For some time now the word on the capitalist streets of the Western world has been that there’s a desperate need for a new way of doing business. The suggested solution is the way of ‘conscious’ capitalism supported by ‘conscious’ leadership and many companies are introducing training programmes on the subject and implementing policies of social responsibility in a bid to address this need.
Conscious capitalism essentially means that an organisation and it’s people become conscious of the causes and effects of it’s daily business practices, systems and processes on both other human beings and the environment. It means establishing a culture through the implementation of business practices and management strategies that prioritise social and environmental concerns for the benefit of human well-being, internally and externally, locally and globally.
In parallel to this we have also been noticing - particularly over the last 3 years - that there has been a fairly sharp rise in interest in the subject of spirituality in the work place. We suspect that this is to do with the emerging challenges of the current, global economic situation and perhaps a re-evaluation of what is important, valuable and of significance in people’s lives. As a result many individuals and organisations in the personal and professional development space including writers and consultants like Barbara Heyn, Cindy Wigglesworth and Joan Marques have introduced relevant books, programmes and seminars on the subject. There’s even ‘The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Spirituality in The Workplace’ by someone called C Diane Ealy. As I’m not a complete idiot I haven’t read it. Yet…
But what is spirituality and how can we begin a discussion in the workplace on a subject that is so personal?
The word itself is difficult to define and belongs in a category along with love, god, creativity, talent and charisma. All of which are subjective. Like the heightened emotions we might describe as loving feelings, spiritual experiences can be completely different for each person, being thoroughly dependent as they are, on a person's culture, stage of life and state of mind. For instance, speaking personally, spirituality for me is the experience of connecting with the deepest impulse within myself to 'create' something. Sometimes felt as an underlying anxiety, or undefined agitation and at other times it presents as feelings of excitement. But, I translate these feelings as coming from an energy and intelligence emanating from the infinite, boundless, timeless ground of being. An eternal process of creation, seeking to express a non-dual, always, already, ever present sense of self. Some might call that spirituality, others would call it the force of nature and a psychiatrist might describe it as delusion.
But my personal realisation has led me to understand spirituality as a connection with the essential quality of the source of creation, which I personally translate as an infinitely bubbling, creative ferment. Not a 'being' as such, more a potential state of suspended 'doing'. Something that I am integrally a part of but also something that fills me up and makes me feel whole. I tend to describe the feeling of this ferment at the core of me and in the ground of being as the 'Primordial Anxiety'. The stress of an infinite and eternal energy only ever able to manifest itself in finite forms.
I've long suspected that the Buddhist concept of the wheel of Samsara is an inescapable ride, because if you think long and hard on the idea, it is the ultimate process of creativity and itself is an expression of the eternal ferment (or primordial anxiety). After all, how could it ever cease turning? Under what circumstances could an eternal, boundless, timeless, space less, uncontainable being ever contain the infinity of itself in a finite form anyway? It will always have a part of itself that remains outside of, and separate from itself. Anxious about being left out of all the fun. So – and this is purely my personal view - riding on the wheel of Samsara is essential. Waking, sleeping, dreaming, doing and being all use energy and are perfect activities on which to focus the ever present anxiety. Relief comes by making and taking form, manifesting the material universe so that the impulse that began this particular cycle can become conscious of itself, through all of us. We have developed conscious minds so we can experience the difference between pain and pleasure, happiness and sadness, sleep and awakening. With our bodies and our minds we can experience 'being' rather than remaining anxious in an eternal state of potential, doing nothing. After all, how happy could Adam and Eve really have been in that garden? If you're that happy and have everything you want and need, you're not going to be tempted to do anything that would risk your happiness. Not unless there was always that twinge of anxiety, wondering if one bite of the forbidden fruit would lead to something better. Clearly, they were both waiting for something better.
Back to the impulse of the primordial anxiety. How can we understand it? Well, in its most basic form, it is the desire to procreate. The sexual urge. In its most sublime expression, it is the desire to co-create the world. To pick up where the blind, random, groping hand of evolution and natural selection left off. Music, maths, painting, dance, scientific theories, theological propositions, poetry, sport, love, beauty, birds, bees, bubble-gum trees, everything and anything is simply an expression of the primordial anxiety. For me spirituality means relieving the often unconscious, subtle, yet ever present anxious excitement by creating things to share. That could be anything from making music, writing poems, training programmes, drawing, ideas, cooking, constructing mathematical formulas, speaking and of course blogging.
Now, what you’ve just read may have made total sense to you or you might consider it absolute nonsense. Perhaps you vehemently disagree with me and it has left you feeling frustrated or cross. Either way, if you and I were working together and you’d have asked me where I find spiritual comfort and inspiration I would have to say that it is purely in creativity and definitely not in a set of rules laid down in ancient texts by humans I’ve never met. It is in the future more that the past. It is in what’s possible more than what’s impossible. It is in creation more than destruction and it is in evolution and change more than stability and stasis. And that is the challenge of spirituality in the workplace. We all have our own perspective. What makes the subject such a profound challenge is that many people – me included- totally identify themselves by their values, ideas and beliefs on the nature of spirit, god, the universe and existence itself. That might be through one of the traditional religions or it may be something more esoteric and occult. So, can it ever be appropriate, safe, practical or even useful to broach the subject at work in the context of a ‘training’ programme? At the moment I honestly don’t know.
At 4D Human Being we always aim to take an integral perspective and assume that no-one can be 100% wrong 100% of the time. In other words each spiritual perspective may reveal a partial truth. So, for now we are quite content to stick with supporting the values and themes of conscious, capitalism and conscious leadership and we'll be listening, acknowledging and leaving each to their own when it comes to spirituality. What do you think?
Post by Tom
