Spirituality in the Workplace
Why would one wish to bring spirituality in the workplace after all? Isn't everything going on well with people possessing high academic qualification, work experience, technical know-how and so on? What is spirituality after all? Do we mean morality, good principles, discipline and the like? These are the questions that need to be tackled first. Then we need to understand what we expect from its introduction in our workplace. Let us first start with the subject of spirituality.
Spirituality is the science of the spirit. Just as we have material sciences dealing with knowledge of the external world, spirituality deals with the science of the inner world. The aim of the spiritual science is to make a person experience his spirit or the spiritual aspect of his being. The spiritual side of man is infinitely vast and subtle, while his material side is only like the tip of the iceberg. Man is not only a material body but also a spiritual being or a quantum of energy with tremendous possibilities. The ultimate and most sublime one is a state of ineffable peace, bliss, creativity, oneness and unconditional freedom. The original purpose and aim of human existence is to experience that state.
Now, what does all this have to do with work or productivity? Presently, man manifests very little of his creative or productive genius, the reason being that his whole motivation is selfish. Our whole life is governed by our selfishness and that divides us from the One, which is an infinite source of creativity. With this division, we are cut off from everyone and the whole of nature. This is why society has badly degenerated into its actual state. Most of us are familiar with the saying, "United we stand, divided we fall." The present society is an illustration of our fall.
Business, politics, religion, morality, education, economics - in short, the whole edifice of today's fallen society is based on division. In fact, we are far from being a society because we are not even an individual. We are divided inside; we are a multiple-personality entity. Our problem is that physically we are one, but with a split mind, and that reduces us to a very conflictual and confused creature. What can such a creature spread around apart from confusion and conflict? We think we are very creative because of the things we have invented, discovered and produced. But it is a very poor creativity because it has failed to make us joyful, lively, peaceful and free.
One can argue that even without spirituality, we have generated so much wealth, so many goods and services, so what difference will spirituality make? Spirituality will make us more human; there will be more level-playing, justice and respect. Tension and exploitation will disappear; workers will be given their due and the relationship between employers and employees will be saner. In such an environment, work becomes pleasure, duty and worship. It has always been said that duty is God and work is worship. Present day society, however, belies that statement. It can nevertheless be realised if people become spiritual.
Know that fatigue diminishes creativity and incentive. To be more productive and efficient, people must work for less hours than done nowadays in most companies and factories so that they can rest, meditate and live their personal life fully. That will give them more satisfaction and will definitely have an effect on the quality of their performance.
