Clarity Of Thought & Purpose

I start with a very interesting story which was recently narrated by none other than Dr Debashis Chatterjee, Director, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) , Kozhikode in an online learning and development programme.

Before I begin with the story, a little about IIM and it’s Head. IIM is the most prestigious Management Institution of India which churns out brilliant minds year after year. Only students of outstanding caliber get admission into IIMs through competitive examination which is extremely hard to crack. Amongst all the IIMs, situated in different cities of India, the one in Kolkata was supposed to be the best till now. But under the flagship of Dr. Chatterjee, IIM, Kozhikode, has overtaken IIM, Kolkata in academic standards.

Let me tell you, India lays great emphasis and importance on academia. An alumni of IIM does not have to worry about job placement. His career is set like the cherry on the top of the cake.

Now about Dr. Chatterjee. He is the most sought after management guru of contemporary times. His lectures are available on You Tube. He has written seventeen books which are excellent, insightful reads not only for management students and corporates but also for the rest who wish to gain wisdom on how to live life successfully, not in materialistic terms, but holistically.

I had the privilege of listening to him on how to achieve goals in uncertain times. Goal here does not mean only yearly targets but broadly the larger purpose of life.

He narrates a beautiful story from our epic, Mahabharata. It was the Swayamvar Sabha of Princess Draupadi, daughter of King Panchal. In ancient times, the ideal groom for royal princesses were chosen through the process of Swayamvar which literally means finding your own husband. A tough task or test was kept for the prospective grooms. The one who successfully performed the task the princess accepted him as her life partner. Anybody could participate in this process. However, it was primarily a competition amongst kings and princes. It was also a matter of great prestige to win the target as it also proved who was the best in every respect amongst the royal candidates.

Arjuna, the third sibling of Panch or five Pandava brothers, decided to woo Draupadi. In order to win her, he had to pierce the eye of a fish hanging right up. The contenders were not allowed to look at the fish but achieve the extra ordinary feat by looking at the reflection of the fish in the pond over which the fish was hung. All the participants failed but Arjuna succeeded. It’s another story that Draupadi had prayed hard that Arjuna should win as he was the greatest warrior of the time. However, when Arjuna was asked how he could manage to aim accurately at the eye of the fish which was swinging high up, just by looking at its reflection, his terse answer was ” I could only see it’s eye.” Dr. Chatterjee humorously added that Arjuna might actually be seeing only Draupadi’s eyes in the eye of the fish but in order to attain the larger goal he concentrated on the goal near at hand which he had to fulfill for achieving a greater purpose. Dr. Chatterjee concluded ,” That is clarity of thought.”

He explained with another equally beautiful story that clarity of thought is achieved when your mind is clear.

In Pietermaritzburg station when Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was pushed out of the first class compartment of a train, as it was only meant for white skinned people, he realized he had only one shoe on. The other one was left inside the compartment. He, on the spur of the moment, threw in the one shoe that he had on inside the compartment before the train departed. When he was asked why he did so, he answered that one shoe was of no use to him. Similarly, the one shoe left in the train was of no use if a poor man found it. So, he threw the other one of the pair in as well so that whosoever found it could use it. Dr. Chatterjee again reiterated, ” That’s what you call clarity of thought.” Listening to him, I thought, Bapu’s (fondly called as he is considered the Father of the Nation) action could be a result of presence of mind. But later, I realized that even presence of mind emerges out of clarity of thought.

Dr. Chatterjee said when Science had not taken over mankind, the ancient sages and rishis performed the roll of Scientists. They realized the universal truths through deepest of the deep dhyana, i.e. meditation. This undistracted inward concentration towards the core of the being is the fount of all knowledge. Such concentration declutters mind off useless chatters and leads to clarity of purpose which in turn facilitates setting of goals in life and deciding the course of action to attain them.

What is Samadhi? Dr. Chatterjee explains that it is that state of unwavering focus where the meditator overcomes the barriers of body and mind. In that state his awareness of self is a revelation of the Supreme Consciousness. I have read that Swami Vivekananda, before embarking on his journey to the West, went into Samadhi wherein his inner voice guided him to chart the historical journey to Chicago.

Another nugget of wisdom shared by Dr. Chatterjee was on competitiveness. To attain goals, it is commonly construed, that one has to be singlemindedly competitive. Competitiveness, in common parlance, degenerates into rivalry and oneupmanship.

Dr. Chatterjee illustrated that competitiveness can be defined as a series of coordinated activities of cooperation and collaboration. Even being cooperative and collaborative with others one can be competitive and a successful goal achiever. He again gives a lovely example to prove this. He says before coming to work, you get ready. Your mother or sister or cook or house help prepares and serves breakfast to you. Even the breakfast items are either delivered to you or you have to purchase from the regular seller. If you are using public conveyance then somebody drives you to office. (In my case, I have a driver who helps me reach office on time). On reaching your work hub you have to coordinate with your team to set a number of activities in motion. If you do not collaborate with others or others co-operate with you, will you be able to finish your day’s work ? The one who is able to bring to table a diverse group of people to perform a job seamlessly and secure the targets on time is surely the leader.

As for me, I have never set goals in a planned and systematic manner in life. I have swum with the currents and managed to stay afloat somehow. At the fag end of my life I guess it is high time I set my goals as per the take aways from Dr. Chatterjee’s profound discourse. These are :

Declutter your mind through inward focus.

Set your goals with clarity of thought and purpose.

Co-operate and collaborate with those you have to function with.

Achieve your goals in a peaceful and de-stressed manner.

Are you all with me?