Create a Joyful and Productive Workplace

In the workplace, creating a meditative atmosphere can foster an environment where everyone enjoys the workday,  increasing engagement, morale, and performance. Just a few meditating individuals change change the face of an entire business! Sadhguru has offered yoga and meditation programs for companies such as Microsoft,  JP Morgan, Ford Motor Company, and Google. The following excerpt is from Project Bloom, which chronicles the business roundtable meetings with Sadhguru and provides case-study examples that demonstrate how meditation can be a powerful tool in business.

Meditation is not Something You Do…

“Meditation is not an act. It’s not something that you do; it’s something that you become. It’s a certain quality. If you cultivate your body, your mind, your emotion, and your energy to a certain level of maturity, meditation will happen. A certain state of being is referred to as meditation. One way of describing this in terms of work would be when you are meditative, you are functioning out of
your intelligence, responding to every situation that you face. When you are meditative, the reaction aspect of you is taken off. No matter what kind of situation you’re placed in, you are not reactive to it. You are only responding to it. I think that for people who lead other people, this is the most invaluable quality in them, that they don’t react to situations. They look at everything and respond
the way their intelligence and resources allow them to respond in a given situation. Meditation would be truly invaluable for people who want to manage large groups of people.

“Meditation, or being meditative, on another level, mean you can play with life whichever way you want, without life really leaving a scratch on you. Right now, in the process of managing large situations, people are getting wounded, people are getting broken, because instead of managing life, life is managing them, or life is managing to destroy them. Meditation-if meditation comes into the workplace-if people are meditative, even to some extent, their work spaces will become very different. Work spaces would become in such a way that it would be a place that you always love to be. It would be most nurturing for your wellbeing and your health, physically, mentally, in every way. It would be most nurturing for every human being if we create a meditative atmosphere.

Meditation for Better Management

“Creating a meditative atmosphere does not mean that you have to change something about the work. It is an internal change that you bring about within yourself, that you become a very conscious response to everything, no more an unconscious reaction. The employees will also experience the benefit of this, even if just a few people in the group are truly meditative. Especially those people who are in the key areas of management, if a certain amount of meditativeness is brought into their lives, their effectiveness as managers could be hugely enhanced. It would definitely also bring physical health and mental balance.”

Ravi Venkatesan, former Chairman of Microsoft India, uses his Isha meditation practice as a management tool.   In an interview  Mr. Venkatesan said,  “I can honestly say that it was a turning point in my life in some important ways.  If you can’t manage yourself, how can you manage an organization of 5,000 people?  It’s really true. If you don’t know how to manage your time and your energy, you don’t know how to manage your reaction to situations, you really can’t be very effective at leading an organization.  If you have a significant amount of responsibility at home or at work, stress comes with it…Meditation gives you a strength and a stability to go through the day without getting overly disturbed.”