Lessons from Dharamsala on business and life

Setting a goal to connect with the oneness everyday through daily meditation will ultimately advance us to the next level of evolution and get us unstuck from the current level of misguidedness and selfishness in the daily optics of living, working, and achieving.

We live in an interrelated and interconnected world, something taught by Eastern sages for thousands of year, and now proven by quantum physics.

Particle physics tells us that the more we closely look at an object, the less objective and more dependent that object is on the observer and behavior of other objects. This is not dissimilar to the concept of “emptiness of self,” in Buddhism, and “surrender of ego-self to real self,” in Hinduism.

Science and spirituality have finally converged to tell us that we are all interdependent and interconnected. If we don’t believe in modern science or spirituality, it is still easy to observe the interconnectedness from the globalization in business and politics.

For example, an event in an Asian country instantly causes consequences in other parts of the world. It is ironic to note that in the globally interdependent world, we have created self-centeredness as the dominant culture of our society. We cannot become successful or happy if we ignore the true reality of modern science and spirituality and direct our efforts to replace selfishness with selflessness.

It is absolutely critical for us to dilute our ego from its self-centered and self-absorbed state to the universal selfless state. Such a transformation entails connecting with the universal mind and expanding our circle of connectedness to the whole world and universe.

Buddha once said, “think that everyone on the planet as your family (your brother/sister/parent/friend) since we are all children of the same God.” Krishna has famously said, “Vasudev kutumbh kam,” which translates to “all universe is family.”

The human race has to recognize and experience the oneness of everything and everyone to be able to achieve the greatness that is hidden inside us collectively.

Focus on our deeper purpose

It has never been easier to get distracted by seeing the lives of others via their social media posts. And it has also never been easier for our minds to involuntarily make judgements and experience feelings of jealousy and frustration.

We have become addicted to consuming what others are getting, doing, and experiencing, on a daily basis, despite the information’s lack of relevance.

To free ourselves of this addiction, it is crucial that we master the art of unlearning and throwing things out into the distraction bin. Filtering the noise from our lives is key. Daily meditation and mindfulness can help us to increase our self-awareness and recognize our own negative emotions of ego, jealousy, greed, lust, and anger.

In doing so, we can increase our power of concentration on our own deeper purpose. Trusting that everything happens for a reason and ultimately everyone gets what they deserve, will help us develop peace with the cause-effect mechanics of the universe and consequently, develop respect and joy in others’ success as much as in our own.

Shift from getting to giving.

We tend to swing in the duality of happiness and unhappiness based on the outcomes of our career/personal goals and what we get from them. What we get is the effect, and both science and spirituality tell us is that for every effect there is a cause. We tend to over-focus on effect and ignore cause.

If we shift our focus to adding value wherever we can by giving, then the getting will naturally follow. Happiness can never be a goal or an outcome to be chased. It is the by-product or effect of good work and thoughts in our career and personal life.

If we do good karma and eliminate negative thoughts and emotions, we are happy; if we do the inverse and let negative thoughts and emotions, such as greed, lust and jealousy take over, then we are unhappy. It is that simple.

The focus has to be on our thoughts and actions. If we focus our goals on giving, we will naturally and automatically receive, sooner or later, following the science of cause and effect, action and reaction. So, why don’t we set our goals around giving sincerely and unconditionally in our personal lives and careers.

Forget about what you want to receive back — the universe returns back a more meaningful and lasting ROI than any other market ever could.