November 26, 2022
Alina (0:00:31):
Namaste.
Good evening everyone. Namaste Sraddhalu.
Sraddhalu (0:00:36):
Namaste. Happy to be with all of you.
Alina (0:00:40):
We are happy to continue our series today streaming online, Evenings with Sraddhalu, Part 139.
Today we will take some questions on the theme of success in career. During our conversation, you may freely ask questions in the chat box or you may address questions beforehand by sending an email to integralstudies.in[at]gmail.com.
I will start reading the first question of Vaibhava: “Please guide me how to focus even better in work for excelling in career. I'm 30 and I wish to become a competent lawyer.”
Sraddhalu (0:01:35):
Yes. I am taking this question first on a very general level and then we will also look at specifics of the lawyer aspect of it. For those who have not yet seen the last four discussions that we had, because the title was first “Advice for Students” and then for students and parents, so many people thought I am neither a student nor a parent and they missed it.
A lot of the points covered there are applicable to everybody including all of us as sadhakas irrespective of our age. So some aspect of finding the career path was already discussed in the evening series number 135, 136 and 137.
And although very little may overlap with what we discuss now, if you have already gone through those, what we discuss now will be somewhat an elaboration and particularisation.
The current focus in this question is finding excellence and success in what you follow as a career in adult life.
So you will recall that we had earlier discussed the four soul powers, which are a very broad categorisation also of our tendencies, temperament, swabhava, and as a result, the truth of your being, swadharma. And these four soul powers, well, one of them predominates, others are less developed, but they still have to flow through your nature and its likes and dislikes and temperaments and the three modes of your nature. And the tendencies modify further the light of the four soul powers. We had also highlighted the importance of following your own dharma, your own natural line of development of your soul's aspiration, in which irrespective of what others may think of your success, you have the deepest satisfaction of growth, of fulfilment, and as a result, the sense of success. We discussed also the sense of the widening, especially when starting young, the necessity to widen, diversify, enrich your nature and your capacities as far as possible before there is an automatic narrowing of focus. Not necessarily narrowing of richness, but a focus in which that richness is applied. All these we have covered in those discussions.
But the question here and in the wording of Vaibhava, it is:
How to focus even better in work so that you may have excellence in career as a competent lawyer?
Now, you notice, the goal is excellence in career, is not focus better in work.
The idea Vaibhava has because we discussed the importance of concentration is that if he focuses better, then excellence will be a natural outcome.
Yes, certainly the focus of your concentration and one-pointedness would be a huge help. In principle, one could even say that when you take up a single idea, a single aspiration, a single sense of purpose and literally eat, sleep, drink, live day and night for that, that's generally when you attain to some kind of an identification with that which you seek which represents itself as an excellence or a success, an attainment of some kind. Focus is therefore a necessary part of it.
But I would still ask: Focus on what?
And are there other aspects that would complement the focus or which would assist the focus itself?
(0:5:44):
And a lot of this would depend on what it is that you mean by excelling in the career.
So I've given it a very general sense now that you achieve, you make a breakthrough because you identify with what you sought.
But what did you seek?
In your identification, having attained that, you may say, ah, but this is not what I wanted, I was seeking this, but I ended up with that. And they may be close, they may be associated, but you might have missed the point also.
Or you may have two or three conflicting objectives. And although you may seem to dedicate yourself entirely, because the objectives themselves conflict, you end up swinging between two extremes. And as a result, either this nor that, and a kind of a compromise may unfold, which may be actually an optimum outcome, but won't fit your expectation of what you sought.
And so, it’s extremely important to become clear of what it is that is for you representing that excellence or that ideal.
(0:07:05):
There's an observation in the chat box from Eli who says “There's no success or failure”.
Yes, depending on how one sees it, there is no such thing as a success or a failure. All depends on what you mean by success or failure. From a purely evolutionary point of view, even failures assist for a greater success.
And yet, on a practical level, we may choose to say, yes, attaining to this level of competence or outcomes, you will call ‘success’. And that may be provisional, that may be specific to you. It may not apply to others.
I'm pointing this out because it is important especially when you choose to give a one-pointed focus to become conscious at least of what it is that you seek.
We start with a vague idea and then you can't be chasing a vague idea because the goalposts shift.
As you approach, you will realise, but this was just a patch of smoke. What's behind? And then you find, you're lost again or you're again chasing mirages in the desert, isn't it?
So that clarity is extremely important.
So what is it?
And that could be different for each one.
So I would ask you:
What is it for you that represents excelling in the career?
I would take a few examples which would be in a general way, and you will see as I describe, each of these examples naturally falls into one of these four soul powers as a predominant content, but many of those would be mixed with other soul powers, it's not purely in life, it's really purely one thing.
So one of the most obvious which people associate with the idea of success or excelling in the career is attaining to a power position. When you say that ‘I have ten people working under me’, ‘I am responsible for the lives of a hundred people’ or ‘the decisions I make will impact a thousand lives or families’, the sense of authority and power, responsibility that it gives you, naturally with it comes a certain high of the power that comes with the position. The fact that people look up to you, the fact that they turn to you, that they're thinking of you, expecting things or demanding, reaching out, creates currents of energy which come and, so to say, fill you. At the same time, the chair, as I've spoken before, also has its own power. And then there are forces of nature who say, ah, here's a focal point through which we can act to do things. So they all converge upon you. All of these can make for a pretty complex high and you have the sense, ah yes I have arrived.
(0:10:10)
To what? You may not be clear.
But it is typically associated with sense of great power that comes with a position or sometimes with fame often involving promotion through the ranks. So I've gone through five levels of promotion, now I am on the top two tiers of authority in the company or in the business, whatever it is.
I've had occasion in life to be exposed to a very wide and rich kind of, let's say, people and situations. And it was a, perhaps a gift of the Grace for that.
And one of these was somebody who had reached what might be called the top four or five positions in India. This means, you must understand, India is like at least as big as Europe, so population-wise is almost equal, diversity-wise, space-wise, etc. So that's an indication of a very high authority.
I was taken to the office of this person and primarily the relationship was of a different kind, our discussion was about spiritual things and practice, but at some point he softened and he said:
All my life I have gone up the chain, and I've done good things, and now I'm right at the top, and at some point I will retire, and the question before me is: What next? And I see a blank.
It's interesting. Because the primary drive of the person was not the power position. What he was seeking was something else. Whether he sought the power or not, maybe he did, maybe he did not, I don't know. But when he got to that, he found, the thing which he was seeking was still waiting. And it was not present in the power position. Perhaps it was fortuitous, he came to power, he was a good man. So it's very rare for good people to come to that kind of position of power, perhaps by sheer competence, luck or trust of people, I don't know.
But because the temperament was different, and just the fact that he would want to meet was an indication of that, shows that he was looking for something much deeper. And he had a deep religious and spiritual turn and also.
But I'm pointing to this as an example that very often we have the illusion that the power position and the promotion would give you the thing you seek when actually that's not it. That was one of the errors of our perception.
And so I would even suggest as an exercise:
Put yourself in that position. And let's say, you have the enjoyment of all the trappings which come with the power. And then ask yourself: And then what? If at that point you say, this is all I want, now I will retire and I will be happy for what I achieved and I have nothing else that I need, then that's fine, that's your way.
But if at that point you say,
Ah yes, but then what?
And after I retire, then what?
then you need to really introspect.
Then perhaps the promotion would be helpful, but then what is it that you're seeking even through the promotion?
And you need to find it.
So what I'm doing now is actually taking you through such examples to help you to recognise what it is you seek, and answer will be different for each one of us.
And a very important point:
All that I will describe and that you might find, all your answers are legitimate. There's no such thing as good or bad or inferior or less spiritual or more spiritual. Don't make fake answers. You need to be clear and honest with yourself about what it is you seek.
So take another example:
You say, all right, it's not maybe the position of the power, but the high salary, I need the money. And maybe getting to that point where I have such a huge salary, and of course some of it will involve going up the chain of promotion, for which I will do what's required to get promoted. that will give me the satisfaction and I will say, yes, I have reached the excellence in my career and the satisfaction that it would give me.
And perhaps, yes, for some people that would be it, for others it would be again:
Now what?
Then what?
What do I do with this?
It's very interesting to see, today in, especially in the information technology, big companies of the world, one can go very high up the chain.
(0:15:04)
As you can see recently, quite a few Indians in Silicon Valley have got to the CEO position. They started often in very humble levels from their background, from their family culture. And some of them reaching those high levels still have that humility. Some have tended to lose it. Sometimes it's the humility that got them along with competence and other skills. Some of them have salaries which are such large numbers, going into millions of dollars of severance pay. Just when they finish their job, they'll get so much, for having done nothing else. And if you think about the amounts involved, the numbers are mind-boggling. You can't even conceive of what it means. It's just a number. 60 million dollars. What would you do with it? I don't know. And maybe after retirement, they'll wonder, what do I do with it? Because now I need to protect the money from depreciation or loss of value and I need to invest it, I need to be doing something.
What do you really want to do?
And again you have to ask:
Maybe this is it.
Maybe it's something else.
Be clear.
The problem in both of these, position as well as salary, often they involve promotion. If you're fortunate, if you're self-employed, you're a startup and you're running it, the promotion is not that big a deal for you. But if you are inside the salary structure, you need to get promoted to get to these higher positions.
And the promotions may involve compromises which may conflict with what you seek.
And then you have to choose:
Is this compromise acceptable to get to that point?
Or does it involve something which I will later regret?
And you make a choice.
Again, I am not saying, it is right or wrong. Sometimes you may choose compromise as a means, sometimes you may say, no, the compromise is not acceptable and as a result you may not get promoted beyond a certain point and you may have a clear conscience. Depends again on what is for you the priority.
There is another temperament which will consider excelling in career.
When you have a position or a job or an opportunity where you have to solve problems, overcome challenges, which perhaps nobody else is able to do as well as you are able to do. And as a result, just the joy of facing a challenge, overcoming, finding a problem and resolving it. Sometimes it could become routine. Ah yes, I've seen this problem many times before, it's easy. But still, the joy you will have is of that overcoming and solving a problem.
We'll look at this in some more detail later when we take the example of an engineer. But I'm just leaving it at this for the moment.
You see here primarily the satisfaction is of a mental kind. The problem may be physical, it may be interpersonal, but still the solution is going to come from a kind of an insight. And it's primarily knowledge-driven, but knowledge working through the Kshatriya-temperament of action or the resolution of harmony of the Vaishya temperament. Sometimes it could be skill, but that is, that would be more close to the engineering type.
But notice, primarily it is knowledge turning to these other three powers of the soul. And that means having reached that point, I say, wow, this is it.
Another temperament will say, for me, excelling in my career is having client satisfaction and appreciation. When my clients tell me that, you know, I went to so many people, but what you have given me, oh, wow, nobody else could give that, what you did, nobody can equal, the way you solved it, the insight you gave, the way you healed, the way you cured, the way you fixed this, that was outstanding, and that appreciation, that affection, that praise, that satisfaction is what you go back with and say, yes, this is worthwhile.
As a variation of this, there's one temperament which is just happy to be meeting and interacting with people and helping them. You may or may not get this kind of a strong excelling kind of comments but just the fact that you're always with people and helping them find their way and having the satisfaction of seeing them attain to what it is that you could help them get to. That itself would be your satisfaction. And you can look back, maybe 20 years down, and say: Oh, in my life I have actually helped thousands of people, they wouldn't even remember me, or perhaps they would, but somewhere in my mind, each one of them is still a part of my satisfaction, or sense of satisfaction. And that would represent another type and temperament and would define your sense of excelling in your career.
(0:20:10):
There's another type, again, variation of this, where you would actually be seeking the affection and respect of your colleagues. You may not interact with the public, but that your colleagues turn to you for help. Let's say you're fixing problems with computers, and everybody in your office or in your company or in your team, they say, oh, ask this fellow, he can solve everything, ask her, she can do it. And you have the satisfaction of being full, receiving the respect and appreciation. Outside that space, of course, nobody knows. But there you will say, yes, I'm excelling in my career.
Somebody else is not satisfied with these psychological kinds of, I will say, reward or satisfaction. They need to reduce it to material terms. And for them, the sense of having attained would be through medals, honours. And often when you go to their space, you will find the wall full of little papers, with certifications, honours, little medals, shields, cups, whatever it is the form, in which a certain attainment is reduced to a material symbol which now adorns your wall and literally represents your life's work and achievement.
Interesting.
And you recall something we discussed last time that when you win an award or get a recognition in a competitive space, it does not always represent how well you did. It's a measure of how badly others did compared to you, isn't it?
If you think in these terms and look at this symbol cup, mhhm, this is a symbol of how badly others did compared to me. It's almost like reversing the value of it. Of course in your mind you can switch it around and say, you say, ha yes, this is how much better I did than others, and then you may have the sense of, well, satisfaction or pride.
Again I'm not putting a moral judgement or spiritual judgement to these.
I'm just saying, it's your temperament, you need it, materialised in this way, and yes it has value for you.
And such a person often after retirement will literally rest on their laurels, you lean back, ha all these papers, all these cups, see what I achieved.
And when you're introduced, so and so was a gold medalist 30 years ago in the Olympic games or in some exam, whatever it is.
Ah, yes.
And then:
What are you as a person?
Do you have the continuing satisfaction of that?
For some people, there would be.
For others, it will say, nuh-uh, that's over, what about today?
And so if that's your type, then you need to recognise that while you may be chasing medals and honours for a temporary purpose, that's not what you're really looking for. And that's not going to give you that sense of excelling.
So again, observe.
Observe and come to know.
Somebody else would say:
For me the sense of excelling in my career is when I come home and I feel happy with a clean conscience, I've done good.
And it's not a moral judgement. It's just what you feel internally to you.
I feel good about what I did.
There is a very interesting example, which I want to share in some elaboration because it connects with something of the Mother.
There was one R.K. Talwar, Raj Kumar Talwar, who was the youngest chairman of the State Bank of India. Again, that's a very big position because you must understand the State Bank of India it's like the equivalent of what would be State Bank of Europe. Okay? So, it's literally spanning multiple countries and that's the scope of power, authority and finances involved. And this man was punctilious, honest and to a fault, no compromise.
So what happened at some point, in 1976 when Indira Gandhi signed the emergency, overrode the democratic framework, suppressed the constitution and took over, she (he was the chairman), demanded that he give out certain loans for political favours. And he refused. That's the kind of guts he had. And he said: “I don't care, you can throw me out.”
He was threatened with all kinds of things, including even personal assault. He said, I won't compromise.
(0:25:03)
At some point, she tried to remove him, but they had no mechanism to remove. So, she actually passed a law in Parliament, changed the law itself to give the government the authority to remove him.
So if you look at his Wikipedia page under his name, he's actually celebrated in this way. He was: “Raj Kumar Talwar … was an Indian business executive. He served as chairman of State Bank of India and was sacked by the Indira Gandhi government in the emergency in 1976 for refusing to grant loans to people favoured by the government. As no provision in the SBI Act allowed them to terminate the chairman, the Act was amended to sack him.”
That's the summary of his life. He's famous for this. Then you can read all the rest about his career and all that. Of course, they say a lot of wonderful things. He did great things, etc. But in a sense, this has become literally the defining character of the man's reputation.
What is interesting, this was 1976: In 1959, he had already come and met the Mother. At that time, he was just beginning to rise in his career. And obviously, there was a certain force that the Mother put to help him rapidly grow. But she gave it a certain form, focus, direction. And there was a special message that the Mother gave, which was written for him, which you will find now in the collected works. And it is dated 10th of December, 1959, where she writes:
“A peaceful heart is the best reward of honesty. Be sincere and honest and your mind will be at rest."
Fascinating! Fascinating even as a message. Think about it.
And she's giving this to a young man who's just starting his career I think in the banking industry and for him it was literally the defining guideline. The result was and he said this and I've heard him say this because after he retired he lived in Pondicherry and his Wikipedia page by the way says that he served on boards of companies and all the big-big things he lived a spartan life and travelled around Pondicherry on a bicycle, it says that on his Wikipedia page.
Interesting also as an observation about the man.
But the point here is till the last he would quote this particular phrase, this message that the Mother gave to him.
“A peaceful heart is the best reward of honesty. Be sincere and honest and your mind will be at rest."
Now, you think about what the Mother is pointing to: heart, and mind.
So, when you're honest, now there are people who will say, ah, yes, I'll be rewarded in heaven or in an afterlife or with good karma, I will get things, and she's throwing all that out.
The best reward of honesty is a peaceful heart. Think about it.
If your heart is not peaceful, there's something you've done, which somewhere you are regretting, which lives still in your subconscious and pops up in ways that you are perhaps not aware of, which takes away the peace of the heart.
And a man who has lived his whole life without ever compromising on that, whatever honesty means for him, genuinely, his heart is clear.
And then for the mind, she says, “Be sincere and honest and your mind will be at rest”.
Very interesting.
“Be sincere and honest”.
And remember what sincerity means. Integrity and then honesty. And it was, you know, at that point, Mother was consciously trying to infuse honesty into business.
So in Pondicherry, there were at least three businesses that started. All three she named “Honesty”, “Honesty”, “Honesty”. One was “Honesty Electricals”, “Honesty Engineers and Contractors”, “Honesty Departmental Stores”, but all three were “Honesty”.
You would say, hey, what's this? Why not make it more diverse?
No, there was a spiritual purpose to infuse this value. The result is that in time, in fact, this has happened. And Talwar was a brilliant example of how you could reach the highest positions in the financial world, literally among the highest positions, and with honesty, with sincerity and so on. And as a result, he said, my heart is always clear, peaceful, my mind is always at rest, I have absolutely no fears. Even when he was threatened with physical assault, he said, I am so clear, I know that nothing can happen to me, because I have never compromised.
(0:30:12):
Like I said, it could be to a fault.
There might be cases where he will be literal to the letter of the law, but one may miss the spirit of the law, because sometimes the letter is a barrier itself. I don't know. The point is not that. The point is whatever his standard was, he lived by it and therefore had this benefit.
So I give this as an example of, for him, the attainment. And of course, it came with those trappings of positions of power and so on, I suppose with wealth also. But he could have been far more wealthy had he compromised his honesty. So in a sense, he compromised the wealth aspect, gained power, and of course he had enough wealth, but he could have had much more if that was his goal. But his reference was: peaceful heart and mind at rest. And he chose that. And of course other things followed because of that.
So that's one type again.
Another type would simply say, I'm coming home happy from work and the happiness which I have.
If I compromise happiness, then I have not reached my life's excellence.
There are others I would give an example of.
In each of these I've actually had occasion to meet some of these types.
One of these types will say, and he's in a position sometimes of authority, maybe he's not, and it doesn't matter, I've seen both kinds, they will say:
You know, my life is so wonderful. I have this wonderfully happy family and these beautiful children and I come back from work and everything is so perfect. I couldn't have asked for more.
Interestingly, not a single word about what they do in the work or the challenges they face. And the only word is about the family and the children and the sense of happiness and satisfaction of that.
Interesting.
That's for them the sense of excelling in life: I've reached where I want to be.
Now, looking up at this whole list of all the kinds, variations and you could find more perhaps which would be often combinations of these types.
All are legitimate.
Do not consider any of them less or more because it all depends on your type, your nature, your temperament, your soul aspiration and your evolutionary stage.
In the ascension of evolution all of us have been through various kinds or variations of these priorities. Going back, if you could remember all your several hundred lives, we've been through it all. And if we had not been through it all, we wouldn't be where we are. And being where we are, we still have some of these which pull us stronger than others, which would match our temperament. They may not necessarily match the soul aspiration, because your nature is different, your soul's aspiration may be mixed, clouded, covered sometimes by your nature's demands. But again, I'm saying it's legitimate. I'm not putting any sense of judgement.
Observe and be honest with yourself what it is that you truly seek.
Because when you dedicate yourself to that which you truly seek, you will get it. Having got it you should not look back and say, ha I misfired, I mis-aimed, isn't it?
And perhaps if within you there is not that clarity, you may convince yourself ‘I want this’, whereas what you really want and aspire for is that, then dedicating yourself 100% to this would actually create a split. You would not be able to hit 100% because a part of you will constantly pull in a different direction. And so you may say, I'm giving my best, but why am I struggling so much? No, because there's a part in you that does not want this, it wants that.
So that's why, first step I'm saying is, do this introspection. Find what it is you seek.
And as we have discussed in one of the earlier, last three sessions, sometimes life is a zigzag.
You can't say that at the age of let's say 30 years from now, I want this.
Sometimes you don't know.
What you can say is five years from now, this is what I seek, ten years from now perhaps that but I don't know, but 50 years from now I Definitely want a clear conscience, I want to be happy, I don't want to be stuck in conflicting and compromises that I would regret.
I'd met somebody long ago, now nearly 20 years, very interesting man, and I'd done an interview with him, and one of the observations he said, all his life, every decision that he has to make, he said, I refer to it from the perspective of what I would think about it when I am about to leave my body.
(0:35:25)
So literally he puts himself at that point, he is ready to leave his body and looks back: Will I regret this decision? Or will I say no, it was the right thing?
Interesting.
So at that moment it was a bit of a surprise as I was not happy with the idea of always putting death or end of life as your reference. So I said to him: Isn't this macabre, you're thinking of death all the time?
He said, no-no, not at all, it's not like that.
What happened is, subsequently, many years later, maybe more than a decade later, I found myself in a similar situation. It was not about death, it was not about end of life, but it was the sense of permanence. That looking back from a consciousness which is more free of the present and the compulsion of the present, let's say, a consciousness which is more aligned to the sense of eternity. From there looking back at this, and you know what is interesting with eternity is that you have all the time in the world, so in a sense you look back and most things which are so important now seem to be trivial and then is it worth it? Was it important? Or would you regret doing? Or would you regret not doing? And sometimes you say, it doesn’t matter. You do what is convenient. Sometimes you say, it's very clear, this, no regrets. And the choice is very simple.
But think about it.
Find your sense of at least immediate point of focus in your sense of what would excelling in career mean for you and then give it that one-pointed focus.
Now remember in the question he is asked about focus better in work for excelling in career and then he says that he aspires to be a competent lawyer.
Now this is very important, it's not just a lawyer, he wants to be a competent lawyer.
So competence, again I would ask you to break down:
What is for you the sense of competence in a lawyer?
Or what would be for you the satisfaction of having reached competence there?
There are people who will literally mug up entire legal documents, case studies and so on and be able to quote chapter and verse.
There's a famous television series called ‘Suits’ and the promo for that, I've not seen the series, the promo for that is a young man who goes to this very expensive legal company and wants to join and the man ridicules him saying you're not, you have not passed Harvard we don't take you. And he says, open any law book. So the fellow opens a book. [And he says,] (0:38:15) read from page. The fellow reads. And by the time he has gone through half a sentence, this young man starts reciting verbatim the rest of the paragraph.
It's interesting.
And then he says, I just soak-in whatever I read, I recall.
Yes, there are people who do that.
And this is presented as a symbol of excellence.
Now, for a particular temperament, this would be, yes, this is what I mean by becoming a good lawyer.
For me personally, it's not this. For me personally, it would be:
How would I apply that in a situation which is totally different?
How do I draw the existing knowledge and its application in rearranging fragments that are disparate to bring alignment and cohesion with an insight that comes from the case law?
That would be for me the sense of real skill of competence.
But for that person, it would be his memory, his ability to draw and pull about, pull out anything once he has read.
So again, observe: What is it that is for you the sense of competence in law?
Again, I list a few points which might be indicative of what this, how this might work.
So a lawyer, for example, could be competent because he knows his constitution and case law like the back of his hand and he has a joy in finding precedents, applying them or solving problems.
In a more specific space of company law, for example, knowing the formalities, the routines, being punctilious in the details, you're dotting your i's, crossing your t's, having a detailed memory and completing the entire process and making it perfect in legal and procedural ways. And no loopholes, no gaps. It's rock solid. And having done that gives you deep satisfaction, which would be equivalent to somebody in the physical world taking objects, cleaning them, wiping, arranging them and beautifully arranging and say, now my table is perfectly ordered. You've just done that on a procedural level in a legal framework, and you say, ah, this is beautifully done. And that would be for you the sense of competence, of high competence perhaps.
(0:40:46)
For somebody else, competence will be the capacity to fight with skill, with persistence, gaining advantage over little loopholes and using your skill to kind of wind your way through those gaps, through procedures and creating appropriate impressions and getting your way through. That would be a more rajasic and Kshatriya temperament, the warrior type, that might be his competence, you see, his sense of competence.
Somebody else might be from a position of authority, that is, I have reached and this is my competence.
But it may not necessarily be skill in the law.
I give an example, I had occasion to again be exposed a little bit to that world. And I had occasion to meet one lawyer whose father was a very renowned lawyer. As a result, there was the current of the family reputation, name, which got him to a certain position of, I will say, seniority. But his lifestyle was not very healthy. He had unfortunately slipped into some addiction to alcohol, and in his work he was entirely relying on the name that came and the competence of others, himself had literally lost or never had perhaps, I don't know.
It was interesting to see the behaviour also. And he would avoid getting into technicalities, although he had knowledge, but he would avoid and skirt difficult things, go for the easy kill, get a lot of money in the process, and get back to his, well, addiction, alcohol, whatever lifestyle it was that gave him what he needed. But he had position of authority, he had a name, he had huge influence when he came into the courtroom with a strong vitality.
So again, this might be one symbol of competence, but in terms of content and outcome, perhaps not.
Somebody else will say:
Competence is taking a large number of cases, having a large office and managing it all. We are actually handling 20 cases or 30 cases and there's a whole team working at it. I don't need to get involved in everything. I've got competent people doing it. That's my competence.
Maybe.
So again, I'm not putting a judgement.
I'm saying, your type will match one of these.
Another type will say:
I don't take too many cases. I never have more than three cases, but those three, I will go into detail, know the client and go deep into it on such a personal level that I will know everything, and the outcome will then be sure.
There are film actors who do that. See, the actors who are at a time handling five shooting, shooting for five movies.
You can't commit yourself, you'll never get good quality, it's all superficial.
There are those who really aim for high quality, they will say:
If I get into a role, I can't mix it with another role, so I can only do one movie at a time, but one movie I will do thoroughly well.
Well, they are the real artists, the others are just opportunists.
But something like that can happen also in the legal space, for example. But you can't do that while you're a junior, you have to get to some level of position where you can say:
One case which pays me well enough so that I can dedicate myself to it.
But there'll be a completely different temperament, which will say:
I will commit myself to those who can't afford that kind of payment.
And they may take cases pro bono, they will stand for the underdog, make an effort, and may in their own lives never earn too much.
I've had occasion to meet one such. And he was known in the legal circle for being able to stand up to a judge and say: “Your honour, this is wrong”. Or even in some case, he said: Your honour, you should recuse yourself from this case because of such and such connection that you have with that clients in the past. He had that kind of courage. He was considered in the legal circle completely an outlier.
(0:45:10)
And I had occasion to briefly interact with him also, which was quite fascinating. And you could see within him a kind of a pride of his integrity. And a certain internal, let's say, it's difficult to describe, it's as if the whole being was aligned in a straight, the integrity itself was felt like a continuous cohesiveness within like a ramrod straight alignment. What he thinks, what he speaks, what he feels, all aligned, but not very wealthy having a reputation for being a trouble maker and so on.
Interesting!
I want to give one more example which is completely from outside that sphere of law but who then comes into the legal space. This was a captain in the Navy, in the Indian Navy. He was a scientist, engineer, captain, and he was somehow in the research development programme of the Indian Nuclear Submarine Project going back in the 1970s when India wanted to build a nuclear submarine. Now what happened at that time, this is the background which nobody will speak about, is they were other influences from other countries which were trying to sabotage all attempts for India to become independent in these technologies. Sometimes they would promote compromised people to positions of power from where to compromise things. You see, the key-breakthrough for India came when Abdul Kalam, who later became president, took over the entire integrated missile development and with him came rapid progress in those fields. And in the space research also, there were attempts, some of the key-scientists were honey trapped and falsely incarcerated and their careers ruined in order to destroy India's attempt to create a cryogenic engine. And the result was, I think, the whole cryogenic engine was delayed some 15 years because of this false case, which was controlled by one policeman who was corrupt and later they used him for doing all kinds of other false cases. And it was all connections from other countries.
So here was this man. There's a project ongoing for India's nuclear submarine. It's a longish story. And repeatedly the project would fail. Finally this man comes in and he puts together the entire submarine design. And it was working, at least on the design level.
I asked him: What was it that you did which others couldn't do?
He said:
What the others were doing, this is 25 years back when I met him, he said, what others were doing, there was one group that was working on the power, nuclear power, another group which was working on some other aspect, another group working on the air flow, air regeneration, and they were all working in pieces, but when the pieces, each one of them completing themselves, when the pieces were brought together to join, they didn't fit. This needed something which was not there, that needed something which was not here, or it was completely misaligned.
And he said:
What he did which nobody else could do, because there were so many teams disparate, he got into the whole submarine project, redesigned everything from scratch but from a consciousness of unity in which it was integrated. They will call it ‘systems thinking’. But he was able to apply that and design the submarine completely in a way that it actually worked at least in the theoretical level. And the result was the people at the control, at the top, very famous name not necessary to mention here, actually began to rebuke him, harass him and try to suppress his work. And this man was responsible for enormous delays in India's nuclear programme and other places. Eventually, he told this man, we do not want your design.
And he said: Okay, can I then publish it as my Ph.D. thesis? And so the document was declassified, an entire nuclear submarine design. I mean, how ridiculous can you get? He publishes it as his Ph.D. thesis, and he's invited to the US to make a presentation. He's taking a flight with his papers, Ph.D. thesis, and at the airport he gets arrested and thrown in jail all because of that mischief maker influence.
And then he is put in jail without any legal support, nobody will stand for him, and it was for spying.
The document had a rubber stamp saying ‘declassified’, but because of the power interests involved, he was in jail, I don't know, 10 years or something.
And his reputation ruined, he's thrown out of the whole system. Nobody dared to stand for him. His wife running pillar to post, no lawyer will be able to stand, and nobody has the competence, or they are all afraid because of the power structures involved. And this was all happening during the time when Indira Gandhi was in power, so you know that kind of domination of the political mafia.
(0:50:39):
What he did, sitting in jail he began to study law, trained himself, passed the bar exams, eventually becomes a Supreme Court lawyer in his own right, then stands up in the court and fights his own case, wins it, gets free and completely absolved of all the false charges. Of course, his career was finished by that time. And he was a broken man.
What an extraordinary competence!
Imagine. What a brilliance!
From designing an entire nuclear submarine which involves the most disparate kinds of technologies and knowledge to becoming a Supreme Court lawyer in his own right, fighting his own case.
What did he do then subsequently?
From what I know at least, he then spent his years helping others who were neglected or falsely accused and giving them pro bono service that is free of charge or for nominal charges covering his expenses to get free from similar kind of distress.
Quite an amazing man. B.K. Subba Rao, his name.
And this is an example of what I would consider quite a very high competence lawyer.
But just to show you how there are those who even taking the side of the legal system, entering the legal system, their objectives may be very different and maybe he doesn't make too much money.
I had occasion to briefly interact with him a few years ago. A very humble, very simple life, and that was it.
So now I come to the more complex issues of being a competent lawyer.
The problem is not just your competence, the problem is also the system and the framework within which you have to operate. And what it demands from you in terms of its definition of competence that you have to choose whether you will match and meet or not.
You see, the entire legal system as it is in India today is based on the British concept of law and justice and largely rooted in the European value system of law and justice. I think it goes back perhaps to the Greeks and Romans or a blend of these two. But what comes from that original tradition is this symbol of justice and these symbols are very powerful and very important. They give you the key-insight of what it's all about.
And the symbol of justice is a woman who holds the weighing scales with a blindfold. And so it's as if your client is on one side and the facts are on the other side and she's going to weigh. Are you more correct or are you more wrong? Are the facts with you or against you? And without seeing who you are, even without seeing what the facts are and whether they are legitimate perhaps, with a blindfold she says, ha, so and so is guilty or not guilty.
Now remember this image is very important, because it means on some level implied in the design of the system is a blindness and a deliberate blinding of self by the justice system and framework itself, which does not care who you are. And one of the forms it takes, of course, is the lawyers wear the dress, which is a completely black coat, in order not to be able to have anything which, in which one lawyer could stand up in advantage against another. Of course, in practice, that doesn't make any difference, or the judges similarly.
In principle at least they're supposed to be blind when they pass a judgement: I don't care, no favours.
In practice all this becomes a pretence because reality is not like that.
So the moment you create a system which does not match reality, automatically in the interface there's a gap and pretence, fakery, falsehood creeps in, sustaining the system or hiding behind or inside the system to interface with reality which does not match or system does not match reality.
(0:55:02)
So, what happens in practice is all this system of law very quickly gets reduced to procedures, processes and keywords used. When you arrested X, you did not first file this you did not first take that down, therefore the criminal goes caught free although everyone knows he is a criminal. Procedure relapse.
You see how it works.
But that's blind justice, isn't it?
Procedure failed, criminal is free, although we know he is criminal.
Interesting.
And so, in practice what happens, justice itself gets warped.
In reality, you cannot be dispassionate as the intention is.
And the Indian concept of justice, which is more rooted in life, is not blind.
It is seeing justice.
And I've given this example before, but it's worth repeating here.
In the Mahabharata, there is this example of justice and it's celebrated in history going back 5000 years now as an example of what is true justice. So four people are arrested for having committed a murder, brought to the king and the king now has his favourite wise man who is Vidura, but others are jealous of him, so king wants to make a point of why he trusts Vidura more.
And he asks everyone in his court: Well, what shall we do with these four?
And everybody gives their opinion, oh they should be hung, they should be jailed, they should be fined etc etc.
After hearing everybody, he asked: Why? Why? And they all say, well, that's how it is.
He turns to Vidura. Vidura what would you do? Vidura said: My Lord, I cannot decide unless I first speak with them.
What kind of justice is this?
You have got all the evidence, right?
He says: No, but I have to speak to them.
So he asks each of them: What is your temperament?
Well, as it turns out for the purpose of the story it's very convenient, the first one is a seeker of knowledge, Brahmana, the second is a warrior and leader, Kshatriya, the third is a businessman as a Vaishya, and the fourth is a craftsman, Shudra.
And Vidura's, let’s say, justice is:
The man of knowledge will be put to death.
The businessman will have his entire wealth taken away by the state and then allowed to go free, rebuild his business if he likes.
The warrior will be jailed for a certain number of years, will be imprisoned.
So the businessman has his wealth taken away.
And the craftsman is given a warning and told, you have to change your company, do not follow people of this kind. And with a warning is allowed to go scot-free.
Wow! What kind of justice is that?
This is the Dharma, which recognises what it is that drives a person to commit a crime and whether that fits with his own temperament or conflicts. And justice is suited to the person's evolutionary stage and evolutionary requirement.
You see, there are people who need to go through mistakes in order to learn and they are at a level where there is no other way.
The others who know very well and consciously do great harm, then the justice is totally different, isn't it?
So the man of knowledge knows and is trained to be dispassionate and yet commits a murder. Such a person has failed his deepest truth and gets the capital punishment.
The warrior is a man of passion and drive and gets overwhelmed by his passion, has not learned to restrain his passion. Therefore, a period of imprisonment is intended to teach him restraint and self-control and perhaps combined with activities to help that.
The businessman has done it because of certain profit and benefit and therefore deserves to lose all the ill-gotten wealth and he's free to start again. Of course, with the warning that he will never do such things again where he would get his wealth in a wrong way.
And the fourth is temperamentally one who gets led or misled because of bad company. He was not even conscious of the implications and so he is given a warning and freed.
(1:00:02)
Now I'm giving this as an example to show how there is a very different system of justice and value of justice.
Unfortunately, when you operate within a system which is already, well, limited or even warped, you have to go through a certain conflict of interest. You know often that a client has committed wrong, but you're required to protect and you use every possible procedural loophole to protect them or reverse.
Now there are in the very nature of the job certain essential conflicts of interest, especially when you get into criminal law. It may not be so strong in company law, but still.
So the first point which I have already made is that it is not Dharmic-based but procedure- and technicalities-based.
The second point is in the very nature of the job you profit from the distress of your clients. So there is a kind of an inbuilt conflict of interest. This is true of lawyers, doctors and accountants.
People come to them when they have a problem. So they benefit when they have a problem.
There is a very interesting joke that a doctor has raised his child to become a doctor. His child now an adult, young adult, joins his family business. And then the young adult is now keen to demonstrate his skill. So a patient comes and he cures him and goes to his father and says, see this patient who you couldn't, you've been treating for the last 20 years and couldn't heal, I've cured him in one go.
And the father said, oh, what a fool, it's from the payments of this patient that I paid for all your education.
You see the conflict of the values.
Interesting.
So, how would you manage that as a lawyer?
And again, I'm not offering you a solution. I'm saying you should be clear where you choose. You may choose certain compromises. You may choose to draw certain lines within which you allow grey areas. Or you may say, well, I will accept whatever comes and try to do my best irrespective of those lines. It is really your choice, but you must be clear.
A third essential conflict of interest is that in the very nature of law and the legal system as it is today, it need not be so, but as it is today, the most corrupt people are also the most wealthy. So, if you want to make a lot of money through the clients, through the cases that you take, you have to take the most corrupt people and defend them. It's an interesting kind of conflict.
And as I said, it need not be so if justice was not blind. You see.
Somebody is brought to the dock. Everybody knows, the evidence is clear. And yet they are let go scot-free. And we see so many examples all over the world of this. And it's because, well, money talks, power talks, and there are all kinds of wheels within wheels and the nature of this blind justice.
Another, fourth, conflict of interest is that in the existing legal system, at least in India, you profit from delay and postponement. What happens is a client is listed for today, and you may be of 30-40 people listed, your number 23 let's say, and before your lawyer will appear for you, you have to pay the lawyer. The lawyer appears, but in the way the court moves today, they stop at number 15 and you are number 23. You paid the lawyer for that day, money is gone, he has not even appeared for you. And you wait for the next listing, and that next listing may happen after a week or after a month, you don't know, it's not in your hands, there's no logic to it, the entire system is corrupt on the listing level.
And so you end up paying money for each listing effectively or each potential appearance and nothing happens.
And if it does appear, the other side's lawyer says my lord, today we have some technical problems, so we want a postponement. You've paid your lawyer, and that's it.
And between lawyers and between judges, there's a game that they play, because the judge was a former lawyer, and they all know that they help each other by postponing and delaying. And that's how they make huge profits, and cases last for 20, 30 years, just dragging, then everybody knows with eyes open who's right and who's wrong.
How do you clean this up?
It's very difficult, it's very murky because the legal system has so corroded, and it has disengaged from the whole Constitution and any external mechanism, because they created what was called ‘Collegium of Judges’. The judges choose themselves according to their internal interests.
And so what do you do?
Not much.
(1:05:19)
If you're part of the system, you struggle, you suffer, and that's how it is.
And if ever you stand up for something that's right against the judge's wishes, after that every case in which you appear, they will give you negatives. And they'll say, go on appeal. And you chase after for years on appeal on higher and higher levels at higher and higher expense.
So the nature of the system is profit from delay and postponement.
What do you do?
And you cannot fight it alone because the other side lawyer is playing that game, the judge is playing the game. Maybe you make a little bit of a difference, but it's a tiny drop. But maybe for you that's satisfying enough. And through it all, you have the peer pressure to conform, including judges who are pressuring you because they were your former lawyer colleagues perhaps.
Isn't it?
So in the Collegium System, there is, you get promoted by conforming to compromise.
So all this makes the whole space extremely complex.
And I have gone into some detail in this.
It is not like this in all other careers, but this particular career and especially in the context of India, things are not at all easy.
When you become a competent lawyer, you will face all these issues. Or, as you grow into competence more and more, you will face all these issues.
And what will be your definition of competence will decide how you will navigate through these issues, and what outcomes, what satisfaction you will have, and what will be your concept of excelling.
Okay?
Again, I'm not giving it a specific form, I'm just saying, become conscious.
And if you can bring some light within whatever boundaries you set yourself and compromises you accept or refuse, if you can bring some light into the system, you would have made a huge difference.
It was very interesting to see, now about a hundred and now ten, twelve years ago, Sri Aurobindo was in the dock on a false case where the British government wanted to arrest him.
And because they found no evidence eventually, and this is one of the things Sri Aurobindo appreciated about the British system of justice, at least among the British, there is a stiff upper lip and a sense of fair play, so Sri Aurobindo was acquitted because there was no evidence found.
That is not the case today.
And here we find things have gone much worse. It's not the British, it's now Indians with their own particular temperament and distortions which come with education and the decline in civilisational values now.
And we find interestingly a hundred years later after that again Sri Aurobindo was in the dock appearing in the courts, and I'm not too sure whether the courts lived up to the circumstances.
But when that happened, and that's when I had to go very often to the courts, I saw something very interesting there. The symbolism was so obvious to me. Here again Sri Aurobindo's name has come up and his reputation is at stake. Is he a madman and a terrorist or is he a yogi and a fighter for national freedom?
This is in the balance to be judged by today's legal system.
And in that whole struggle, what I felt, what I saw was, it was as if the light was now penetrating the legal system and the courtrooms. And this was an occasion for that light to come in.
I stood at one point in the Supreme Court while the hearings were going on, the lawyers were lying through their teeth, blatantly, openly, the documents they have filed are the very opposite of what they are saying.
But the other side's lawyers are silent.
And all I could do was stand there and pray and invoke the Mother's light and presence saying, you have to do this, there is nothing more that I can do, this is as far as we could take it.
It was very interesting for me because I got this whole experience of the whole system and how deep it goes but also the glimpse that something has begun to change.
And I will bring this to now in the context of Vaibhav's question.
When you say, I'm 30 and wish to become a competent lawyer, well, become conscious of what these things mean for you, the goals you have set for yourself and become a focal point for the light. Again, as I said, choose your own boundaries. Sometimes when a system is such, you have to compromise, you have grey areas. Choose your boundaries that you come home with a clear heart as far as you can. But invoke the light, bring the light, make a difference. To your clients, perhaps setting example to others and to yourself. And in the present situation, some things have shifted overall in the system.
(1:10:36)
There is an attempt to find lawyers and judges who are genuine, competent, and honest, and idealistic, who will live for some higher truth, purpose and justice. There's a need for finding more of these. Unfortunately, all those who chose to compromise, well, it's difficult. We don't have too many instruments. But you can choose to be one of these instruments who will be able to make a difference. And as you grow into the, in competence, in reputation, in authority, in power, inside the system, the light will assist you, push you from within, lift you, but also pull you from above and take you to whatever levels of position and authority are required to make a difference in service to the awakening spirit of India. This should be your larger sense of purpose, ideally. All else, well, you will find your way. If this is clear, the rest you will find your way.
And I give the example of R.K. Talwar, who came to the Mother at a time when he was just a young man and she took him all the way to this highest position because he lived up to it on the, up to the guideline that she gave, that she could work through him as an instrument.
Something similar happened with Indira Gandhi. I'm giving these examples which are well-known and necessarily they're therefore also political sometimes. When Indira Gandhi came to meet the Mother, first time it was as daughter of Nehru, she was nobody. The second time she came when she was in a political crisis. She was the only woman in a group that was pushing her out and she came to the Mother for help in a sense, a succour. And there's this incident which Uddharda narrates. He says, he took her to the Mother. She went in alone. He waited outside. And he said, she went in like a lamb and she came out like a tigress. And afterwards when he went in, the Mother said, I brought down the highest force upon her and she absorbed it all. She went back from Pondicherry, broke away from that whole group, instead of them taking her out, she broke away and formed her own Congress with an ‘I’, Congress-I for Indira. Became Prime Minister in her own right and so on and sometimes ruled with an iron hand. Initially, at least she seemed to be doing a lot of good. She went off track at some point with the emergency and then instituted corruption into the system in a way that was not seen before. That's when you see the instrument was given all the spiritual push, lifted to a point at which point it failed the values which it needed to live by. And from that point on, the whole thing broke down. Eventually she lost her life and so on.
But this is that what the divine power is capable of doing with the right instruments.
So to me, this word that you have used of excelling in your career and becoming a competent lawyer, the competent for me will be that you are an effective instrument for the divine Shakti to serve in your workspace for the higher potential to be able to actualise and the spiritual light to flow and shape and change life itself and help the nation in its awakening.
And in stating this as competence, I've generalised this whole theme to all of us, each one of us, in our own way, in our own space, in our own sphere of responsibility, even if you're a homemaker, that you make your commitment for this service to Mother India and allow the divine help and light and strength and wisdom and knowledge to work through you, radiate through you and lift you to become an effective instrument for whatever is required to be done through you.
Such should be at least your deeper aspiration.
What form it takes will be between your soul and the Divine Mother.
(1:15:06)
If nothing else you will have the satisfaction of having raised wonderful children who are living souls and not ego bundles of confusion.
Or in your little space in the work you will have spread a little bit of light and joy and peace and love and lifted the quality of life and touched people's hearts.
Maybe, just as a minimum.
Or it may be a position where you will exercise great power and influence and change systems and structures whether you are remembered or not, it's irrelevant that you could be effective as an instrument, that was the highest competence from the soul's point of view and from your personal evolutionary point of view.
I think this will be a good point to pause upon. I had some more observations to make about the nature of what it could be like to be a doctor or an engineer or some other kinds of careers.
But just to summarise, find your priorities, build around those priorities, and yes, concentration, willpower, persistence, all these will make you enormously effective.
But the most important will be to ask to be an instrument of the divine as far as possible in whatever limited way it is within those circumstances. If nothing else you hold the light and the presence within you as you do whatever it is that you have to do.
Maybe I can complete with a very interesting text from the Mother. In one of her evening's classes, she reads first from a text of an earlier talk that she gave where she says:
“Sri Aurobindo tells us that if one cannot change the nature it is not worth the trouble of doing yoga, for yoga is done precisely in order to change the nature, otherwise it has no meaning.”
Then Mother comments on this. She says:
“The most important surrender is the surrender of your character, your way of being, so that it may change. If you do not surrender your very own nature, never will this nature change. It is this that is most important. You have certain ways of understanding, certain ways of reacting, certain ways of feeling, almost certain ways of progressing, and above all, a special way of looking at life and expecting from it certain things—well, it is this you must surrender.”-all this-”That is, if you truly want to receive the divine Light and transform yourself, it is your whole way of being”-that-“you must offer—offer by opening it, making it as receptive as possible so that the divine Consciousness which sees how you ought to be, may act directly and change all these movements into movements more true, more in keeping with your own truth.”
You see, effectively you will become more and more truly yourself, and there is nothing more satisfying than that.
So, “more in keeping with your own truth”.
“This is infinitely more important than surrendering what one does. It is not what one does (what one does is very important, that’s evident) that is the most important thing but what one is. Whatever the activity, it is not quite the way of doing it but the state of consciousness in which it is done that is important.”
You see, in a lot of the conventional way of thinking, we say, oh, we will surrender, offer our work and offer the results. Yes, all that is good, Karma Yoga and Bhakti, and all those things are great.
But what she is asking for is something much more direct:
Surrender what you are.
And she has described what that consists of ‘surrender yourself’.
And this will change you and shape you And make you more and more truly, well, the truth that is within you, yourself.
Okay?
So at this point I've generalised to, for all of us in whatever our career, whatever our life path, even if you're not in a formal career, you're in a retired state, well, the life you lead is your career:
And this is the ideal that we should all be consciously aspiring for, irrespective of how much you're able to commit to it.
If you simply hold the aspiration and do the first basic step of opening and giving yourself, partially, briefly, for a short time, once a day if necessary, just that is enough to infuse something of the divine influence, which then begins to work in you and begins to shape you, and all the rest follows, inevitably, eventually.
So I think this would be a good point to pause upon on this theme of success in career. We can take a moment to align ourselves to this aspiration and perhaps make a conscious choice of how we want to put this into practice in the coming days.
Namaste.
Alina (1:22:44):
Namaste.