Handling Internal Dissensions

All people are not alike, and nowhere it is truer than in our workplace.

One of the frustrations that many seniors feel at work is that 'others are not like me', without pausing to consider

that God has created each one of us with unique characteristics. It may be a challenge at the workplace to deal with colleagues who show 'different behaviour', which can sometimes drain seniors' energy and sap the team's morale. Employees with 'difficult' attitudes can also be the source of workplace politics. Wise managers handle such situations with the benefit of their core values, personal moral standards, and their belief systems. They desist from entertaining the easy option of getting rid of 'difficult' people, with the knowledge that there can never be an ideal team. Mature managers focus on the specific behaviour of 'difficult' persons, and not their personal factors, and they remain mindful that one should never judge people. They seek to correct errant behaviour with empathy and care, and send a right message to the entire team.

This article highlights two instances in the life of Adi Sankara in dealing with his core disciples when they showed a 'different' behaviour. How the Acharya handled the situations with love, empathy and magnanimity is a case study for modern managers. In fact, Adi Sankara symbolises the best that every professional manager can look up to. As a ceaseless activity-oriented person, Acharya took upon one project after another in his brief illustrious life, and implemented every one of them to flawless perfection. He distinguished himself as a 'people's person', reforming people with his charisma and the power of his persuasive skills, and proved himself as a rare

example of one who excelled in strategy and execution. 

Modern offices are a microcosm of society, with an endless variety of people holding differing perspectives. Even if your colleagues are by and large good-natured, misunderstandings, disagreements and bickering occur from time to time. The seniors need to handle such situations with a mature understanding and set the tone for future amity and peaceful co-existence. Adi Sankara handled the case involving one of his close disciples, Giri, with maturity and compassion. His other disciples used to consider Giri as just ordinary, and no match to them in scholarship. Giri was a humble errand boy when he joined Sankara's entourage. He had no formal education, but he drew the affection of the master by his selfless service and cheerful disposition. He attentively listened to the master's expositions from a distance every day and longed to be in such close intellectual company. Sri Sankara, as the compassionate master, was discreetly aware of the longing of this humble soul. Once during his camp at Sringeri, Sri Sankara was about to start the class, and he noticed that Giri was not around. He fell silent, and this was baffling to the other students. One of them enquired the reason. Sri Sankara said that Giri had not come. The baffled disciples exclaimed that Giri's absence did not make any difference, as lecturing to him was a waste of time! Giri at that time was washing the master's clothes in the nearby Tunga river. A benign feeling of

compassion from the master enveloped him at the very moment, soaking his heart with grace and blessings. The transfer of mental energy from the master made Giri's alert mind ripen instantly. He collected the clothes by impulse, ran to the master, and prostrated before him with an ecstatic burst of a hymn in praise of the guru in the Totaka metre. The other disciples were astounded by the miraculous change in a common boy and the deep meaning of his outpouring. The Acharya blessed Giri and advised the other students on the importance of sraddha and absence of pride, without which any amount of book learning would be useless. The students got the message that, deep within himself, the master was assessing every motive and move of his disciples, and they corrected their attitude. Eventually, Sri Sankara gave sannyasa to Giri, who came to be known as Totakacharya.

Another example was how Sri Sankara handled internal disagreement among the disciples about a project. While staying with his disciples at Sringeri and remaining immersed in the bliss of Vedantic discussions, the master asked Suresvaracharya, his oldest disciple, to write a vartikam (a comprehensive analysis) of Acharya's Brahmasutra bhashyam. As readers may know, Suresvara was Mandana Misra and was leading the life of a householder as a brilliant exponent of karma mimamsa, performing various ritual obligations towards attaining his goal of enlightenment. Sri Sankara 

had won him over in a debate on the supremacy of jnana over rituals, at the end of which, as one defeated in the debate, Misra had embraced sannyasa and became an ardent disciple of Sri Sankara under the name Suresvara. He was much older in age than the master. Suresvara was dumbfounded by Acharya's proposal, and expressed how he could fathom the depths of the bhashya of the master to write a commentary on it. Nevertheless, persuaded by the guru considering his versatile genius and proficiency in Sastras, he agreed. But this decision caused ripples among other disciples. Padmapada, who was very erudite and extremely devoted to the guru, was agitated that Suresvara, due to his attachment to karma kanda in his earlier phase of life, might be biased if he undertook the composition of vartikam. The views reached Acharya and he asked Suresvara to temporarily stall the composition, and bid him to write an independent work instead. Accordingly, Suresvara wrote a profound work, which became popular as Naishkarmya siddhi. Meanwhile, following Acharya's command, Padmapada began to write a tika (notes) on Brahmasutra Bhashyam. After finishing the first four sutras, he read it out to the master, who praised that if the completed work got propagated, it would bring glory. Padmapada sensed a shadow of doubt in the words of the master, especially his use of the word 'if'. Sri Sankara clarified that he foresaw the future of the work to be not

very bright, with several obstacles in its propagation. The master's words came true, when a little later, Padmapada set out on a pilgrimage to Ramesvaram.  On the way, he called on his uncle at Srirangam and showed him the gloss. The uncle was a great ritualist, and he was jealous of his nephew's accomplishment. Innocently, Padmapada entrusted the manuscript for safe custody with the uncle until he came back from pilgrimage. The uncle, however, burnt the script. When Padmapada returned after a few months, the uncle told him that the book was destroyed accidentally by fire. Padmapada was overcome with grief and returned to his master. Sri Sankara, on hearing the tale of woe, dictated from his memory the commentary that Padmapada had earlier read out to him. While the joy of the disciple knew no bounds in retrieving his lost work, he intuitively realised that the episode was a consequence of the discomfiture he had caused to the guru by his stand on Suresvara's work. Here is a managerial lesson. Remain flexible to change the course of any initiative in the face of any adverse internal expressions. But remain assured that, if the initiative is dharmic and there is no trace of self centeredness, Nature will find a way for its eventual implementation and glory, with distractors becoming admirers.

R.Krishnamurthy