Beacons of Business - 11

May 18, 2005

Sairam Sisters and Brothers,

We continue with Ashoke Maitra, Director (Corporate)- Human Resources, Bennett,

Coleman & Co., Ltd (Times of India Group), Mumbai, India.

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In our company anyone who joins goes through a program for managing self, where

we basically de-school them. We provide them inputs to manage themselves by

teaching them: how to control their body and mind, how to be detached, and how

to present themselves powerfully.

We tell them that the ego that you have, the degrees which you have received,

are fine so long as you use them as an instrument to give you some level of

comfort, which all of us need. But if you get married to them and think that

is what life is all about, then that is the greatest foolishness you have done,

because you are not that. Those are instruments that you need, just like you

need food to survive; however you are not the food.

So our work is completely experiential; we do not give any lectures. We do

exercise after exercise after exercise to help people analyse and understand

the meaning of "true joy." We are telling people that, "Yes you have joined an

industry. Yes, you need your children, family, a certain amount of technology,

and money to survive in life. Yes, you must have, but this is not all there is.

Your true joy will come in your own spiritual realisation."

So when we talk about joy, we also talk about being congruent to the dynamism of

your innermost self. The real joy comes when you are in touch with your

original self. We are telling our employees: "You cannot be happy by the reward

the company gives. If we give a reward and you are happy, then there is

something wrong. That means your original consciousness is not ripe. You are

reacting to a situation. You are not centred in your own existence."

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