10 most desirable colleges of Psychology

Broader Perspective
Hindu philosophy divides human life into four
stages viz. The learning stage (Brahmacharya)
where one is a pupil who devotes his/her energies
to learn from his teachers and prepare himself. The next
stage is (Grihasta) household duties, here one is busy with
one's profession, business, etc. providing for his family.
This is followed by (Vanaprastha) where one after his duties
towards family are over and goes to a forest and devotes
more time to meditation, prayers and spirituality. The final
stage is (Sanyasa) renunciation where one now detaches
oneself from depending on luxuries or even the regular
necessities, here the goal is to attain Moksha, salvation.
Many of us take these stages of life by demarcation. We feel
that when one is a child or young one has to study, in the
adult age be the provider of the family, after that we have
time for spirituality or renunciation. But that is due to our
dualistic mindset that we always try to separate things. We
should rather remember that all these stages are interrelated
and have to go together throughout our lives.
At the same time, whatever age one is at, one should be a
student for life, duty-bound towards his family and
profession, devote time to spirituality and also be able to
develop detachment from the material world. The
demarcation of these stages leads us to the false belief that
when one is into a Leadership role, it has no place for
spirituality. My humble attempt would be to lead us out of
this false notion and see how we can imbibe spirituality in
our leadership practice.
To understand the title 'Leadership and Spirituality' let us
look at this story: once Krishna tells Arjuna to dig gold
from two hills and distribute it among the poor villagers. He
is told to complete the task by dusk. Arjuna tries hard to
gather villagers near the hills and starts digging and
distributing the gold but is unable to finish digging and
distributing by the end of the day. When Krishna tells the
same work to Karna, he just gathers the villagers near the
hills and tells them that both the hills and the gold is theirs
and encourages them to dig and take the gold. In no time
both the hills are levelled and the work completed. What
has happened? The problem with Arjuna is the problem of
leadership today, he is working on his ego, ‘I am
distributing the gold to help people' while Karna is selfless
and doesn’t let his ego master him, ‘I am just a facilitator to
help people reach their goals. ‘Spiritual Leadership is
Leadership minus the “I”.’
So, let’s try to understand what is Spiritual Leadership.It is
the kind of Leadership that helps you and others see your
true worth and encourage yourself and your team to
contribute to a greater cause that will outlive you." If you
look at some of the leaders of the yore whom we can
consider as spiritual leaders, we have people like Mahatma
Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Jamshetji Tata, Swami
Vivekananda, Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. APJ Kalam,
Rabindranath Tagore, Mother Teresa, King Shivaji Maharaj,
and many more. In our present age, we have leaders like
Kailash Satyarthi, Mohammad Yunus, Malala Yousufzai,
Ratan Tata, Oprah Winfrey, and countless others whom we
can safely categorize as leaders who have a spiritual facet to
their leadership. Please note here the names above are not
of 'perfect leaders' they all had or have their shortcomings
like we all do but I am considering them as leaders whose
vision for their lives, organization, nation or people had or
has a spiritual angle to it. For these leaders, leadership and
spirituality go hand in hand.
Here before we look at some of things to imbibe in our
leadership practices, I would like to clear the misconception
that when I mean 'Spirituality and Leadership' here
'Spirituality' is not in the sense of being religious.
Religiosity and Spirituality are totally different.
Religiousness is defined as a basic system of organized
beliefs and worship which a person practices, and
spirituality is defined as a basic personal life principle
which animates a transcendent quality of relationship to
God. So, when we approach the term Spiritual Leadership, I
take it as a life principle that is inherent in all of us that we
need to realize and practice in all areas of our lives be it
Leadership or other. Also, when I use the term Spiritual
Leadership it is not limited to religious field like church,
temple, mosque etc. It is an encompassing term that will
include leadership in all areas of human life.
Here are some guiding steps that one can absorb in
practicing Leadership to be a Spiritual Leader:
1. Awareness:
Spiritual Leadership begins with a shift in perspective when
one becomes aware of how she looks at herself and the
people he/she is leading. In our Indian culture we say
'Namaste' when we greet others. It actually means, 'The
divine within me bows before the same divinity within you'.
So, Leadership with Spirituality is knowing oneself and
others as divine beings. Jesus Christ in the Bible tells
people, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” A leader is
15 | MAY 2021 | www.theknowledgereview.com