Saturday, November 17, 2012

Feeling connected - inner networking

Loneliness haunts the XXI century. Why?

People have lost their centre, they have lost connection with themselves and nature and as a result their heart has closed.

A closed heart has place for noone, thus the feeling of loneliness.

An open heart embraces everyone, and so you develop a feeling of belonging. You are connected... with life, with the universe.

And a feeling of happiness fills and overcomes you. That is BLISS.

Friday, November 16, 2012

A strong ego may free us or enslave us

Freedom is victory. Victory over ourselves, not others.

Freedom is hard to attain, and the only way is to work at it from the inside-out.
Freedom is an inner quest, not an outer battle.
To win we need  help, from ourselves and from others.

The inside help is our ego. A strong ego can be a wonderful tool if we know how to use it with the correct motivation. A strong ego will give us discipline and self-confidence to overcome our main obstacle to find freedom: laziness.

This inner quest for freedom has two major goals. They are inseparable, intertwined, different but as one, like two sides of the same coin:
1) empty the mind - this way we become free of ourselves: free of the limits, boundaries imposed by our own concepts and negative emotions; they trap us inside our own mind, it is like living in a box;
2) open the heart - this way we become free of others: the only way to become free of others is to love them unconditionally: "I love you" means "I set you free".

These achievements build on each other: as you empty your mind your heart opens, and as you open your heart, your mind expands.

What is a correct motivation?
A very basic one (universal really) is to be happy, without harming others.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Why Conflicts arise?

To put it in a simple way, we have two dimensions: the body (that follows a physical law) and the mind (that follows an emotional law).

These laws work in opposite ways, but we dont realize this. And it is due to this ignorance that we suffer and conflicts arise, at different levels: family, organisations, nations.

Body and mind have needs, but the way we deal with them have to be different.

To feel happy, body and mind need to be fulfilled in opposite ways:

The body needs to receive energy through food, breathing and sleep. The focus is on receiving, if the body is to survive.

But at the mental/emotional dimension it works the opposite way.
We also need energy to fell happy emotionally.And this energy is Love.
The only way to feel love is by giving it.
Giving love is the way to receive the energy we need to nourish ourselves, mentally / emotionally.

To survive we receive: energy - food, breath, sleep (physical law).
To live we give: energy - love (emotional law).

"All we need is love", we know that. The problem is how to get love.

Because we believe body and mind work the same way, we think to feel happy is to be loved by others. In other words, to fell/be happy we need to receive energy from others.  And this ignorance of the emotional laws gives rise to conflicts, power struggles or control dramas as we go about life taking energy from others.

According to Redfield, "this process of psychological domination can be observed everywhere, and it is the underlying source of all irrational conflict in the human world, from the level of individuals and families all the way to cultures and nations".

These "control dramas" fall along a continuum ranging from very passive to very aggressive. All humans tend toward one of the four “control dramas” (or energy struggles):
   Victims make us feel guilty and responsible for them.
  Aloof people attract attention (and energy) to themselves by acting reserved or withdrawing.
  Interrogators steal it by judging and questioning.
  Intimidators steal energy from others by threat.

 

Spiritual Leadership in Business

A new global leadership paradigm is gradually emerging:  spiritual leadership.

A spiritual approach to leadership is presented by merging inner wisdom with business wisdom:  a leader's inner perspective on the purpose of life and leadership is the foundation for decisions and actions in the outer world of business.

Empirical research based on interviews with 31 top leaders from 15 countries in six continents demonstrates that "leaders can obtain happiness, respect, peace of mind and success, while at the same time serving the needs of all those affected by their leadership when they lead from a spiritual basis.

It also indicates that spirituality can serve as the foundation for leadership that considers ethics, social responsibility and concern for the environment not just as instruments to protect corporate reputation and income generation but as fundamental principles and values in their own right".

Source:
Peter Pruzan, Dr. Polit. & Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. E-mail:pruzan@cbs.dk