The Five Qualities - Lakshanam Of A Successful Human Being
When we think of management lessons, suddenly, the western concepts and several, writers and books start to strike our mind. Generally, we see management as a western concept. Perhaps we have a perception that British introduced us to management.
But the fact of life is that we were pretty well managed in ancient times and continued to grow till Mughal period. After all, and economy which contributes to lion’s share of global GDP cannot be undermanaged.
These management lessons actually were yielded to us by the profound wisdom, our scriptures have provided. Bhagwat Gita, is the name which is synonymous with wisdom and creative solutions. Today we will go through 5 exciting and important life lessons mentioned there.
As per Gita a successful person needs to have following attributes.
• Kaak-cheshta
• Bako-Dhyaanam • Swaan-Nidra
• Alpa-Haari
• Grah-tyagi
Let’s try to understand each one of them ...
Kaak Cheshta: Kaak in sanskrit means a crow. Cheshta means effort. It means that we should do the efforts of a crow. We all remember the old story of a thirsty crow, where a crow was thirsty. He found a vessel in which the water was there, but at the bottom. He immediately flew way and got one pebble at a time and put them in water vessel.
Gradually water level came up, he drank and flew. You all might be wondering, come on we all know this crap. Yes, I know that, but then, do we remember the message too, behind this story. Let’s revisit the message. Crow never complained about the state of affairs.
He just did what he could. Doing what we could needs lots of efforts, which he did. After every pebble dropped, crow analyzed the level of water and accordingly flew to collect another pebble. So the crow was not only doing efforts but was also evaluating performance regularly. It signifies hard work and patience. Only place where success comes before work is dictionary.
Bako Dhyaanam: Bako refers to the crane and dhyaanam means focus. You must have observed and seen the patience and focus with which a crane stands in water on one leg. With undivided attention crane stands and focuses only on its target. Lots of other different fishes and other creatures pass by , but crane does not shifts his focus from his prey.
As soon as the fish of its choice comes, crane grabs it with lightning speed. When you focus of something important, let the small things pass by. At times there might be health issues. financial crisis, and other things. But the focus needs not to be deterred by them.
Swaan Nidra: Swaan means a dog, and nidra , as we all know is sleep. When we refer to a dog sleep we might observe that how so ever deep sleep a dog is in , it will open its eyes on the first sound. They are known for their vigilance.
They are extremely alert to the sounds around. All those who are pursuing greatness, must be alert to happenings around, not to get disturbed, but to learn from them.
Alpa- Haari: Many might say, alp-haar i.e. eating less will have an adverse effect on our health. Well this is not what is implied here. We have different kinds of sensory organs. For tongue we have food. For our ears , music, talks. For our eyes, the scenery, videos, visuals are the food. For each of our sensory organ, there are ahaars.
So when it says alpahaari, it means we need to be very selective, as to what food do we offer to our senses. As whatever input we give to our senses, it goes and makes a very deep indelible impact on our system, which in Sanskrit we call sanskaar. We should fill our mind space with things which have and add value. Hence alp ahaar.
Grah Tyagi: Grah means home and tyagi means sacrifice. Literal meaning is that a successful person should leave his/her home. This might bring some arguments by my intellectual friends. Hold on, let me tell you the implied meaning too. It implies that, home always refers to a very comfortable place. So a human being looking for greater pursuits should leave the comforts, or if I say, should leave his comfort zone. No pains no gains.
So these 5 qualities are called the lakshanam (attributes) of a successful human being. Today I wonder the simplicity with which certain complex things were narrated in our scriptures in so simple words. Friends, learn them, install them in your hardware, and explore new possibilities...all the best...
(The author is a Lucknow-based leadership coach, corporate trainer and an Internationally certified Design Thinking Master practitioner)