefully express themselves and exude a fluency in interacting with a variety of others. Moreover, the spiritually intelligent leader responds with authenticity. Such expression often reflects the leader’s depth of creativity.

6.      Vulnerability – Awareness of one’s own capability does not prevent the spiritually intelligent leader from being aware of one’s limitations. Demonstrating vulnerability is the evolution of transformative experience. It is confronting the primal fears that surface blockages or rigidities in our defense systems. Thus vulnerability is a state of being, a mind-set. In the deepest vulnerability the leader finds the deepest strength.

7.      Resilience – The spiritually intelligent leader bounces back to a steadfast journey by recovering quickly from interim setbacks. To suffer the throes of crises is only a welcome challenge for the spiritually intelligent leader.  

8.      Endurance – The spiritually intelligent leader exudes a staying power to go the distance even in the face of adversity and unforeseen challenges. In going the distance, however, the spiritually intelligent leader is mindful of a paramount power that the self is only part of, and yet willingly serves. 

We invite research suggestions and experiences in light of the above propositioning.

Time to Reflect - December's embers

December has often given me reflective time. Last night, as we stood to mark the birth of Christ outside an overcrowded church, it would have looked like devotion spilled over. The year that has gone by presented scenes that would mimic mass movements – or tend towards one – Morrocco, Libya, Egypt and Syria are graphic reminders. The scenes and visuals on media these days would look like anti-corruption crusaders have billowed from sparks of angry protest. What are people in search of? Can they find it together?

The song Kolaveri di has a followership in subtlety in India, where as eminent psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar put through long ago – there’s a mighty projection through collective cooperation. We Indians foist upon singular entities a power that makes them do things we would not dare to do ourselves. The series of Occupy Protests in USA are a departure from consumerist numbness there. These eclipse the birth of a new country in South Sudan, altogether.  Economic machinations of the West, Europe and war-torn nations hold up a fragile situation on the other hand. The pressure on civil society to find new answers or rediscover old ones is increasing.

So here is the insight. The scientific approach has led to a belief that humans are at the centre of the universe and he/she can conquer and control the universe. Rapid material progress and reckless consumption have created an alienation and emptiness within.  The means to assert individual will have also made it a complex and a futile journey for many. The wherewithal for the present and the future include a self-leadership and a personal journey.

Manmade and natural calamities challenge us. However, in recent decades there is an awakening unfolding that humans are part of a larger Whole. More and more people have begun a search for meaning and purpose. The quest for meaning and purpose is inescapably an inward journey. Through constant awareness, the discerning seeker comes across a reservoir of  inner potential. In the course of the inward journey the traveller discovers new dimensions of human and universal existence.

Such a discovery process awakens spiritual intelligence in the voyager with a sensibility infused with warrior like qualities. These warrior like qualities enable the leader to go over the edge to venture out into the unknown. New frontiers open up new perspectives to face the challenges, tempered by compassion.

The future for human civilization is a shift towards the cosmos as a whole. This approach brings about a balance between we humans and our environment. Our corporations, communities, cultures and science will learn a new way of living and relating. The new way of living, leading and relating can pave the way for a mindful future that may enable sustainable life.

Spiritual Intelligence - Explorations with George Kunnath

I've had some fascinating moments exploring the aspects of a Spiritual Intelligence conceptualization, thanks to the sharing from George Kunnath. Like a babe on the shores this vast ocean of awakening waiting to be known, I wade through a water that ensnares, endangers and yet comforts. Non-rational at it's core, it is a force from which we may have arrived in material form, and yet, our forms of knowing inadequate to explain phenomena we experience in this respect.

Here's a glimpse of that exploration. Posted here for your reflections and comments please.


The Material and the Spiritual

The Newtonian scientific model challenged this understanding of unity and overemphasized empirical verifiability as a prerequisite for any existence. The overemphasis of the Newtonian paradigm eclipsed indigenous wisdoms of the heart and idealised everything that is cerebral.  What we now witness is an intractable reductionism of essentially phenomenological experience into measurement, and look-alike frameworks of an extrinsic measurement paradigm. This has led to the propagation of ‘indices’ for phenomena such as customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and learnability. Every facet of human life has been driven by the cerebral rather than the visceral.

The rapid material progress in the West at the cost of all other dimensions of human existence created a vacuum. Many Westerners began to look eastward to find meaning. The feudalistic rituals of the institutionalized religions became redundant for the true seeker of the spirit and meaning.  The inner quest for greater meaning beyond material existence gave rise to many gurus and spiritual practitioners outside the religious structures. Western seekers came to India in search of peace and enlightenment.  Many found the solace they sought as they traversed through the chaos and immersed deep into the ancient spiritual practices.

Since, the treatise on Spiritual, Emotional and Analytical is an on-going one with a respectable legacy already available in literature, we wish to stress on a transformative space that leaders could act from. As the saying goes, it is better to cover one’s feet with slippers than to carpet one’s path on this world laden with thorns and stones.

“ ... everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe - a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.” - Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Albert Einstein - The Human Side, Princeton University Press, 1979.

Albert Einstein, probably the personification of fundamental inquiry in the pure sciences, acknowledged the existence of a greater power that makes us humble and surrender before it. Spiritual intelligence is a higher intelligence governing the universe.  Looking at the way the universe operates, it is a great marvel. Every event, every process in the universe is governed by a principle or a set of principles.  The manifestations of the governing principles can be observed in the operation of the universe. The planets orbit through their paths and the birds fly in the sky with no super highway crashes or mid-air collisions. There is a particular principle governing every species on earth unique and yet different. Seeds sprout, grow bloom, bear fruit and perish. Mammals are born, they grow, they reproduce, and they decline and die. The cycle of life continues; irrespective of the host habitat – the tectonic plates of Iceland, the fold mountains of the Himalayas or the Great Australian outback.

Every invention of man is a poor imitation of nature. Perhaps Nature does not make the effort to communicate its bemusement of our flattery for Her. The most sophisticated computer is no match for the human brain. No technology can match the marvel of the universe. The World Wide Web which is one of the greatest inventions of the 20^th century, it would appear, is modelled on the planets and stars and the interconnected nature of things in the universe. For the design of the most sophisticated fighter planes, extensive studies are done on eagles in flight with cameras attached to their body to capture the angle of their flights.  Whatever it may be called, a superior intelligence governs the entire universe including the humans. However, often we think that man can conquer and control the universe. In this quest for mastery and control of the universe we have forgotten that humans too are governed by the same higher intelligence that governs the entire universe.

Spiritual intelligence is not separate from the higher principle that governs the operation of the universe. In the Indian spiritual tradition any human soul (atman) has the potential to take the inner journey and be one with the whole (Brahman) universe. In this oneness the duality disappears, humans and the universe are not separate, they are one whole. When connected with one’s core we are connected to the whole. Being whole is our fundamental nature. When we experience separation form the whole due to karmic effects (akin to the collective consciousness of Carl Jung) we are unable to access the higher intelligence. Being one with the whole gives us purpose and meaning. We become clear about our true calling and we live out our true destiny. When we are one with the whole we constantly tap into the infinite resources of the higher intelligence. Our connection with the higher intelligence guides us to live our lives for something greater than ourselves. We respect other people and everything in the universe.

In the universe we humans are the only ones who kill for pleasure. The animals kill only for self-preservation – either to defend against an aggressor or for food. Human conquests are for greed, power and control. Human greed has depleted the natural resources, threatening the equilibrium of the planet..

Going back to nature to learn our basics again seems inevitable and precarious in our moments of choice. What if we were to remodel our corporations on the basis of the laws that govern the universe? Would that be a design choice? Individuals and organizations are taking to adventure and nature exploration. Some organizations are experimenting with workplace spirituality. While many such initiatives appear as attempts to be current with developmental practices, some leaders are undertaking an inner journey to explore intangibles that gives them meaning and anchor. Such a journey leads one to the inner core from where one learns to connect with the whole. 

The communion with the Whole brings about a transformation in the leader. A leader thus transformed allows oneself to be guided by the higher intelligence. These leaders help transform their groups, corporations, communities and nations. When the duality between self and others dissolves we merge into the interconnectedness of the Whole.

Spiritual Intelligence flows from personal authenticity, integrity and congruence. Every creative process at work is indicative of Spiritual Intelligence at work. When Spiritual Intelligence is at work, questions of purpose and meaning are at rest for they are continuously unfolded by the constant interplay of Spiritual Intelligence with everything in the universe. The interconnectedness of the universe ever manifests the spiritual intelligence at play. The incessant flow of energy through all animate and inanimate life forms in their various stages of creation is spiritual intelligence incarnate. The ever present natural order amidst apparent chaos reinforces the presence of the superior intelligence that governs the universe of which humans are a tiny spec. This realization makes humans to surrender to the greater power in the act of letting go. In this apparent loss of control we learn to accept the supremacy of the higher power that guides the destiny of the universe.  A new natural order emerges and we learn a new way of living, leading and managing our lives and the surroundings. The new way is sustainable for the present, future of our planet and future generations. 

Mind the medium for the body too

Mind the medium for the body too

The mind-body- emotive balance is a way of expressing the analytical, the emotional and the physical parts of ourselves. We are all of these. Are we only these?

I’ve heard often of the Structures of the Mind. I’ve also known that the structure is changed only when – am willing to die to my past. Every cell in me would get reorganised.  In working on the Time-line with Dr. McHugh, SJ, the glimpses seemed more than a possibility. In that structure of experience, though, the consciousness was that the responsibility for self is an awareness of ecological sensitivity. It was then a consent to experience the emerging, without persuasion. Unlike cynical interpretations of NLP, the 'Mind with a Heart' paradigm shone through.

Yesterday, when with George Kunnath, I was awakened to a point of assemblage. Accessing it as a episode of memory is a mere menti-fact. Rejecting any part of its wholesome encoding is robbing myself of the resonance I  need to tune into. Fears of uncertainty and similarly disposed emotions shut us from ourselves. Just yesterday, a distilled sensation got expressed by a colleague as this “Peer in organisations work against each other in the hope of advancing themselves. They look up, and they hardly look around for what they should look at within themselves…” The territory of the self as Prof. Ramnath Narayanswamy of the Indian Institute of Management (Bangalore) mentions is an enormously neglected one.  Emotionality that is blocked is shut out to the self. Not resonant with the context around us, we stumble in pursuit of the illusory apogee of self-aggrandizement.

Retrospective repentance is posturing as if authenticity can be negotiated. Even the image of it is obscuring, as it hides the pain that is not dealt with. A lady with cancer once, took it on herself to reflect deeply. She traced the dolor to her decision to force herself to go childless. She dealt with it, and the pending treatment for her tumor annulled as she came to terms with herself. That bodily pain was gone.
As with individuals,  every organization forgets its ‘charism’ – it forgets the very purpose for which the institution was founded. As with individuals, organisations too need to take care of their health. As with individuals, institutions are more than economic identities. Imbalances in health – emotion, spirituality, are attended to with temporary curing. As with individuals, the world view of an organisation is a mediated sense of identity. Not to forget the confused reduction of ourselves to material yardsticks.

As with individuals, groups and organisations are sentient systems. As the self senses, it connects with the body's parts. As the body informs, the self becomes aware through the mind that is conscious in attention. Groups and organisations have their own sub-systems for communication. The collective therein is ‘sacrificed’ for the few ‘individuals’ at the top, if at all a semblance of unity in the system prevails. Apparitions of conformance are not essentially a team based unit, as what lies hidden from perception often is the pain of expressing what needs to be heard. “Sacrifice’’ is a suffering born of bondage. Giving is a release seeped in joy.  When each subsystem gives as part of being itself, the resonance is harmony in the context of the group. The mind is indeed the medium to the body.  What did you do to tend to your body today? What did you die to today, that you are renewed in this moment? As you sensed for yourself, what would make for sensation about your community?