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

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.

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.

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.

Patience - Quintessence of Effectiveness

 Every once in a while we get agitated. Agitated with our personal life, professional life, our identity, our status quo ... Even though we might realize that agitation is futile, we might find it hard to wrench free from its grip. On self introspection, we would realize that agitation is the result of impatience. There are shortcuts to achieving any of our goals. For e.g.:, If we want to climb up the corporate ladder, we could reach by guile and chicanery. While this might seem easier and faster, having reached the summit, it will be hard to sustain. If we rather go through the grind, to reach to the top, we would have had ample time to metamorphosed as a person, that would help us reach even greater peaks. But this would take a long time, might be even a life time. At times, we might even retrograde. But this is what makes a "gem" literally.

 In fact many of my previous articles which talk about genuine interest etc. takes a lot of time and patience. Even though we might have genuine interest in a person, in a cause etc., it would be difficult to garner trust and support from everyone. People would suspect the authenticity of the cause, the ulterior motive. It takes time and patience to build trust and confidence. Without patience, it would be easy to get agitated and lose heart.

 How then to remain patient. The solution as you might have already guessed by now, is in reiterating the spiritual principle of life - letting go. Attachment breeds impatience. The more we are attached, the more we want to expedite the end result. Expediting might often push us into making the wrong moves, and retrograde. Let us not be attached to our results, goals, identity etc. Let us put our best foot forward, and let the results take its natural course. Then we expend our energy only on doing our job well, and relieve ourselves of the baggage of accomplishment. If not anything else, it arrests impatience and agitation.

What do you say?

Negative criticism

 In our lifetime, we receive negative criticism a whole lot more than positive feedback. In my opinion, criticism is the catalyst of human evolution. It serves to weed out those characteristics in the human ecosystem which are not conducive to evolution of higher capabilities of the species. Despite the fruits that it bears, the one at the receiving end hardly finds it palatable. Where lies the problem? Is it because of the nature of the receiver or that of the deliverer ?
 Scouring the annals of my mind, the typical pattern that strikes me first is, that the person criticizing with negative feedback, definitely intends to make his disapproval known. And the one receiving the flak gets defensive and feels cornered. So there is the conspicuous negative intonation to it.
 Is it then possible to give a positive twist to it and is it worth the while? These are the questions that I will unravel in this post, with spiritual leanings of course.
 When I started , I used "criticism" and "catalyst of human evolution" in the same breath. So you have all the reason to believe that I am inclined to consider it positive. You are right. Right from the time our cognitive skills kicked in, we have been goaded with smiles and grunts, we have been praised and reprimanded for the right / acceptable and the wrong. Without negative criticism there would be no agreement on what constitutes a civilized society. Hence I am convinced that it is worthwhile exploring the possibility of meting out negative criticism with positive intonation ! This is where my spiritual leanings come to play.
 It is both for the receiver and the deliverer to view it from the lens of spirituality. It is important to let go the sense of ego and understand that it is not humane to be right all the time, and appreciate that all souls are equal, no one is above another, and that every one's view needs to be respected. This will help the receiver open up his mind and see the kernel from the chaff. And will help the one meting out the criticism to provide objective / constructive feedback which will help evolve the individual. This is a definite win-win !

What are your thoughts?

Honing influential skills

 This is a topic that is relevant both to our professional and personal life. In the corporate world, people are often times measured on the level / impact of influence they have / can create. And in our personal life, we are trying to influence our spouse, friends, kids all the time. How can one effectively influence others ? In my early days I have read books on how to improve your negotiating skills and have tried implementing too.
 To my mind, trying to influence others can in a way be viewed as controlling their sense of being and their sense of existence. And "control" as we all know and have experienced is a C that everyone resists. Compassion, Camaraderie and Congeniality are the 3 Cs that work. Trying to control others, or trying to change others to our bent of mind is a faux pas. The obvious solution is then to execute the 3 Cs that bring in the positive results.
 But of late, I am beginning to wonder if consciously trying to work on the 3 Cs with an ulterior motive is manipulation in its very core. And it seems to be conflicting with my spiritual notions and principles of life.
 In my personal life, I have tried to "let go" the desire or want to influence others. And I must admit that, I feel liberated. Because, all along, in the process of influencing others, and trying to be very like-able , agree-able etc. (the 3 Cs), I was not being myself. I was manipulating and in the processing manipulating myself and loosing my identity. I was able to "liberate" myself from the clutches of manipulation , by simply following the lucid principles of spirituality , that I have dealt with in many of my previous posts.
 Would be interesting to discuss others' perspective on this and what they have adopted in their personal and professional life. And what with the confluence of spirituality and metaphysics? The notion that mind, thought etc. are matter and particles which can be influenced and controlled by our will. Would it be spiritually ethical to control the outcome of others (people, systems etc.) to our benefit?