SPIRITUALITY IN BUSINESS AND THE WORKPLACE

This topic comes to mind in the hope that it will contribute for the betterment of business and work environment. Considering that approximately 67 % of the waking hours of working men and women are spent in the workplace, it stands to reason that this aspect of life must be given wholehearted attention for our spiritual development. Besides, we know that spirituality is not intended to be confined within the spiritual/religious organizations. It should be part of the air we breathe in order to advance fully in our spiritual path. Furthermore, based on my personal observations and experiences and I think you will agree with me as I give examples later that there are practices in the business and work environment that need renewal and application of spirituality. I believe there is a relation between spirituality and the sustainability of the economy as you will see in my explanation later.

It is true that putting up and managing a business has attendant purpose of creating wealth. But to me, creating wealth and abundant life should come hand in hand with spirituality. In fact creating wealth can be a means to one’s spiritual path. How is this so? We create wealth not just for personal use and comfort but also to serve God, man, and society.  It is for the love and service of God and mankind. In a true spiritual path where we want to attain oneness with our God Presence, everything that we do is for God, and this includes business and work. In this view, you don’t make money just for a sheer purpose of amassing wealth for power, fame and worldly pleasure. You will be motivated to use your God-given talent, skills, ability, education and knowledge to create a business that you are passionate with and use these for your spiritual development and service to God and man. If the sole purpose is just to make money, you would probably be tempted to become dishonest in dealing with your clients, customers, and employees and probably business partners as well. You would actually be espousing the philosophy of materialism, neglecting the Spirit of God as the Source of all life.  

Based on my personal observation, almost always you can find an element of dishonesty and deception in many business activities today. It seems to me that this is already a common practice in business. These can be seen in the promotion and marketing strategies of different companies, salesmen selling their goods and services to householders and in various shops; as well as managing employees and their salaries.  This is not to mention the many problems and conflicts like politicking, infighting, and even corruptions going on within the business organizations itself.

Here are some of the dishonest practices that I observed of which I have been victim a couple of times here in Melbourne, Australia. A lot of times you can find in many shops (some are big companies) certain product placed in a different spot (mingled with other similar products but different specification) where the tag price is way cheaper than its actual price. You can tell that it was put there on purpose to confuse the customer because its specification is almost the same as the products in that spot. If you are not careful, you will immediately grab that product, head to the cashier, and when you learned of the actual price, you don’t want to return it anymore for some reason that maybe you were in a hurry and you need the item right away. There was an occasion when the cashier was even laughing at me for buying it. Sometimes you had already gone home before you knew from the receipt that the price was different. One time I almost became a victim of this maybe for the fourth time. But I returned the product after some disagreement with a staff who became apologetic afterwards. Another observation is you will find some companies having a convincing advertising slogan showing that their products are cheaper from competitors , but you will realize that they are not true if you buy from their shops; it is just to bait you to buy their products; some product requires accessories that are sold very costly, some will have a higher delivery cost. Almost always there is a hidden costs. I have encountered salesman of energy billing company offering lower rate than their competitors; after the convincing sales-talk, right away you can sign the documents and you have a new billing company with cheaper rate; but after a few months they raise the price much higher. You cannot terminate the contract because of a very high termination fee.  Some will say that even if you move to another place they will continue the contract if the place is within their domain, but if you move to a new house you are of course obliged to terminate the contract. You will not know much about this if you are new migrant and it’s your first time to move houses.  I noticed that there is a stiff energy billing competition here in Australia. Some will even say negative things against their competitor. Many of them pretend that they are just checking out if you have a correct energy rate, but it turns out that they are also one of the billing companies. I remember there was a time when we were in the city to eat dinner, when there was a celebration of democracy day. We entered a parking lot in a building offering a flat rate of $ 10.00. A lot of cars had already entered and almost no one could find any parking space because the parking is full. Almost every car would have to go outside the building. I noticed that some ahead of us were paying into the paying machine even if they did not park at all. I resolved that we will not pay anything even if we get to the boom gate to get out. Upon reaching the boom gate I inserted the parking card expecting that the gate will open because we were there inside for only 10 – 15 minutes and we did not park at all. But it flashes the payment of $10.00 instead. I tried to press the intercom button to talk to the security and to explain that we did not park inside. Immediately the voice from the intercom told us that we just have to press again the card button then the card will come out, reinsert it then the boom gate will open. Now how about those who paid. They were deceived, weren’t they? The administration or security should have flashed a full parking sign outside the building. I just wished that they did not intentionally put the sign knowing that some patrons will pay. Even in online business such as the selling of anti-virus software, malware and spyware, some of these companies I believe were the ones attacking a lot of internet users with virus. There are some software program that must be updated yearly and if you buy online, they will automatically deduct the payment from your credit card after a year. They must have put it in the agreement but who reads a lengthy agreement online? They should have let the customer know through question if they wanted to renew yearly; I know other online company that does that.

My wife a lot of times had returned products she bought from different shops because she found out later (even if the day had passed) that the price in the receipt is different from the tag price. One time there was a shop in the market that she used to buy goods from that she told the cashier in the face that she had encountered that a lot of times in their shop before the eyes of other customers. She told me that one of her friend had encountered that too. There are many similar examples of dishonesty in business that I am sure many of you have also encountered. It seems that these are common practices in the business community. Don’t you think that spirituality is so much needed in business and the workplace?

I know that there are also model companies out there that are worth telling but this writing is not intended to be an academic study where you can make surveys and interviews of some well-known business organizations. I would just like to put across some spiritual concepts that I have in mind that can be applied in business which can contribute to make a better workplace environment.

Management in the workplace

It will come to mind that by building a business itself, one is already helping the nation and society by providing employment and thus contribute to national economy. But we know that it must do more than that if the business will be used for spiritual progress as well because simply providing employment or money is not a guarantee for soul development, it may even be contradictory. It will be greatly beneficial if the management should foster a culture incorporating and inculcating values, ethics, and spirituality at work. If you were a business owner or a major stockholder, or part of the management team, you must determine how you can use your business to be of service to God and Man.  You must be concerned about your company’s dealing with customers and the quality of products or services that you render to the public. Your company will not be dishonest to the public just to get them buy your products and services to gain more profit; for that will be a disservice to God and man. You will not charge exorbitant fees or prices to your customers. In fact you must love them, fill their product needs and make friends. Your salesperson must be able to explain honestly why one product or service is cheaper and the other is higher and let them or help them decide which to choose. And this philosophy of loving and befriending customers should reflect throughout the rank and file.

An equal concern will be the welfare of the people in your organization. I am not an expert on business and organizational management, but I think it is just right that the management should be concerned with the welfare of their employees. This will foster good relationship between management and employees. There should be honesty and fairness on dealing with them as well as their salaries, safety, training, etc. There has to be no racism and politicking.  Teach values and set an example.

One of the things that I applaud in the workplace practice here in Australia is the improvement on safety practices where it considers not only the physical welfare but also the psychological and emotional welfare of workers. This is embodied in the Safety Act which puts into consideration that the workplace must really be a pleasant place to work in. This means it is not just direct prevention of accident but also takes into account the stress physically and psychologically on the workers for it will affect the health and consequently the work performance as well. This will include fostering harmonious relationships in the work environment. Some companies are having regular Toolbox meetings (safety meeting). I sometimes think that because it is somehow related with mind-body-spirit connectivity, injecting some spiritual sermons and value formation in the meeting can be of great help to them or perhaps creating a special committee to the same end. They can consider giving away free inspirational book as a reward for good performance. This aspect of work cannot be overlooked because of too much focus on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and profit by the management. I believe that the health and spiritual aspect must take precedent over the profit of the company.  

Making big profit can just be secondary. Making money is not the real reason for our existence anyway, we exist for God. We therefore use money for God. In my opinion, we don’t need to aspire to become $ multi-millionaire or billionaire for ego aggrandizement. We don’t need to have such amount of money simply for the purpose of comfortable living. We also cannot live on too much extravagance which could be a waste of energy and money that God provided us. Thus if you ever become multi-millionaire or billionaire, the excess money or profit of your business organization can be used for further service to God and people. Perhaps your company needs to allot finances for improvement on pollution controls and other environmental measures. Or maybe you should add an internal audit department if your company doesn’t have one for the purpose of continuous improvement of operations and service. Or maybe your company might consider product diversification or its expansion because you know that it will entail more jobs and employment and thus contribute to the national economy. Consequently, this will also gain more profit that can be allotted for donations to a good cause or charitable institutions.  We must remember that the help that we give especially for a good cause, will return to us as good karma in addition to our own spiritual development. In this perspective, managing business will become a means for spiritual practice. And I believe that if this kind of business philosophy - integrating money-making and spirituality - is practiced by all businessmen, it can actually be a cause for sustainable economy generation after generation leading to the flowering of the golden age.

Let me explain this further from a different angle.  From esoteric point of view, if you were able to get rich through corrupt practices, sooner or later that will be taken away from you by the law of karma if not in this life, in the next life. Aside from malicious practices, some businesses are actually not good for the spirituality and health of the public such as the cigarette industry, gambling, nightclubs as well as pornography and prostitution. (Some are actually considered a crime or illegal like illicit drugs, etc.). Yet these kind of businesses still thrives probably because many customers are patronizing it. You might think that this kind of businesses are contributing to the growth of the economy and also helps for the sociological needs of the people. I disagree with this for a practical reason that there are other constructive activities and businesses that can adequately replace these kind of business that are inimical to one’s spirituality and family life. In my opinion, if we will establish the kingdom of God on earth, these kind of business should have no place in our society. I believe the governments should regulate and conduct a program to gradually phase out these businesses. I believe that there are attendant negative karma for the supporters and operators of these businesses.

I believe that people or group who were able to get rich without considering values, ethics and the welfare of the people can get negative karma; again, if not in this life in their next life/incarnation on earth. By karmic law, it could be enough to cause economic recession considering the expanse of the business activity worldwide. It may also necessitate for some or many of them to be born in the poor segment of society, and thus the existence of poor environment remains. Some of these souls might find it hard to rise up because of their negative momentum until they learn their lessons and acknowledge that only God is the Source of abundant life. Depending upon the extent of accumulated misqualified energy in their karmic records, some souls may have been alternately rich and poor in their sojourn on earth incarnations after incarnation because their outer consciousness are ignorant of or ignoring the law of karma and reincarnation. They may have balanced their karma in one incarnation and then failed in the next because their minds are governed by acquiring material wealth but devoid of spirit. Thus the Teachings on the law of karma and reincarnation as well as the violet flame must be spread down to the grassroots level to be of help in the raising up of souls, and to transmute and mitigate karma individually and collectively.

Another thing that I would like to discuss is competition in business. I reckon that if every business manager will view business and work as service to God and man, there will be no business competition. You will not compete on serving God but rejoice in one another’s sacred labor. You will work complementing one another’s work and possibly consider alliances instead of competition. You will not be driven by desire to monopolize the market and gain exclusive profit but to share the service. All will be working with common goal of serving God and man.

Employees at work 

One of the concept that I would like to get across for the workers or employees is that their real employer is God. Once more, whatever type of work we are in – whether it is professional service, government and private office work, factory work and many others – I believe that it has to be viewed as a service to God and man. We work for the benefit of everyone. We work not only for ourselves and our family but also for the benefit of the client or customer (general public), for the benefit of the company, for the benefit of co-workers and for the benefit of the nation. Work relationships and ethics therefore must be given paramount importance.

As a worker, it is our duty to do great service to the client/customer which can be considered as the general public. If you have this in mind, you would like to have a good quality product or service that will satisfy the client. You will not be doing your work just to get a good pay from the company.  Good pay of course is desirable, but we cannot jeopardize our good service to the general public by not doing our work well simply because our pay is not good enough for the service that we render. Negotiating a good pay with your company is another matter which I believe must also be approached in harmonious relationship.  We also work for the benefit of our co-worker. That means camaraderie and teamwork to get the job done well. A little work-sacrifice on our part can sometimes be given if it’s within your capacity to do so in order to get the work completed on time  and will engender good camaraderie as well. Although of course we should know whether a worker is intentionally not doing his duty/responsibility because of incompetence, lack of training, or maybe laziness where in this case proper correction and direction must be done. There should be a spirit of cooperation to improve the work and service to the public.

We should therefore abstain from politicking in the workplace.  I think this is the area where many employees are falling victims into. Sometimes simply because of politics and professional jealousy, a worker or employee surreptitiously does something foolish that will make his/her co-worker put into bad light even if they know it will jeopardize their client/s.  They do not care even if the product or service and consequently the image of their own company will be badly affected. These kind of politicking are done because of insecurity or the desire to be above his/her co-workers.  In my experience in the workplace here in Australia, many times you will find how a new worker will be disgruntled because everyone becomes his/her boss. And even some supervisor or his assistant does not teach fully the method of work for the newcomers perhaps intentionally to see him commit mistakes and put him into bad light. It doesn’t matter to them whether the operation of the factory or product quality will be affected or not. In a multi-cultural country like Australia, these kind of politicking at work often happen because of racial discrimination. It can be observed that those who do this thing are oftentimes new or not-so-old immigrants. Long-time immigrants usually are aware of this and friendly to the new immigrants. It is the duty of the management to give directions on non-discrimination in the workplace as racial discrimination is against the law. We should remember that our soul has no colour or race. Our soul is a universal citizen of the cosmos. We are all brothers and sisters. We are all sons and daughters of God.  We can bear in mind that politicking in any form in any place at any time has no place in the Kingdom of God.

We can consider our work as service to God and as a means for meditation. We can practice the mindfulness meditation where we always observe our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions and correct them if not good. We can use work as time for self-mastery, building good attitude and practicing Christly virtues. We can meditate on our I AM Presence helping and guiding us in our work. We are to aspire or imitate our great Master Jesus who said, “My Father works hitherto and I work”, and “I of my own self can do nothing, it is the Father in me who doeth the work.”  Bearing this in mind, we will be working the works of God with love, happiness, and harmony.

My we include in our prayers and calls that the businesses and workplaces in our nations be transformed and imbued with Spirituality.