Saturday 31 March 2012

Emotional Intelligence

 Emotional Intelligence of late has gained lot of importance. Emotional intelligence as per one of the definitions is the ability to identify, assess and manage emotion of self and others. Psychology has also identified measurements of emotional intelligence. In this blog I would like to look at emotional intelligence through a spiritual lens. Hindu scriptures have also emphasized the importance of emotional intelligence needed for self-advancement.
 Core to emotional intelligence as construed by Hindu scriptures is "awareness " and "self introspection". Awareness of the fact that the soul or athma as we call it, is transient. Awareness that this life and body is just a garb. The soul transcends the garb. And hence it is dissipative to be attached to the body and the emotions attached with it. Armed with this awareness, we will be equipped to not let the emotions control the intellect. We will learn to not let emotions like love, desire, hatred, anger, jealousy control our thoughts and action. As I have time and again emphasized in my articles, attachment induces a multitude of emotions.Introspection helps us get to the crux of the trigger and address it. Hindu scriptures never talk about assessing or managing others' emotion. It is rather self introspecting. It recommends introspecting on what triggers our own emotions and how can we manage them. Beware that "manage" does not mean suppression, but rather introspection.
For e.g: When we are deeply desirous of a particular goal, we tend to be lopsided. For the desire of reaching the pinnacle of our career, we might de-prioritize our personal life, and lose out on the most important phases of our own life and others. At the same time being attached to our personal life and kin, can be stifling. This is where the awareness and introspection as prescribed by spiritual texts come in handy. Realize the fact that what transpires now is just a passing phase of your soul and it is wasteful to expend our time and energy fondling the emotions of this phase.
This is the mantra of emotional intelligence as construed by Hindu scriptures

Saturday 24 March 2012

What gets in the way of our judgment?

 Impeccable judgment has been hailed as what differentiates an effective person from others, be it in personal life or professional life. Successful leaders have historically been those who have taken the right decision at the right time, guided by their judgment. Hence I will delineate what what gets in the way of good judgment, and how we can avoid falling prey to it.
 How do we generally judge a situation or person? We go by our past experiences and prejudices. The "knowledge" that we have built over the years. If we are too entrenched in our notions, if we are puffed up with the pride of the so called knowledge and experience, we will quite often fail to be objective in our judgment. For e.g., when embarking on a new initiative / project, we are expected to evaluate the pros, cons and risks involved. It is quite humane then to lean on our past experience to evaluate the initiative. But if we obstinately stick to only our biases and experiences, we are likely to fail seeing the possible new avenues that lie ahead of us. While it is prudent to learn from our past mistakes and experiences, it is also sagacious to open up our ears and mind to current situation, to other opinions which might be quite contradictory to ours, to diverse perspectives, in order to take advantage of the new opportunities ahead of us.
 Good judgment comes from not getting cocooned in our familiar patterns and prejudices. If we are attached to our self i.e. ego, if we are attached to our intelligence and perspectives, if we are attached to a certain thought or person, we are prone to make bad judgments. Attachment blinds our rational mind. That is what our scriptures teach us, to be detached. If we lead a spiritual life, being detached from person or situation, we are better equipped to make those important judgments and decisions in our life.

Sunday 11 March 2012

Compassion - How can it be cultivated ?

Compassion is one of the characteristics that is unique to us homo sapiens, yet we don't exhibit it all that often. In my opinion, compassion is the hallmark of a good human, a good leader. In many of my earlier posts I have dwelt on empathy and genuine interest, which underpins effective communication, influence and all those other traits of an effective person. But compassion is fundamental to empathy and genuine interest. Not surprisingly, Hindu scriptures place compassion right at the center of spirituality. How compassionate are we? And are there a set of people with whom we are compassionate and those with whom we are not? Do prejudices play their part? Can we cultivate compassion that is bereft of prejudice and ulterior motive. The answer is an emphatic YES.
 Indian scriptures and Bodhisattva lay emphasis on the cycle of births. We are believed to be going through a cycle of rebirths based on our Karmic actions (negative and positive) in our past births. The more good we do in this birth, the better fortunate would we be in our next birth. In each birth, we need to perform good actions, for the benefit of others without any expectation for oneself. In this whole churn of cycles of birth and rebirth, the ones who are our friends, our parents in this birth, might have been our foes in our past birth. And those who are our foes in this birth might have been our near and dear ones, our well wishers in the past births. So then, would it be prudent to be compassionate with our near and dear ones in this birth and disregard or ill-treat our so called foes?
 Even if you were to ignore the cycle of births, have you ever returned a bad deed with compassion? When someone is bent upon spoiling your professional progress for example, instead of confronting that person head-on, have you tried to be compassionate with that person? Have you tried to analyze why this person might want to thwart your progress, and how you can help this person? If you were to reach out to this person, and probably help with this person's progress, would you not end up winning another friend instead of a foe? Would not this person hold you in high regard and consider you a leader as opposed to an adversary? Organizations are always in need of this kind of a leader. And even in your personal life, instead of returning a bad deed with another one, if you were to return with a good deed out of compassion, you would have more friends rather than foes, and that in itself would go a long way in restoring peace and sanity in our life.

Saturday 3 March 2012

All Work and No Play makes Jack a Dull boy

 This is an age old adage that we are all familiar with. Even the Hindu scriptures advocate this in principle. The Bhagawad Gita instructs human beings to neither fondle nor neglect their body, for both can lead to adversity. It is believed that all our organs (sense organs etc.) and the mind must work in co-ordination for effectiveness. Our sense organs are tempted into material needs like food, attire etc. If the mind is not in check, if the mind cannot control these cravings, our body succumbs to the materialistic desires.
 Let us for a moment consider an example of our craving for fame. If our mind gives in to the craving, we end up over exerting and tormenting ourselves. This in turn disrupts the chemical composition of our body like glucose, and in the long term it would affect our health (many of our disease are believed to be emanating from stress). The disease in turn would leave our mind pre-occupied with fear, precluding us from focusing on the larger purpose of life. It would also restrict our physical activity owing to the nature of the disease (depending on how debilitating the disease is ).
 Hence the Bhagawad Gita endorses the importance of disciplining the mind and the body. Yoga, meditation etc. have proved to restore the balance of energy in our body, and help maintain good health. This combined with the training of mind , to not give in to material desires, by being detached, helps in holistic well being. The mind by being detached, restrains our sense organs, and ensures that we do not indulge in debilitating activities. When the mind and the body are sound, when we are not over whelmed by fear or handicaps of any kind, we are better equipped to be effective.

 I would therefore recommend that each of us take up an activity, Yoga, sport anything that helps us maintain a sense of physical well being, in addition to practicing spiritual principles (detachment etc.), to lead an effective life.