One of my disciples once asked me, 'Swamiji, how is it that so much energy constantly flows through you?'

When you feel compassion towards others' suffering, the whole thing takes the shape of responsibility and expresses itself as energy, that's all. For that matter, when anyone takes up the responsibility of suffering, they will immediately start radiating energy.

How many disciples did Jesus Christ have? Just twelve. How many disciples did Ramakrishna Paramahamsa* have? Only sixteen. Each of these beings had only a small number of disciples, but because they took up responsibility, the movements expanded.

Be very clear, you can stand up only if you feel responsible for people's growth, only if you feel responsible for uplifting them. When you can say that you will do whatever you can for people, when you stand up with responsibility, you expand and the divine energy flows through you. Contemplate on this concept so that you can deeply understand it.

Can air flow through a blocked bamboo? No! A blocked bamboo will only help carry a corpse to the cremation grounds. That same bamboo will become a flute when it is hollowed out! As long as you are selfcentered, you will serve in the same capacity as the blocked bamboo that carries the dead body. When you are free from ego and stand up with responsibility, the expansion happens and you become like the bamboo flute. Then, just as the air that enters the bamboo leaves it as music, so too will the air that enters you flow through you as energy!

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa - Enlightened master from West Bengal in Bharat. His chief disciple was Swami Vivekananda.

When you take up responsibility, a cognitive shift happens in you. Your mental setup changes. Many of us live life like slaves. For example, if you work eight hours in your office just following orders you will feel dull and tired. Instead, if you take up responsibility and initiative, that same eight hours will become much easier and more enjoyable.

For example, take the case of a person who is running his own business and another person who is working for a company. The owner of the business has the full responsibility of his business, but the person who is working for some other company does not really feel the full responsibility. If he does not feel the responsibility, the whole job becomes like a burden on him. There is little or no selfmotivation. He keeps looking at his watch to see if it is time to leave! For him, only the first of every month is sweet, since it is payday! In a month, he sacrifices twenty nine days of his life for one day of joy. A sense of personal responsibility can help turn around any situation. A sense of personal responsibility can achieve great things.

When you stand up with responsibility, you become a solid force. Until then, you remain a burden for yourself and for others. We often think that we are in an

When you stand up with responsibility, you become a solid force.

ordinary job. We wonder why we should take up more responsibility when our higher authorities at work are not doing so.

Let me tell you, in an office, when a janitor does all his duties perfectly, he will inspire people. You see, the head of the organization has to be responsible. No credit is given to him for that! But someone in a lesser position demonstrating such responsibility is a true inspiration.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa beautifully says, 'A sannyasi has to think of god. No credit is given to him for it. A samsari* is given credit every time he thinks of god! When a sannyasi forgets god even for a moment, it is a sin; whereas, when a samsari* thinks of god even for a moment, it is a great thing.' In the same way, a leader has to be responsible. No credit is given to a leader for being responsible. If a janitor is responsible, he can inspire an entire institution.

There is a greater chance of people at a lower post inspiring others through their sense of responsibility than people at a higher level doing so. So don't wait to get

Samsari - One who is caught in samsara or cycle of birth and death.

Don't wait to get some authority to become responsible.

some authority to become responsible.

Secondly,

don't think that you are in a lesser post, and therefore you need not be responsible.

Thirdly, allow the cognitive shift to happen in you.

Allow a change in the mental setup to happen in you. Currently, your mind is in a state of mithyam* , lost in the illusionary, the unreal. Your mind is constantly searching for worries and sorrow in the outer world. If you deeply analyze yourself, you will realize that if you are intensely enjoying yourself, you are suddenly engulfed with a feeling of fear that there is nothing to worry about. Then, immediately you start thinking of things to worry about. You feel that you have lost something, and you start recollecting all your worries.

Mithyam* means to go in search of sorrow and the ephemeral, going in search of that which is not there. We have to change the state of the mind from mithyam* to nithyam* , to the eternal, to the present moment. This is called the cognitive shift. This will happen when you stand up, saying that you are responsible.

If you stand up with this feeling for just 24 hours, things that were lying unfinished, things for which you blamed others, will get finished. Your entire life will change and blossom with a new sense of happiness. A new kind of ecstasy will engulf you. You will become a natural leader. Life will become a celebration!

There is a beautiful story about Buddha. It is said that when Buddha went to beg, He would appear like a king, and the kings who gave Him alms would appear like beggars! Appearing like a beggar or a king is not because of your status or the property that you own. It is because of the state inside you.

When you take up responsibility for the entire cosmos, you will expand and look like a leader, you will become a leader. Even if a leader sits on his throne and does not take responsibility, but instead points his finger at others for responsibility, he will appear small. The state is that which gets the status, the status can never get the state. The state of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM is different from the status of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM.

Mithyam - Impermanent, opposite of nithyam which is eternal. Nithyam -Eternal.

Swami Vivekananda, the Eastern mystic, describes the motto for his mission as atmano mokshartham jagat hitaya cha – 'For spiritual liberation as well as bringing good to humanity'. He implies that without taking up responsibility for the good of the world, you cannot talk of spiritual liberation.

A beautiful story:

In a place called Pandharipur in Bharat, there was a boy who served his parents very lovingly and with great care. Lord Krishna took the form of Pandharinathar and came to see him. It was raining that day while the boy was attending to his parents.

Krishna stood at the door of the boy's house and asked to be allowed inside. The boy asked Him to wait until he had finished attending to his parents. Krishna said that it was raining and slushy where He stood. So the boy actually threw a block of brick and asked lord Krishna to stand on it! Even today in that region, Pandarinathar is worshipped standing on a brick-block!

God Himself came down to see the consciousness and sense of responsibility of the boy. That is why I tell people, when you stand up with responsibility, energy will automatically flood you! Feeling that you are responsible is the greatest quality.

When you stand up feeling responsible, your problems will dissolve. A new intelligence will awaken in you. Don't think you are being egoistic. Ego is different from responsibility. When you feel responsible, you will take the initiative, you will not feel egoistic. Only when you think that you would have done better than the other person will ego come into play. When ego comes into play, you will not take up responsibility.

Being responsible does not mean becoming serious. Sincerity is different from seriousness. When you become serious, you are only feeding your ego. When you are sincere, you understand about life and do not attach undue importance to any one thing at the cost of something else. You are able to approach life with a youthful enthusiasm, with This whole world is merely a dream. You look at this world as reality because you have experienced it so.

spontaneity and innocence.

A child's world is full of, 'He took away my pencil!', 'He

hit me!'… 'She is not giving me my chocolate!' We all lived in this stage of our life before we grew up. How does it feel when you think back about this? It appears comical now, doesn't it? We laugh at how much we bothered for these little things!

Now, let's rewind to when we were five or six years old. At this age we may have fought for a geometry kit. When we were a few years younger, we fought for a pencil, and now we are fighting for the geometry kit. You grow up further. Now, if your best friend becomes very close to somebody else, you can't bear that! If we think back about this, we feel like laughing. If I ask the elderly people about the problems of youth, about relationships, the problem will now not appear to be of a serious nature. This is because they have passed that age. Just like this, there is a state that is beyond all these states. It is the state to experience bliss. It is an experience that goes beyond all the states of life.

Take another example: Say you get a shocking piece of news. Someone whom you loved has been murdered. Even when you learn this, how much grief and trouble you feel! You can't believe he is gone. You are crying uncontrollably. Suddenly your mother gives you a nudge and says, 'Wake up' and you wake up and realize, 'Oh god! That was only a dream!' Suddenly you are so relieved and relaxed! From this, we can understand a small technique for living life: 'When the dream disappears, peace is born.'

Shiva says, 'This whole world is merely a dream.' How many people can accept this? You look at this world as reality because you have experienced it so.

We can accept things only when we experience them. The things that we have not experienced, we are not able to accept. The only solution is to go within ourselves and experience that bliss.

In our youth, the problems of early childhood appear comical. In our old age, the problems of youth appear comical. When we realize the Ultimate, everything appears to be playful. You can play the game of life beautifully, completely neckdeep in it, yet be completely unaffected by it.

I always tell people, 'Do not think you have a certain amount of energy and you will work according to that energy. No. Whatever work and responsibility you take up, the energy starts expressing accordingly. You will have energy according to the responsibilities which you take up. Whatever responsibility you take upon yourself, you will see that your inner space expands to that extent and energy flows through you!'

If you feel responsible for whatever is happening around you, you suddenly become a leader. You start transforming your life and others' lives. Responsibility is one of the ways to consciously grow.

You only need to do two things: trust that life is good and know that you can expand to the responsibilities that you take up.

Another thing, when that expansion happens, just hold on and have patience during the transformation process. Patience during the transformation process is what I call tapas or penance. There is a beautiful phrase of the teachings of Shirdi Sai Baba* : 'Shraddha Saburi' – trust and patience. This is the essence of life.

Trust that you can expand in your life and then you will expand for all the responsibilities and commitments you take up. Have patience when the expansion or the transformation is happening in your inner space. That's all.

Taking

responsibility for others is the technique for enlightenment.

Nothing else needs to be done.

We seldom have either trust or patience. That's why we just reproduce the same past into our future. Why don't we allow big breakthroughs in our life? Because we don't trust that life leads us into a new space. Have trust and patience. The simple truth is that when you take more responsibility, you just expand and more energy starts expressing through you.

Responsibility is one of the ways to consciously grow. Taking responsibility for others is the technique for enlightenment. That is what the Bhagavad Gita calls karma yoga* . When you really feel that you should do the karma, the action of taking the responsibility for others, you will not even bother about results. Just out of your compassion, just out of feeling responsible, you will start working.

Shirdi Sai Baba - An enlightened master worshipped by Hindus and Muslims alike. Lived in Shirdi near Nasik. Karma yoga - The path of Self Realization by fulfilling one's responsibilities without attachment to anything.

Working out of overflowing energy, overflowing compassion, and the overflowing feeling of responsibility for everything, is what makes a life spiritual. Working out of overflowing responsibility instead of greed or fear is what we call spiritual life.

Understand, enlightenment comes with a tremendous responsibility. It comes with a tremendous 'pressured' compassion. 'Pressured' is the right word to use! Your whole being will be vibrating with an intense compassion, with a very deep compassion.

Let me tell you one incident:

Early one morning, Vivekananda suddenly got up and said, 'I have a deep pain in the right hand.' At that time he was lying down on a bed. He said, 'On this side of the ocean, some country is suffering from some natural calamity. Please find out where we are needed, and send our swamis to go and do the relief work.' The next morning they received the news that there was an* earthquake on a nearby island. All the swamis rushed to do the relief work.*

Vivekananda was sensitive to and actually felt the pain felt by people so many miles away!

With enlightenment, practically the whole cosmos is felt inside your body. A deep pressured compassion lands on you along with the enlightenment experience. Understand, it is a great responsibility. It is not just freedom. It is a great responsibility too.

Most of us wait for the status to come in order to take up the responsibility. Be very clear, it doesn't work that way. Only if you take up responsibility will the status come. Those who wait for the status will not take up responsibility even after they get the status! They will simply find another reason or excuse, that's all.

Be very clear, responsibility is a consciousness.

Many people think that if they get enlightened, they will get a golden throne. They think that somebody will give them food and a place to stay. They think that

Swami - A honorific term used for a sannyasi, a monk.

people will worship their photograph. If you see the status of the enlightened master and try to achieve enlightenment for that, you will feel cheated! If you see the state of the enlightened master and try to achieve it, you will be successful. You will be happy. You will enjoy it. That is the difference between state and status.

LIVING ENLIGHTENMENT

When we become responsible for others, we no longer are focused on us. We move towards serving other people. Serving other people is leadership. Pandering to one's own needs without a care about others is absence of leadership.

There are so many books these days about leadership and how it is an important part of making an organization successful. There are so many so-called leadership gurus who teach and train people in organizations to 'develop' leadership. Yet when we look at all organizations, whether they are doing business to make a profit, or in government service or in the area of social services, true leaders are rare.

If you look at any organization you will find that less than 1% tends to become the so-called leaders in the organization. If you look at business organizations, we can say that there are probably only 1% of these organizations that can claim to be true leaders in their fields who are excelling in all areas of their business – making a profit, delivering good products and services, providing service to society, providing satisfaction to their employees, etc.

So we can say, true leaders are actually 1% of the 1% of successful business organizations. It means just 0.01% of the overall working population actually has true leadership qualities in them! We can say the same about organizations in other fields. This is what I mean when I say true leaders are rare.

Let us now try and understand why this is the case. For this, we need to understand:

1. What is Leadership?

2. Can leaders be 'created' or do you have to be a born leader?

3. What are the key ingredients that make a successful leader?

4. Why do some individuals effortlessly and 'naturally' lead and most others struggle?

5. How do we start the process of our individual journey to become leaders?

Let us now understand step by step all these points.

What is Leadership?

So many books have been written on this subject of leadership by management gurus, professors and consultants. Most of them have spoken about how a successful leader should be. There are a lot of courses conducted by companies on leadership, team work, etc.

My disciples who have come from the corporate world have described to me how

Part 9: Living Enlightenment (Gospel of Paramahamsa Nithyananda)_English_part_9.md

Leadership is not a quality, but an experience that can radiate from an individual who has experienced personal growth.

these courses are conducted and what they have been striving to achieve through these courses. They

have also told me that while the courses have been helpful to them, the effect from the courses tends to wear off within a short period after the courses are completed.

I am told of weekend boot camps where team spirit is built by climbing ropes, playing games, creating a sense of friendship, etc. The gist I picked up from hearing my disciples is that these training programs tend to work on the outer attributes but do little to change or improve the 'inner software' of the individuals so that leadership can radiate from the individual. Leadership is not a quality, but an experience that can radiate from an individual who has experienced personal growth and transformation.

Now let me give you some explanations of how leadership is described traditionally. If you search the internet under the terms 'Leadership' and 'Leader', you will be amazed at the millions of hits that come up! Just recently when I typed the word 'Leadership' on Google it had 156 million hits and the word 'Leader' had 278 million hits!

So whatever needs to be written or said on these topics has been said! So I am here to mainly give you a few examples from the leading management gurus and their concepts of a leader and more importantly to give you the real understanding, tools and techniques on how to become a leader and how anyone can radiate leadership as a result of personal transformation!

Understand, every human being is a potential leader. Leadership is not a quality only some people have been born with as is viewed and understood currently. Everyone can become a leader and the quality of leadership arises from one's ability to take responsibility for a particular organization, a situation or a particular group.

I have here some definitions of leadership you can get from an internet search:

Peter Drucker* defines a leader as 'someone who has followers'.

John C Maxwell* says, 'Leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less.'

Warren Bennis* says, 'Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well-

Peter Drucker - Management guru considered to be the father of modern management.

John C Maxwell - Leadership expert and writer.

Warren Bennis - Management and leadership consultant.

communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential.'

John Gardner* defines leadership as 'the process of persuasion and example by which an individual or leadership team induces a group to take action that is in accord with the leader's purpose, or the shared purposes of all.'

Here is yet another definition of a leader from an unnamed source, 'Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. Leaders carry out this process by applying their leadership attributes, such as beliefs, values, ethics, character, knowledge, and skills.'

I am sure there are thousands of such definitions on what a leader should be and what leadership is. I am not going to go into too much of detail into this, but I wanted to point out some of the quotes from leading management gurus on leaders and leadership. All of these experts tell us what a leader should be and the traits that define a successful leader. Yet, there is very little of how one can attain this state of a leader. So it leads to the question: Are leadership traits inborn or can a leader be created? To understand this, we need to delve into the composition of the mind and the science of the so called inner world. This is an area where the eastern mystics have spent thousands of years exploring and discovering the inner world. They have created tools and techniques to create the right 'inner software' to cultivate leadership skills. Let us explore this in greater detail.

Can leaders be 'created' or do you have to be a born leader?

A lot has been said by many people on what a leader should be. But there is very little that has been said about actually how to get there. What exactly do I mean by this?

Is leadership some quality you have to be born with or can it be cultivated? How can one develop leadership skills? Can a person truly lead an organization if he or she is caught up in personal struggles and confusions?

Before we get into these details, let me first say that leadership skills can be cultivated. It is all about achieving the state of consciousness of a leader and not the status that is achieved by becoming a leader.

When you read this, please do not think I am going to take you through a spiritual journey! The process I am going to take you through is a time-tested, proven

John Gardner - Author of a number of books on leadership.

science of personal transformation. It is a product of ten thousand years of research and development from the Eastern system of inner science. What do I mean by this?

Firstly, understand that every civilization has focused its energies in certain fields. In the West, they focused their efforts on the outer world science, innovation, discovery and creation of products and services to improve the quality of life and comforts. These outer world scientists have discovered so many products and services which have greatly benefitted humanity and improved the quality of life of humans all over the world.

Just as there is science of the outer world, there is a vast science of the inner world, something that lies within all of us. The scientists of the inner world or rishis* worked on various tools and techniques to handle the different emotions we experience and our mind. Over the last ten thousand years, these scientists of the inner world have created tools and techniques that help us handle our emotions and overcome the stress and depression from emotions. They have created techniques for us to live blissfully with ourselves. These tools and techniques are what I call meditation techniques.

So most of my discussion on leadership will be focused on giving an understanding of human emotions, the mind and how we can use these simple understandings from the inner scientists to help us lead a successful and fulfilling life.

In most organizations, those who have become leaders have achieved the status of the leader. They may not have necessarily achieved the state of the leader. What do I mean by this? To understand this, first let us understand the key ingredients that make a successful leader.

What are the key ingredients that make a successful leader?

A small story:

There was once a great war between two countries. The war had been going on for some time and the soldiers were starting to feel tired of the long battle.

On a hot afternoon, a man in civilian clothes was riding past a small group of tired soldiers digging a huge pit. The group leader was shouting orders and threatening punishment if the work was not completed within the hour.

The man riding the horse stopped and asked, 'Sir, why are you only shouting orders? Why can't you help them yourself?' asked the stranger on horseback.

Rishi - Sage.

The group leader looked at him and replied, 'What do you mean? I am the leader. The men do as I tell them.' He then added, 'If you feel so strongly about helping them, you are welcome to do so yourself!'

The man got down from his horse and started walking up to the soldiers at work. The group leader was simply shocked! The man took up the tools and started helping the soldiers and worked with them till the job was finished!

Before leaving the man congratulated the soldiers for their work, and approached the group leader. He said, 'The next time your status prevents you from supporting your people, you should inform your higher authorities and I will provide a more permanent solution.'

The group leader was now completely surprised. Only now he looked closely at the man – and realized that the man was the army general!

We now need to ask ourselves how many so-called leaders in organizations exhibit the qualities of the group leader. And how many people do you know who exhibit the qualities of the army general?

Regardless of the status in an organization, you will agree that the majority of the socalled leaders exhibit the qualities of the group leader. They achieve the status of the leader but not the state of the leader.

There are very few people who are ready to really help the work get done.

The army general exhibited some of the key qualities that are important for a true leader:

• 1. Honesty and Responsibility
• 2. Caring genuinely about people
• 3. Confidence
• 4. Efficiency and lateral thinking skills
• 5. Attention to detail
• 6. Efficiency and Effectiveness
• 7. Broad-based thinking and doing

I will discuss these traits in greater detail in the following sections.

Leadership - a result of a conscious choice made by an individual

What do I mean by this term, 'Leader Consciousness'?

Most of us achieve the status of a leader, but not the state. State is totally different from status. Status comes from society.

A responsible leader is a person who is able to respond spontaneously to situations.

When you are leading a group of people, if you are forced to take the responsibility

of some department or if you take the responsibility out of your greed, the status comes. But the state is totally different.

When I use the word 'state' I mean your inner space or your being should be mature enough to handle what you are entering or the responsibility which you are assuming. When we just get the status without achieving the state, all the problems which exist in the corporate world start - stress and tension in the personal level, and backbiting and politics in the level of the team. All these problems start when you don't achieve the state but just achieve the status.

Here I am trying to express to you the truths from the great traditions of the East, how to achieve leader consciousness, how to achieve the state of the leader and not just the status. See, status is very easy, state is something which we really need to achieve.

Status will simply follow a man who has achieved the state of a leader. Even if the status takes its own time, he will not be bothered, he will live like a king! His very life will be totally fulfilled. The invaluable feeling of fulfillment happens to beings who achieve leader consciousness.

What do I mean by the word, 'state of the leader'?

A true leader is a person who is ready to take responsibility consciously, who is ready to handle life consciously, who is not constantly dependent on the past or his memory. If you are dependent on your memory, if you are dependent on the past to take decisions, please be very clear, you will be a follower. You cannot be a leader.

Responding spontaneously to situations is what I call responsibility.

A responsible leader is a person who is able to respond spontaneously to situations, who is fresh and continuously keeps himself alive, who is not caught in the past.

Let me try to give you a small diagram on how the mind works, how the state of a leader is achieved, how leader consciousness happens in us. Let us understand how the mind works - how we receive data, process it and make decisions.

For example, you are seeing something through your eye. Of course, you receive information through all the five senses -

eyes, ears, nose, tongue and touch. For now, let us take the example of the eye. When you see with your eyes, immediately the file goes to a space called the chakshu* , it is just like a Digital Signal Processor (DSP). Whatever you are seeing through the eye is converted to a bio-signal, just like a digital signal file. This file moves to a space called chitta* in Sanskrit which is just like memory in a computer. Here the process of identification starts. For example, you are now seeing this book the whole file goes to the DSP, chakshu* , and the whole file is converted into a biosignal file, and then it moves to chitta* , memory.

The memory starts analyzing - 'This is not a stone, this is not a tree, this is not an animal…' The elimination process happens in the memory. This process of elimination happens in the memory. Next, the identification, 'This is a book,' happens in the mind or manas* . In the mind, you start identifying, 'This is a book', 'It is a book on spirituality', 'It is written by an enlightened being.'

After identification, the file then moves to a space which I call 'ego', the decisionmaking center. In the ego you start thinking, 'In what way am I connected to this situation?' If your past experiences with similar books were good, you decide to continue to read. If your past experiences were not good, if you felt, 'O, this is not worth it, I felt very bored last time,' or 'I read similar books but did not feel any benefit,' if you feel negative you will decide not to continue reading. The ego decides based on your past experiences. This is the way your mind functions.

Now, the important thing which you need to understand is, the decision is taken unconsciously. If the process happens like this, in a straightforward way, you will not have any problem and things will go very smoothly in your life. Everything will be clear and straight!

But this process does not always happen in a straightforward way. Sometimes things start happening in an unconscious way. For example, if you were hurt or disturbed by

Chakshu - Energy behind the power of sight.

Chitta - Memory.

Manas- Mind.

something that was said in a similar book you read before, the moment you see this book, unconsciously that memory will be awakened.

You see, in your life, if you are hurt or disturbed in a particular place, or by a particular situation, or by a person wearing a particular colored dress, the next time when you go to that place, or the next time you see another person wearing the same colored dress, you will go through the same low mood even if you know logically that the place or that person has nothing to do with your past experiences. You will have that same memory again in your mind. You will again have that same experience. This is what I call 'samskaras' or 'engraved memories'.

These engraved memories distort or disturb your decision-making capacity. You see, if the whole process of the mind map I just described happens consciously, then it is a straightforward and logical process. But due to the unconscious mind, a lot of times, the process is not straightforward. As I described earlier, we tend to get biased based on our experiences we have had with a particular person or a particular situation. This is the space where politics happens! This is the space where things move illogically. This is the space where the past memories or engrams will be sitting and you do not even know what decision you are making!

Let me give you one more example to give you more understanding of the unconscious mind. If we analyze logically or consciously, all of you know that smoking is injurious to health. If we follow through the process from eye to the mind, you know clearly that smoking is injurious to health, according to the data collected by your senses. But suddenly, even though logic tells us not to smoke, you decide to smoke, beyond your logic and consciousness. This is where the unconscious engrams are sitting.

Even though you consciously know that smoking is injurious to health, when the data moves to the ego, when the file takes a quantum leap, you just decide to smoke. Maybe some memory, or some experience which you had in the past must have made you feel relaxed when you smoked. Or maybe when you smoked during your youth, you may have felt like a hero. So these engrams have been associated with this habit, and suddenly, because of this engram you decide to smoke, even if you consciously know that smoking is injurious to health.

In the same way, many times in your life, even if you know what is right, simply you decide unconsciously because of your engrams. Your life is under the control of unconscious engrams, it is not under your control. You may think that you are taking the decision, but your unconscious engrams are taking the decisions!

These samskaras or engrams are the root cause of our behavior. They are the reason why we behave in a certain way with certain people. The engrams tend to cloud our judgments when we have to take decisions. They influence how we accomplish our tasks in an organization. It is these engrams that dictate our productivity, interpersonal skills, teamwork, judgment and all our responses and behavior. But engrams are never understood and more importantly given any importance in the field of corporate training and leadership development.

The Eastern mystics and inner scientists have spent thousands of years developing tools and meditation techniques to cleanse us from these engraved memories. These samskaras can be effectively erased through meditation techniques.

Recently I visited one of my devotee's houses and saw a beautiful one-liner in the living room:

'I am the boss of this house, I have my wife's permission to say so!'

Similarly, you may think you are the boss, but your unconscious engrams are leading you! As long as you are caught by these unconscious samskaras, you can never achieve the state of a leader. You may achieve the status of a leader with a lot of suffering and struggle.

Be very clear, if you sit in the leader's chair If you take decisions consciously, you will never have any stress.

with a lot of suffering and struggle, you will tend to create the same suffering and struggle for your subordinates!

Again and again, your mind will say, 'When I suffered and struggled so much, why not them!' You will just reproduce your old mental setup on others. This can be a very demotivating factor in organizations.

Now let me share with you some very important truths.

If you take decisions consciously, you will never have any stress.

Stress happens only when you take decisions unconsciously, when engrams interfere with your decision making. If things are straightforward, you can take thousands of decisions and be completely relaxed. Your life will flow, just like a river!

But if you are filled with engrams, even after taking two or three decisions, you will be completely tired. You don't even have to work, just sit in your chair and think about work, and within half an hour, you

Everyone is a leader in some way or the other of your team or your house.

will have shoulder pain! This means you are caught with

engrams. They do not allow you to take decisions.

When the file takes a quantum leap from the mind, each engram writes its opinion on the file! The more the number of engrams, the more the number of decisions, so when the file reaches the ego, it is completely confused! When three hundred opinions are there on that file, what decision will you take! Your ego says 'Just do whatever you want, just leave me!' You don't have any patience to take any decision and decisions are taken in a very haphazard way, without any clarity.

If you are continuously deciding without any clarity, and you sit in the leader's chair, please be very clear, not only will you be suffering, you will be torturing others also! Everyone is a leader in some way or the other. Either you are the leader of your team or you are the leader of your house. In some way or the other, every one of us is a leader.

A person who is caught by engrams, who is always suffering with engraved memories, can never relax or have a vacation. You can see in your life, early in the morning when you get up and go from your bed to the bathroom, you are brushing your teeth but your mind is already in the office! If you are sitting in the office, the mind is already in the evening at the beach. When you are sitting in the beach and relaxing, your mind is already in the house. One thing is for sure, if your body is here, your mind is not here!

You don't stay in the place that your body is. You are constantly somewhere else. I always tell people, if you are sitting in the house and worrying, it is working from home! If you are sitting in the office and worrying, you are doing your job. If you are sitting in the beach and worrying, you are having a vacation, that's all! The places may be different, but the mental setup is the same!

A person filled with engrams can never relax. If a person is not in a relaxed state of mind, how can we expect creativity or unbiased decision-making? One who is caught up in his engrams can neither have a vacation, nor can he live his life completely. Vacation or work, living or leaving, are both directly related to your consciousness. It is not related to what you are doing, it is related to your being. Only a man who is aware of his being can achieve leader consciousness.

Definitions and understanding

A small story:

Once a boss asks his employee, 'Why did it take you six months to complete such a simple task?'

The employee replies, 'Because of your confusing directions, continuous changes and short work days!'

The boss replies, 'I was looking for something like you being lazy!'

So much has been written and said about productivity in organizations. Productivity has become the mantra in organizations for the last two or three decades. As a result of invention of computers and new communications technologies such as the internet and cell phone, the world has become a much smaller place. While there has been an increase in productivity in companies, it has often come at a huge price on the health (physical and mental) and well being of the employees. Let us now start to understand what is productivity and how productivity can be enhanced without the side effects of stress.

In simple terms, productivity can be measured as:

Productivity = Output / Input

The measure of output may be certain number of tasks completed by a particular individual or team or revenue in the case of a manufacturing company. The measure of input may include the number of hours worked on a particular project, manufacturing costs etc.

Billions of dollars are spent by companies globally to enhance human productivity. Most of these efforts are centered on providing new skills specific to training in a particular area of the organization's focus or improving technology such as use of computers, internet or other forms of media and communications. Some companies also invest in developing 'softer skills' such as interpersonal skills, teambuilding skills, etc. But most of these trainings tend to address the conscious mind, actions, behaviors and perceptions that are just on the surface. But over 90% of our emotions and behaviors reside deep under the surface of our mind. This is what the psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, calls the unconscious mind.

If we look at the mind, at a conscious level, there are thoughts and perceptions which are accumulated in our mind at a conscious level. But there are deeper memories and stored knowledge that we use to help us solve problems. Then there is a whole range of emotions and experiences that are embedded in the unconscious level. This is where the samskaras or engraved memories reside.

Most corporate training programs focus on the conscious mind to impart knowledge or particular skills. But actually it is as though we are sitting on a volcano of emotions that is just waiting to burst and erupt any time! These hidden emotions are what make us behave inefficiently and even illogically at times!

So samskaras or engraved memories interfere with the decision-making process, these can be called the inefficiencies present in the mind! The more the number of engrams, the more clouded is our thought process, and the lower is the output. In other words, to produce a particular output, having more samskaras will require more time or people or costs. So this results in lower productivity.

Most readers who have studied psychology are familiar with the Freudian interpretation of the mind. Traditional training and skills development in various organizations address only the conscious mind which is just ten percent of your potential. Ninty percent of the potential can be actualized only when we address samskaras. This huge potential can be experienced through meditation techniques.

To give you an example of what I just described, I would like you to take fifteen minutes of your time on a simple exercise. Take a white sheet of paper and just write down whatever comes to your mind. Please do not edit, filter or pass judgment on any of the thoughts that come to your mind. Just behave as though a 'thought recorder' (just like a voice recorder) is attached to you and you are jotting down whatever comes to your mind. Now after fifteen minutes put the pen aside and read what you have just written.

If you have honestly recorded whatever came to your mind, you will realize the kind of stray, unconnected, illogical thoughts that go through the mind. These thoughts are like friction in a machine. They make the machine very inefficient and unproductive. This is the root cause of low productivity.

Several of my disciples, who have gone through this process and consciously worked on eliminating their samskaras, always come and tell me that they are now finding so much time in their busy lives since they are no longer troubled by the wavering mind and illogical thoughts.

The tool for elimination of these stray thoughts arising from samskaras is what I call meditation. Once these thoughts are eliminated, it is like reducing the friction in a machine and allowing the machine to be more efficient, more productive.

Thousands of people from all races, nationalities, social and economic backgrounds have gone through this process of eliminating samskaras in our meditation programs. Thousands of people come and tell me that in addition to improving their overall productivity, they are able to maintain better interpersonal relationships, feel less stress, and be more creative and innovative in their personal and professional lives. I have also had interesting conversations with leading corporate leaders and Nobel Laureates on this subject where they have shared amazing evidences of improved innovation and intuitive skills developed as a result of becoming free of samskaras.

So we can now elaborate on the equation to describe productivity. We can restate the equation as follows:

Productivity = Output/Input

Input = (Intellect + Technical Skills + Samskaras)

As you know, we live with our mind 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. For most people, the mind is constantly running, analyzing, passing judgment on individuals, having various emotions and responding to situations, all of which is dependent on the level of samskaras that may be 'haunting' us.

Without the load of these samskaras, you will find that your innate intellect and the skills you have developed through your education, training or life experiences will directly be used in delivering the output instead of being knocked around by your mind. You will see the productivity simply shoots up!

This is an area that has mostly not been looked at by companies and organizations. But there are simple tools and techniques from the Eastern mystics who have developed techniques to cleanse the mind of these samskaras.

Sometimes people ask me, 'If we are free of samskaras, will we stop thinking? Will we become lazy and complacent?' I tell you, it is actually the opposite. Please refer again to the experiment I gave you a while back on jotting down your thoughts on a piece of paper for fifteen minutes. If the mind is free from the effects of samskaras, you will see a quantum jump in intelligence, you will be creative and a whole new zone of intelligence will emerge. You will see that all of a sudden you will be able to develop skills of intuition and innovation that emerge from your being.

If the mind is free from the effects of samskaras, you will be creative and a whole new zone of intelligence will emerge.

Understand, this is not a mystical zone you are going to enter into. Be very clear, the skills of intuition reside in all of

us. They have been clouded by the impact of samskaras. Let me now describe how a mind-body system that is free from samskaras will improve intuition and innovation.

Intuition is a wonderful subject. If you ask modern day CEOs, how they took major decisions in their lives, what caused the turning point in their lives, again and again their answer surprises us. Again and again they tell us that their success came from something beyond their intellect, something that gave them the energy or the guts to take the decisions. This is not just the case with successful CEOs, it is the same with scientists also.

The other day I had a chance to have lunch with Dr Charles Townes. I asked him 'Sir, how did your discovery happen? How were you able to do it?' He answered in a beautiful way, 'I was just sitting in a park in Washington DC; suddenly something happened. The conclusion was there in me. Suddenly the conclusion was revealed to me. I penned down what I experienced. Now I had a big difficulty. I had the conclusion but not the steps. I was not able to present this to anybody else because I knew only the conclusion, I didn't know the steps.'

This happened not only with Charles Townes, it had also happened with Albert Einstein. He says, 'Whatever new happened to me, came through intuition and not through intellect.' He summed it up beautifully, saying, 'The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.'

Whether we believe it or not or accept it or not, there is something called intuition. Of course, even Albert Einstein says this is a gift, because we are not sure when it will come and whether it will come or not.

But yogis, the mystics, say again and again, you can work for it and you can be sure about it. You don't have to think that intuition is a gift. You canwork for it. It

can become a part of your life. Whatever new things have happened, have happened only through intuition, only when something has happened beyond your intellect and your whole being is integrated.

When you are at your peak, something opens. You may call it revelation or intuition, which happens beyond intellect. Mystics have again and again said that it is a science. If you can tune yourself to this intuition or this energy, which is continuously available in your being, you can use this in your regular life. Mystics again and again say it is an incident, you can make it happen. They know how to make it happen. We will see how you can awaken that power inside your being. We will see how the intuitive skills can be linked to the workings of the mind which I discussed earlier.

Before we discuss intuition in greater detail, let us first dispel the myths that intuition is some kind of a 'fluke' of nature. I would like you to understand that intuition is a skill that can be developed just as any other skills that you acquire. It comes from you, from no one else! Because we have not experienced that zone, that part, that dimension of our being, we have forgotten it.

Someone asked me in a meditation program, 'I remember someone and the next moment the phone rings and he is there on the line. I remember someone at a party and next moment I see him.' I asked the people in the program if this kind of an incidence had happened to them at least once in their lifetime. More than seventy percent of the people said this had happened! If it happens in one person's life once, you can say it is a coincidence. But if it happens with seventy percent of people, it cannot be called a coincidence! There is more to it. There is some logic behind it.

We may not be able to know logically but we cannot brush it aside. When you know the logic, we call it an incident. When you don't know the logic, you call it a coincidence. Nothing can happen without a cause on planet earth. It is always cause and effect. When you know the cause and effect link, you call it an incident. When you don't know, you call it a coincidence.

In trying to understand the process of intuition, let us refer back to the mind map we discussed earlier. We talked about how the process of taking information from a sense such as the eye works through chakshu* (Digital Signal Processor), chitta* (memory), manas* (mind) and then takes a

Chakshu - Energy behind the power of sight. Chitta - Memory. Manas- Mind.

quantum jump to the ego where the decisions are clouded by samskaras or engraved memories.

The process in the gap between the eye and mind is conscious. You are aware of this process. It happens with your awareness. But you are not aware about the mind to ego process. Many a time, the process happens without your awareness. You decide against your logic. You decide against your thought process. For example, according to the data that you have collected, you know that smoking is injurious to health, it is not good for your body or mind. But when the mind takes an unconscious leap to the ego, you simply take the decision to smoke!

The conscious process says, 'No, it is not good for health.' But the unconscious process says…it doesn't even say, it just takes the decision and you execute. These decisions are not under your control because the unconscious is very powerful.

The unconscious can be used in three ways – at the instinct level, intellect level and intuition level. As long as the unconscious is filled with negative memories and restlessness, it works at the instinct level. You decide just instinctively. You don't even know why you are angry. Suddenly you burst. Sometimes, when you see some activities or some words that you speak, you feel it is not me. You do something and then you think, 'This is not me, how did I do it? How did I allow this to happen?' This happens because the unconscious is working in the instinct level.

Many times, you just associate things without even any logical connection. For example, if you have been disturbed by somebody who was wearing a white dress, the moment you see somebody wearing a white dress, the past memory comes up and you feel the anger. This is the instinct level. Without your conscious mind, without even you understanding, just like that it happens.

If your unconscious is loaded with samskaras, if your unconscious is restless, you will be at the instinct level. The next is the intellect level. You are conscious but you don't have enough enthusiasm. You just go with a conscious mind but you are not creative, not innovative. You don't take big steps, you don't grow. It is just like a faithful servant as Albert Einstein says. The intellect is a faithful servant. You can be a servant throughout your life. You can be just a servant, but nothing more or big can happen through you. You will be collecting the data, processing it and delivering it, nothing more than a computer. If you are standing only at the intellect level, you are not using your

potential to the maximum, to the extent to which it is supposed to be used.

The next is intuition. To understand intuition you need to go deep into the whole science. Only then you will be able to understand what I mean by the word 'intuition'. Intuition is something which happens to you beyond your intellect. Suddenly you know for sure that this is the right thing and you have enough energy also to do it. But you don't know the steps how you came to the conclusion but you know for sure this is right.

This energy is needed whenever you are faced with a situation where there is no precedence - when you are stuck with minimum data and you need to take decisions or you have a lot of choices and you are not able to decide what you are supposed to do. In these type of situations, the intuition energy can help you. The intuitive power can give you the courage or give you the right choice. Intuition again and again gives you the energy not only to decide but to execute what you have decided.

People ask me, 'How do I find out whether I am having intuition or I am just intellectual? Sometimes I am confused about whether it is intellect or intuition.' I tell them, be very clear, if you are confused, it is only intellect. The very confusion shows that it is only intellect. When you experience intuition, not only you get the intellectual clarity, the answer, but you also get enough power to execute it. The potential power which is inside your being is just unleashed. You open up and just like that you start expressing it, executing it.

Now the next question: How to awaken the intuition? How to awaken the intuitive power? If you can consciously give rest to it for a while, the energy which is in that unconscious level will open up. Usually when the unconscious level energy opens up, first whatever we suppressed will come out. Next, a pure energy which we call intuition will start to express.

When pure energy starts expressing from the unconscious level, you don't use the unconscious at the instinct level or intellectual level. You use it for intuition. The higher level energy starts happening in you. And of course, above all, the mystics demonstrated to us over thousands of years that the higher level energy heals you physically, mentally and emotionally. Apart from healing, this can help reduce the stress and help decide spontaneously.

Spontaneity has nothing to do with data which you collect, it is something to do with the way in which you process the data. The same data, same information can be processed in many ways. Intuition is all about how you process and how you come to the conclusion beyond your intellect.

We can prepare ourselves, we can tune ourselves to this intuitive energy through techniques and methods which we call meditation. In the East we use the word 'meditation' to tune ourselves with the higher energy, which is in our being, which continuously invites us again and again to experience it. Whenever you find time, sit by yourself. You can always see, we give appointment to everybody, but never give appointment to ourselves. If you have given appointment to yourself, you can always see that some part of your being wants to express, wants to do something more, but we never give chance or time to that part, to that portion of our being. We are so caught up with our intellect. We think that our intellect is the ultimate, but again and again mystics prove something more than intellect is possible.

In any discovery or invention, you can see that the role of intuition is always there. Whether it is Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton , they have had something beyond intellect. Something beyond intellect has happened in them. This same energy exists in all of us. This energy can also express in all of us if we can tune ourselves to that energy. Tuning ourselves to that energy is what I call meditation.

At the end of this chapter I have given you a simple technique to cleanse yourself of the samskarasand awaken this dormant energy just after a few days of practice. When I say a few days, I mean just 2 or 3 days. This is more than enough to tune yourself with this intuition. As of now, we are using this unconscious energy either at the instinct level or the intellect level. It can be tuned and you can use it at the intuition level to make the decision.

Let me give some more information on the subject of intuition since it is very important for you to convince yourself that:

1. There is something called intuition that exists in all of us.

2. It exists in you and you can express it in yourself!

Your mind works through instinct, intellect and intuition. Through instinct, your mind decides unconsciously by negative memory and restlessness. If you are disturbed by a white dress, a nurse would disturb you unconsciously. Through intellect you work at the conscious level but not energetically, not enthusiastically. You work as a computer, as a robot.

In intuition, you suddenly know what is right. You don't know how, but you have energy. You have minimum data, no precedence. You have many choices, and suddenly one pops up. Intuition gives you the power to decide and implement.

Let me explain this in another way.

We have two levels of consciousness and two levels of thoughts. In the waking state you have 'I' consciousness and thoughts (conscious state, called jāgrat in Sanskrit). In dreams you have thoughts but no 'I' consciousness. The frequency of thoughts is more than the frequency of 'I' consciousness. That is why in the dream state (subconscious state, called swapna in Sanskrit), you cannot control your dreams. The dreams will happen as they want.

But in the waking state, you can control your thoughts. In deep sleep you have neither 'I' consciousness nor thoughts (unconscious state, called sushupti in Sanskrit). There is a fourth state which you have never experienced, what I call intuition or meditation. In this state, you have 'I' consciousness but no thoughts. There is no term in the domain of psychology to describe this state. In Sanskrit this state is called sushupti. This is what I call meditation or intuition or thoughtless awareness. This state is also called the state of samādhi. If you can experience this zone, this fourth state, you can experience the consciousness, what I call beyond intellect. It is the state where there is bliss or peace or intuition.

The practical use of this fourth state is it can give you so much of creativity, courage and confidence, you can decide spontaneously. The ability to take spontaneous decisions is what I call responsibility. The more you are able to decide spontaneously, the more you become responsible. There are so many situations where you cannot work with just data. First of all, data will not be available, or very little data will be available. There will be no precedence like decisions taken by your elders etc. So in these type of situations, you need something more than what you call intellect, you need something beyond just your data. You need what I call the 'thoughtless awareness'. If you experience just a glimpse, not only in your life at office or at the corporate level, even in your relationships, it can totally transform you.

There are so many other benefits when this state is experienced. You will see tremendous improvement in your relationships at all levels, in the organization and in your personal life. Relationship failures happen because of

Sushupti or samādhi where there is thoughtless awareness is the space where intuition and intelligence is expressed.

our unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is sometimes also called the reactive mind. In the reactive mind we are always

collecting arguments and then passing judgments on some person or a particular incident. You decide he or she is wrong, then you go around collecting some arguments to support your judgment. It means you are only working at the instinct level.

Sometimes instinct and intuition look the same. People ask me how to differentiate. In intuition, you will be tremendously energetic and alive. With instinct, you will feel tremendously drained. Whenever you use your intellect and feel drained, be very clear you are working at the instinct level. Many times, when you work from anger and other emotions, you just decide instinctively, then you understand and think: why did I do this? Then you feel guilt. Guilt is the gift from the unconsciousness or the unconscious decision-making.

If we can experience this fourth state what I call meditation, surely we will be able to harness the energy, which is in our being, what I call intuition. This fourth state was not explored by the modern Freudian system of psychology. But this fourth state of sushupti or samādhi where there is thoughtless awareness is the space where intuition and intelligence is expressed. It is an untapped state in most people and organizations. Those who can consciously tap this state can get tremendous personal and organizational benefits.

In conclusion, being a true leader is to be able to function from the plane of intuition rather than logic, to have complete clarity in decision-making, and thus to make decisions and execute efficiently, accurately and in a stress-free manner.

Mahāmantra meditation

The Mahāmantra meditation is an ancient Tibetan Buddhist technique to awaken the anāhata chakra, located at the heart center. This meditation makes your mind firm and stable. Your mind is all the time oscillating with thoughts. This meditation makes your mind still by making it enter into the zone of no-mind. It is like a jumping board into infinity.

It should be done on an empty stomach, preferably early in the morning, or two hours after any meal. It can be done either alone or with a group. When done with a group, it effectively energizes the place where it is done.

Instructions

Total Duration: 30 minutes

Step 1: Duration: 20 minutes

Sit cross-legged in a comfortable position on the floor. Your head, neck and spine should be in a straight line. If you are not able to sit on the floor, you may sit on a chair. Feel relaxed and close your eyes. Even after we close our eyes, we see forms and images from behind the eyelids. To handle this, imagine that your eyeballs have become stone-like. Just harden them with mental pressure, then the images will die. The movement of our eyes is very closely related to the movement of thoughts in our mind. That is why you are asked to arrest the movement of your eyeballs. Don't be too worried about keeping them arrested. Just proceed with the meditation.

Keep your lips together and produce the sound 'Mmmm…' from inside. If you were to put your face inside an empty aluminum vessel and make a humming sound, the sound generated would be like this. Note that this is not 'Hum…' or 'Om…', it is simply keeping your lips together and producing the sound 'Mmmm…'. This humming should be as lengthy as possible before taking the next breath. It should also be as deep as possible, from the navel center, and as loud as possible.

Don't make an effort to take in a deep breath after every 'Mmmm', the body itself will take breaths when needed. Don't become tense. Put in your whole being and energy into creating this vibration. Just become the humming. Let your whole body be filled with the vibration of the humming. After some time, you will feel that the humming continues without your effort and that you have become simply a listener to it!

The humming is a powerful means of bringing your awareness to the present moment. If you hum intensely, you cannot have any thought at that time. So your Thoughts Per Second (TPS) automatically comes down. The energy generated by the humming cleanses the energy blocks in the mind-body system.

When you are intensely humming, all the ideas which you have about you will be completely shaken. Like an earthquake, this is a technique for a 'mind-quake'!

Step 2: Duration: 10 minutes

After stopping the humming, keep your eyes closed and remain silent and inactive with a smiling face and blissful mood. If any thought comes to you, let it come. Simply watch your mind as if you are watching the television, without resisting your thoughts or passing any judgment on them. Remain silent and blissful. During this time, the energy created by the humming will enter all the corners of your being and cleanse it deeply. It establishes you in the awareness of the present moment. This awareness is all that is needed to dissolve the negativities, bring clarity and enable you to experience your true potential.

Whether we lead or whether we follow, in order to be fulfilled in whatever we do, we need to be intense.

A small story:

A Zen master and a disciple were walking along the banks of a river. The disciple, as he had done a few times before, asked the master very longingly, 'Master, please give me enlightenment.'

Suddenly the master turned, held the disciple's head in his hand and pushed it into the river. The disciple was shocked and started struggling to get his head above water. The master continued to strongly hold his head in the water. Now the disciple started gasping for breath. The master then released the surprised and completely shaken disciple.

The master asked, 'Do you feel you want enlightenment with the same intensity that you felt you needed air to breathe when your head was in the water?'

Only when the urge becomes urgent, when the question becomes a quest, does the Ultimate happen. The key factor needed for enlightenment to happen is intensity.