Don't be friendly, at times

 

Secretaries, police, judges, accountants and people in key positions should not be friendly! The disadvantages of being friendly are:

• You come under some sort of obligation. 
• You lose your freedom. 
• You become prone to picking up bad habits and negative moods. 
• Your perception cannot be free and fair. Your thoughts and actions may not be impartial. 
• Your focus, commitment, creativity and above all, your time will be wasted. 

It takes much wisdom to be free from the burden of obligation and not be influenced by your friends’ opinions and feelings. On many occasions, it is better to be unfriendly than friendly. 

Being unfriendly does not mean being aggressive and inimical. The best secretaries, personal assistants, security personnel and judges have to be unfriendly. Those who are aloof and indifferent get centered more quickly than those who are too friendly. A certain degree of aloofness in every relationship will strengthen your personality and connect you to your source. It is easy to be aloof or unfriendly. But to be friendly and aloof is sadhana. 

Why focus only on the important?

 

So many people are stuck with what is “important.” They are always caught up in thinking about what is important. Why must you only do what is important? When you say something is important, you are limiting your vastness. 

For something to be important, many things must be unimportant, so you cannot eliminate unimportant things. It is important to have unimportant things to make something else important. 

Things are either themselves important or they make other things important. So that means everything is important, and... everything is unimportant. When you realize this fact, you have no more choices to make. 

A journalist once asked me, “Why is it important to breathe?” “Why is it important to be happy?” “Why is it important to have peace?” These questions are not relevant at all. Why should you always look for what is important? Something that is unimportant can contribute to something that is important. And what is important and unimportant changes with time and space. Food is important when you are hungry and unimportant when you are full. 

When something is inevitable, you do not categorize it as important or unimportant. It is beyond choice. “Everything is important” is karma yoga. “Nothing is important” is deep meditation.

Seven principles to effectively build teams and organizations

 

Knowledge has organizing power. Only knowledge can organize. The more steeped you are in knowledge, the better you can organize. 

These seven principles will make you effective and will build a strong team, within any organization:

• Never underestimate your organization. If you underestimate your organization, you will not be able to build it.

• Defend your intentions, not your actions. Often people defend their actions and lose sight of their intentions. Then they feel sorry and weak. There is no need to feel sorry. Defend your intention to do right.

• Teamwork. With teamwork you achieve more than you do individually. Some work is best done alone and other work is best done with a team. Find the balance between walking alone and working with a team. In either case, alone or with a team, you will face obstacles. For your growth, both are essential. Each has its disadvantages and advantages. Drop either one, and you will be at a loss. The skill is not to have an aversion to either and to focus on the goal. 

• Not defending friends. Suppose you have introduced a friend to a job and they make a mistake. Do not try to defend them. That is where the team breaks up. When you defend a friend, you are not friendly to everybody. Defending someone’s mistakes does not do justice to the team and stops the person from learning. Soft-heartedness and compassion in an organization can be detrimental to both the teamwork and the organization. 

• Never justify a mistake with intimidation or logic. Raising your voice, intimidation, anger, shouting, and applying erroneous logic make a wrong appear right. Someone may do something wrong, but with shouting he makes the wrong appear right. Raising your voice and asserting through intimidation may make a wrong appear right. Do not give in to that. Do not give into aggression, intimidation, wrong logic and soft-heartedness. 

• Volunteers often act as though everyone is a boss and not a worker. When working with such volunteers, be calm and quiet. Ask, “Have you finished your work?” 

• Solutions will always be ad hoc. The more dynamic an institution is, the more the solutions will be ad hoc. It’s not like a nine-to-five company job where roles are designed and planned for a year. With volunteers, the productivity is more intense. The more dynamic a group, the quicker things happen. Maintaining a margin for confusion and chaos can prevent stress.

Know the different types of seva

 

There are five types of seva (service). 

The first type is the seva done when you do not even know that you are doing it. You do not recognize it as seva because it is your very nature – you cannot help doing it! 

The second type is the seva that you do because it is needed for that situation. 

The third type of seva is done because it gives you joy. 

The fourth type is done out of your desire for merit – you do seva expecting some benefit in the future. 

And the fifth type is when you do seva just to show off, to improve your image and to gain social or political recognition. Such seva is simply exhausting, while the first type does not bring any tiredness at all! To improve the quality of your seva, regardless of where you start, you must move up to the higher levels.

Freedom does not come from working by yourself

 

Many people do not want to work under someone else, be it in their profession, in a company, or even as a volunteer. The notion is that when you work under someone, you lose your freedom and you have to be accountable for your work. 

Thus many people opt for their own business, wanting to be their own boss. But in your own business, you are accountable to so many people. If you cannot be accountable to even one person, how can you be accountable to many? This is the paradox. In fact, having your own business binds you more than having a boss! 

Refusing to work under someone is a sign of weakness, not strength. A strong person feels comfortable working under anyone, because he knows his strength. It is the weak and poor in spirit who do not like to work under someone else because they are unaware of their strength. They cannot be successful in business or in any profession. Even working under a wise person, those who are timid and weak in spirit will be uncomfortable. But those who know their strength, effectively work even under a fool! 

The same applies to volunteers. Often volunteers do not want to work under someone else, but this merely demonstrates their weakness. With such an attitude, they achieve very little. 

How does one deal with the frustration of working under a fool? When you know your strength, with skill and intelligence you can turn every disadvantage into an advantage. A fool can bring out the best in your communication skills! 

So watch out! If you feel uncomfortable working under someone, it clearly shows you need to strengthen yourself. Desiring freedom from circumstances, situations or people is not freedom at all. Knowing that nobody can take away your freedom – that is strength. And when you realize your strength is unshakable, you will be able to work under anyone.

Being a true volunteer

 

Who is a volunteer? A volunteer is someone who comes to help without being asked. Someone who is self-motivated and inspired becomes a volunteer. 

It is possible for a volunteer’s inspirational motivation to diminish, which can bring frustration. Usually a volunteer’s attitude comes from demand rather than humility, and this dilutes the quality of the service. 

Another downfall for volunteers is that they slip away from commitment, thinking there is no “boss,” thinking, “If I like it, I’ll do it; if I don’t like it, I won’t do it!” It is like the steering wheel of a car – if all the tires say they do not need to be steered, then the car cannot move forward. If you want to construct a building, you have to accept the authority of the structural engineer, the “boss.” 

All these problems can be overcome only by being more grounded in spiritual knowledge. A volunteer devoid of spirituality is utterly weak. 

The following guidelines are essential to be a true volunteer:

• A volunteer needs to remain faithful to his commitment. 
• The integrity of a volunteer comes from his spiritual practices. A volunteer must accept the leader of the project. 
• The strength of a volunteer is based on the challenges he is ready and willing to face. 
• A volunteer moves beyond boundaries when he finds he is capable of doing so much more than he ever thought of doing. 
• A true volunteer does not expect appreciation or reward and he who thinks he is obliging someone is thoroughly mistaken. 

A person volunteers because he derives joy from it. That joy itself is the reward, and it is immediate. It does not come on the first of every month in the form of a salary. When a volunteer realizes this, he is filled with gratitude. When a volunteer waivers from within, his support is knowledge and good friends.

There will be no contentment through pleasure

 

God created humanity and the whole world with so many different varieties, so many good things. God made so many types of vegetables and fragrances, flowers and thorns, dragons and horrors, to please humans and to keep them entertained. But humanity became more and more depressed. 

Then God acted tough and humans had to start pleasing Him. So humans kept themselves busy pleasing God and they became happier since they had no time to get worried or depressed. When you have someone to please, it keeps you on your toes and you are happier. But if your goal is just to please yourself, depression is sure to follow. 

Pleasure simply brings more craving but the problem is that we try to get contentment through pleasure. True contentment can only come through service.

Accept your own ignorance about your capabilities

 

Always know that the Divine never gives you a responsibility you cannot fulfill. No one ever expects you to treat them if you are not a doctor. No one will ask you to fix their wiring system if you are not an electrician. 

Remember:

• Your responsibility is only what you can do. 
• And you do not know what you can do. 
• Always accept that you do not know what you can do. 
• Ignorance of your capability can expand you. 

When you know what you can do, you can progress. But when you do not know what you can do, you can grow by leaps and bounds. When you know what you can do, you can do things. When you do not know what you can do, you can do things even better!