Harmony at Work

Listen: Download Audio MP3 (4 MB). This post is Part 2. See also Part 1.

(Excerpted from Swami Kriyananda’s First Things First, Lesson 6 of Success and Happiness through Yoga Principles)

Money is something I myself have never sought for personal gain. Yet I have certainly had to earn it for the benefit of others. The spiritual communities I founded could not have come into being without money, and it was I myself who, in the early years, had to earn almost all of it. There were times, in fact, when my financial needs must have been as pressing as any family man faces whose interests are focused entirely on his personal needs. Indeed, mine may have been heavier, for hundreds of people came, in time, to depend for their material security on my activities, and thousands more for their spiritual well-being. The pressures on me to “perform” were sometimes, to my sighs of regret, intense.

I say all this only to clarify the following point: Always, in spite of these pressures, I have never allowed my “bottom line” to become monetary. That place of priority was given to my inner peace. When merchants stood in line, figuratively speaking, demanding payment, and when people tried to block whatever I attempted (as not a few did), I never allowed my inner peace to become affected. Peace was my priority. Being a swami didn’t exempt me, unfortunately, from the pressures of modern life. I had a work to develop, and had therefore to place myself willingly under a stress not so different from that of the “business tycoon” whose way of life I had renounced for God!

With God’s grace I succeeded. I don’t believe it would have been possible, however, had I not made inner peace my priority.

Let me sort through a few of the deliberate choices I was obliged to make, only to preserve my inner peace. These few hints may be of help to you whenever you face similar circumstances in your life, as you almost certainly will.

One choice I made was never to let myself be drawn into other people’s priorities. Perhaps, among the many letters I received, there were a few that I didn’t answer promptly—or, in some cases, at all. I paid my bills promptly, and met all my important obligations, but I simply accepted, with a sense of inner freedom, that I was not the legendary Atlas: I could not carry the whole world on my shoulders! If, then, someone wrote me a letter that I didn’t feel to answer, even though that person was obviously anxious to hear from me, I sometimes didn’t answer him. “Well,” I told myself, “I didn’t ask him to write!” Only if someone’s well-being was concerned did I try conscientiously to help him as soon as possible. What use would I have been to anyone, however, had I done everything that was asked of me, but sacrificed my inner peace? Interestingly, I found that if I didn’t address an issue that to others seemed urgent, it usually resolved itself anyway within a couple of months!

Something else I did was develop a team of assistants who could act on my behalf. I gave executive powers to those who showed an understanding of what I was trying to accomplish, and I also helped them to develop their own executive skills. In other words, I never allowed myself to think that, as the founder of Ananda, I had to make every decision. Many people in my place have felt they owed it to the integrity of their work to oversee everything, and to make every decision—important or unimportant. Often they’ve involved themselves in the most minor matters. Perhaps they’ve done so out of habit, or perhaps their thought was that faithfulness in little matters is needed if one would be faithful greatly. Thus, unfortunately, they’ve often become busybodies, and as a result of their “scrupulosity” they’ve concluded, finally, that everyone under them was incompetent. The result, of course, for those who work under them is that they come to feel as incompetent as they are adjudged to be. They become, in fact, incapable of making necessary decisions, all of which have to be decided “at the top,” and are therefore delayed indefinitely. Alternatively, they rebel, and often leave the organization altogether. Such organizations attract, after a time, only people of second-rate capability.

My duty, as I saw it, was to make sure that those who served under me represented, not me as a person, but the ideals we were seeking to represent. I tried mainly to help them understand those ideals and to be true to them. Beyond that, I considered it my duty to encourage anyone who showed promise of becoming, himself, a good leader in this mold. I encouraged especially those who sought the well-being of everyone, and who showed no interest in their own importance. How they addressed specific problems was less important to me than that they address it in the right spirit: with humility, cooperation, and intelligence. If they showed themselves in that sense competent, the addition of kindness, devotion to truth and to God, and respect for others was enough, in my eyes, to earn them my trust.

Finally, what I learned was the necessity for devoting all my energy and attention to everything I did. Having decided on peace as my “bottom line,” I refused to worry over decisions that were important but couldn’t be faced yet. Rather, I addressed them with full concentration only when the time came to do so. Meanwhile, I concentrated more on keeping my inner peace and joy, while doing whatever needed to be done at present.

My “bottom line” has actually helped me to accomplish far more in my life than would have been the case had I allowed problems to engulf me. If I’d sacrificed my inner peace, but succeeded thereby in getting more done, I would not only have ended by accomplishing less in the long run, but would have diluted my powers of concentration and creativity. I might well have ended, therefore, simply “spinning my wheels.”

See also Part 1: Reevaluating the Bottom Line

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Tags: anger, calm, deadline, frustration, leadership, negative emotions, stress, success, techniques, time management

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