Everyday, we experience living on many levels of our being. Our energy lifts up and drops down. Our awareness brightens and dims. Most people consider these experiences their lot in life! They may reason that some are born happy while others less so—there’s not much one can do but squeeze the most out of life and forget the rest. The art and science of yoga takes a more energetic approach to the challenges of life’s constant ups and downs.
The formula is simple and straightforward: practice inner stillness and you will know your center. (more…)
“Mere 7% of corporate Bangalore happy at work” reported DNA today. The article reads:
A whopping 93% of corporate Bangalore is unhappy at work, with employees showing moderate to strong signs discontent.
This has been revealed by a health risk assessment study, ‘HealthTrac’, done by PeopleHealth, a Bangalore-headquartered health management organisation. The study was conducted among 2,106 employees of 7 leading IT companies from the city, of which 85% were in the age-group of 25-35 years.
A general reaction from the employees was that they felt the pinch when they had to work with uncooperative colleagues or managers. (our emphasis)
The CEO of PeopleHealth, G. Krishnamurthy, added that the unhappiness was due to “long hours of traveling, hostile work atmosphere, and almost zero social interaction.”
This discontent is surely not limited to Bangalore, or even India. It is disturbing that so many people should be suffering at the office. What to do? It may not be easy simply to change jobs in today’s market, especially in the US, for example.
Swami Kriyananda gives these suggestions to employees seeking more harmony at work with their colleagues: (more…)
For those who want to follow well-worn paths, familiarity with what has been done before is important. This is the path of tradition, which to a great extent means a path of imitation. To follow this path, one needs knowledge, but doesn’t particularly need inspiration or energy. For success in any tradition, one needs the necessary education taught by people competent to instruct others in the basic “rules of the game.”
I remember the organist at the church where my mother’s funeral was held. The purpose of the ceremony was to comfort the bereaved and to send blessings to the departed. The organist’s job was simply to play a piece of music for the event. What I asked her to play was a composition of my own. She was graceless enough to tell me that she wouldn’t play it because, as she pointed out firmly, “This melody doesn’t end on the tonic note.” In fact she was right according to the “rules of the game.” Had she played the piece first, however, and listened with her heart, she would have seen that, in this case, she was wrong. (more…)
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. (more…)
There is an expression in America today: “the bottom line.” I don’t know if this expression is used in England or in other countries where, as in India, English is widely spoken. Usually the expression refers to monetary profit. By extension, it also indicates something of fundamental importance to an undertaking. Because profit is so often people’s concern, unless they make it clear that they mean something different it is generally understood that they are talking about money.
Let me clarify what I mean, then, in naming this lesson as I have. For this course of lessons serves a dual purpose, and may be said, in this sense, to have two “bottom lines.” First, it accepts the common equation of material success with monetary profit. It also attempts to show, however, that monetary profit, without corresponding inner satisfaction, is a hollow victory. As the Bible puts it, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?” (more…)
It takes courage to find your own path in life and to follow it. You may dream of starting your own business, but how to begin? If you’re looking for encouragement towards entrepreneurship, read Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish: The inspiring stories of 25 IIM Ahmedabad graduates who chose to tread a path of their own making.
This book, written by Rashmi Bansal and published by Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad CIIE (Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entreprneurship), tells the real stories of how 25 people each started with an idea and built it into a highly successful organization. The book itself has been highly successful, selling over 100,000 copies in 9 months. (more…)
A few months ago in Mumbai we attended a CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) conference on “Managing Growth in a Downturn”. The managing director of McKinsey & Company – India, Adil Zainulbhai, gave some general advice on how to reduce costs: “Cut fat, but not muscle. And definitely not bone!”
One approach to this can be to cut overhead costs that do not directly affect the customer. Some of these costs might be judged “employee comforts” that the company can no longer afford. Cutting some “comforts”, however, can be short-sighted. Not even considering the impact on employee morale, some cutbacks may actually cause the company to lose money—the opposite of the intended effect.
As a follow up to the previous post on diaphragmatic breathing, you may find it helpful to keep “breathe” reminder at your desk, or on your computer screen, such as:
If you’d like a printable version, you can download it here.
You might experiment with this technique of taking a few deep breaths to boost your energy in the following situations: (more…)
As part of our corporate training programs, we often teach the “10-Minute Recharge”. This routine consists of energization exercises developed by Yogananda, and a meditation technique that he recommended.
But sometimes, in the heat of the moment, one doesn’t have even 10 minutes. So what about a 1-Minute Routine? We offer that, too. It is just this: BREATHE.
You may be thinking, “yes, I know how to breathe already.” But the truth is that most of us don’t breathe properly throughout the day. (more…)
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