44 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 3 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 1 7 • When a person’s position is thus changed, we always need to be very deeply and personally concerned about his/her further progress, especially the spiritual progress. No one should be let go without a discussion and advice on further spiritual progress. Once we are in a relationship, it is not terminate with termination of a “salary” and such; the personal spiritual connection within the family remains deep and eternal. • One does not make decisions and impose them just because one has the authority to do so. The leader, head of a department or of the family is primus inter pares, first among equals. Thus she/he only informs, consults widely and lets the decision come from the consensus among the “others”. • A sādhaka manager humbly consults the “juniors” and listens to them. • A sādhaka manager invites critique and considers and weighs deeply all points offered in the critique. • A sādhaka manager does not impose his opinion; she/he only presents his/her views and information and lets the decision come by consensus so that all think it was their decision. • As in life, so in the organizational family and in the ashram, whatever will be forcibly taken away from you, renounce it beforehand from your own volition. • Here are some more additional points for personal spiritual practice. • In all matters, see what excites, what agitates, and avoid that. For example, red is not a good color for communication in writing. • Avoid that which creates wrinkles in others’ foreheads, and in your forehead. The moment one observes wrinkle developing, a negative shadow passing over someone’s face as one communicated, remedial action should be taken by changing one’s emotion and state of mind, and thereby the tone of one’s voice, gesture, body-language till the wrinkles disappear. • Remember that wrinkles on the forehead are signs of wrinkles in the mind, the lines of your forehead are the script in which the history of one’s emotions is inscribed. • It is needed to keep one’s mind unwrinkled and thereby unwrinkled the minds of those who are in your presence. It is beneficial to do saumyā mantra (Gopālāchārlu 1934) often to pacify yourself and pacify others: “Saumyaa saumya-taraacehSha-saumyebhyas tvati-sundaree paraaparaaNaam paramaa tvam eva parameshvaree.” • Swami Rama in his form as Madhusudan Saraswati (2000) has written in his commentary onBhagavad Gītā: “Vaktur evaayam doSho yad asyaabhipraayam shrotaa na budhyati” – “It is but the speaker’s flaw that the listener has not understood his intent.” • One of the words for compassion and empathy is anu-kampaa. Trembling with, vibrating with (someone). As the musician on a string instrument like sitar plays on the main strings, the sympathetic strings vibrate and tremble. This is the secret of sympathetic and empathic listening and communicating. • When you note something in someone that is disagreeable to you, even in management and administration, through anu-kampa place your mind and heart in the place in his/her mind where she/he is coming from. That person’s society, culture, personal background, and how his/her psychology was/is formed. It is in this context that you first address his/her concerns and not condemn. Then explain your reasons, in a clam and loving voice, for the action you wish to take. • A self-observant sādhaka will notice that quite often in a conversation or discussion even very minor wrinkles in the mind, emotion, vice and tone, and on face and in body language of the other party are picked up by ourselves and we also develop the same wrinkles, similar tones and responses. This, in modern neurology is an act of “mirror neurons”. What others do, we begin to do. When one laughs others laugh. When one yawns, others yawn. • Results of the self-experimentations in this regard are confirmed scientifically (Chrysikou 2012). A question “is a bad mood contagious?” was answered by Gary W. Lewandoski (2014). We can paraphrase: Scientists call this phenomenon emotional contagion, a three-step process through which one person’s feelings transfer to another person. The first stage involves nonconscious mimicry, during which individuals subtly copy one another’s nonverbal cues, including posture, facial expressions and movements. In effect, seeing my frown makes you more likely to frown. People may then experience a feedback stage – because you frowned, you now feel sad. During the final contagion stage, individuals share their experiences until their emotions and behaviors become synchronized. • In the described self-experiments, there is a great difference between mimicry and empathy. I choose my feeling and emotion independently, and not as an act of my mirror-neurons. Any good meditator can learn to do that. These facts of life have been taught by the ancients for thousands of years, and being forgotten in the last century or two of our false ideas of “development”, “advancement” and “success”. So, I quote modern science just to convince the
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