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From theory to practice is a great transition. Your psychology must be strong and stable, providing you the necessary compulsion and inspiration to go ahead tenaciously even in an irritating and sub-standard environment. This is where the spiritual exposure and practices help.

Sampoojya Swamiji,

Pranāms at your feet. I would like to convey the happy news that I have got admission for MBA in SCMHRD (Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resources Development, Pune) which is one of the best Management Institutes in India.

Swamiji, your lecture at IMT, Ghaziabad, published in the January & February issues of Vicharasetu was a great source of motivation for me. It came at a defining moment of my preparation for interviews. My interview was also stressful. Cross-examining every answer of mine, the interviewers asked about my hobbies and their significance. I mentioned meditation, reading etc. and that they make the mind focused. Wondering about the significance of spirituality in Management, they enquired, “Why do you want to come to SCMHRD? If you want to meditate, go to the Himalayas! Are you coming here to be a sannyasin?”

Suddenly your words at the Geeta Tattva Sameekshaa rang in my ears, Swamiji. I said, “Sir, one need not retire to the Himalayas to meditate. It can be done anywhere. One can be centred in oneself even in the battlefield, like Sri Krishna in the Kurukshetra war. And only a sannyasin can work effectively in stressful business environments – for, his calm and focused approach leads to excellence in every action. So, I am sure I can be a manager with mental strength and fortitude of a Sannyasin.

A month later, results were out announcing that I was selected. All this was possible only because of your blessings, Swamiji. My classes begin in June and I seek your ashirvaad for fruitful pursuit of my studies.

Pranāms,
‘S’

Dear and blessed S,

Harih Om Tat Sat. We all are happy to learn that you have got admission into MBA course. I value and appreciate the MBA course and its outcome. The course will expose you to a new dimension of thoughts, insights and evaluations, elevating your inner personality to a higher level. For an adult, what supremely counts is knowledge – its impulsion and potential.

Instead of starting your career from a mere graduate level, the MBA will empower you for a much higher beginning and corresponding growth. It is one thing to somehow do a task. It is altogether different to do it thoughtfully, with sufficient insight and balanced disposition. How will you have the latter?

Be receptive. Gather all the inputs that come to you from different professors. To spend two years in such a receptive spell should mean a great deal of expanse and elevation to your mind and intelligence. In useful and creative interactions, it is the knowledge and reflection that matters most. Others will heed you only when you have the required worth and potential.

To have appeal is verily to possess merits that will touch others’ intelligence. To lead people is verily to lead the minds and intelligence of others. Thus, the knowledge exposure is something extremely valuable and dear. In the period to follow, enhance your vision, sensibility and creative thinking. At the same time, remember: It is in a study-environment that you will have your MBA exposure. But once you come out, the environment and objective will be entirely different. Here it is learning from books and professors, to be judged in the examination hall. There it will be a much longer and wholesome spell, where you will be required to function efficiently, transact effective business that is time bound, effort bound and achievement-oriented. You will need a good deal of discipline, sensitivity and will to translate your feelings and thoughts into dedicated action. Keep this in mind.

From theory to practice is a great transition. Your psychology must be strong and stable, providing you the necessary compulsion and inspiration to go ahead tenaciously even in an irritating and sub-standard environment. This is where the spiritual exposure and practices help.

OK. Go ahead. Do not sit idle. Be reading. At the same time, safeguard against undesirable influences from the peers. Your friends must be such as to have a desirable impact on you and vice versa. To seek friendship must be to imbibe something better in you. To give friendship is likewise to share something better for the other. Ensure this always.

Read enough. Reflect enough. Learn how to reproduce best what you have absorbed. For this, have the habit of writing what you have learnt, so that you will have the necessary expressive skill.

It was good that you read my IMT talk in Vicharasethu. Our idea in publishing such episodes has this kind of effect too! Very good.
Love and Ashirvād.

Antarātmā,
Swamiji

– Vicharasethu–July 2005