I am not a management expert, but I grew up under an expert of management; she was the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry. She had not studied in any management school or attended seminars on management principles, but for almost 47 years she managed a growing institution, the
Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and in later years also Auroville, giving to each inmate not only an opportunity to grow in his/her innate capacities but also to express his/her inner and outer nature, to develop his/her integral consciousness, his/her inner being, his/her soul. I lived in the Ashram from 1958 till 1973, that is, for about 15 years, during the Mother’s ministry. If I think of management by consciousness and that too, a spiritual consciousness, then the Mother provided, for me, the perfect example of spiritual management. There is, for me, no other person who could have been a better example. This experience has given me both the courage and the clarity to attempt to explore—through some in-search and research—what could probably be considered as the new principles of management by consciousness, in the light of the Mother’s ministry.

The quadruple principles of her management of the most diverse conglomeration of human beings both at the Ashram and Auroville could perhaps be summarised as: wisdom, power, harmony, and perfection. These principles were all wrapped in divine love and not in a shroud of fear: the fear of the board of management or the boss. I guess these principles could be considered, seen from a particular angle, as the foundation for management by consciousness. What follows here is mostly based on personal experience, observation, and reflection. The task of interpreting and connecting this reflective account of essential principles of management by consciousness as applied during the Mother’s ministry in the Ashram with the contexts prevailing in organizations and institutions elsewhere is left upon a management expert!

Wisdom

The central guiding principle of action of such a management by consciousness was: “All can be done if the God-touch is there” (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri). When we were in the Ashram in our childhood, we always felt confident of ourselves in work, in play, in life because we had the immense faith in this spiritual dictum given by Sri Aurobindo. In a different manner, the same principle forms one of the central guidelines of the Bhagavat Gita itself:

Yatra yogeshwarah Krishna, yatra partho dhanurdharah,
Tatra shreervijayo bhutirdhruva, nithirmathirmama
(Bhagavat Gita, chapter xviii, 78)

(“Wherever there is Sri Krishna, the master of Yoga, and Arjuna, the wielder of the bow, there shall be found wealth, victory, general welfare and unwavering justice and ethical sense.”)

When the human effort, here represented by that of Arjuna, is supported or sustained by the wisdom of the total vision and a spiritual consciousness, of the highest order, here represented by Sri Krishna, then there is not only the well-being of the individual but also of the welfare of the community and the nation. But, unfortunately, modern man has alienated himself from this ancient truth of Nara-Narayana, of the combined action of man and God to manifest and to fulfil God in life.

Modern culture, as we understand it, grew out of the 18th century Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment. It gained universal approbation in the late 19th century through the movement of French Revolution and came to its own in the Industrial Revolution and the Industrial Socialism of the 20th century. It promised to “emancipate humanity from natural and religious limits” (Griffin, p. 43). But instead of liberating humanity, modern culture seems to have brought humanity to the edge of self-destruction.

“We now face the slow threat of the ecological poisoning and a rapid threat of nuclear holocaust. In the meantime, great energies of human exploitation, oppression, and alienation are unleashed across the ‘three worlds’.

“The modern dream has turned a full circle. Seeking to free itself, modern scientific progress has become precariously uprooted—from the earth, from the human community and its tradition, and above all from the religious mystery” (Ibid, p. 44).

But luckily for us, the children who grew up at the Ashram, we were outside this scope of modernity’s self-destruction. We were at all times wrapped in a Divine Mystery. The Mother showed us constantly that it is the Divine who is behind all expressions of life—be political, cultural, religious, economic or social. In fact, as we grew up life itself was slowly unraveling the hidden secrets of Divine Presence. And to that Presence we learnt to surrender progressively. We were ready at all times to be give in to her will and wisdom in matters small and big.

To give you an example of how we were taught to surrender when we were children: whenever I had to go to Chennai or any other place, I used to write to the Mother seeking her permission and also telling her the details of the purpose of my going. She would graciously give me the permission, writing on the letter ‘blessings’. That was perhaps an insignificant thing. But even in more important matters, which changed the destiny of my life, I learnt to surrender to her guidance. Here is an example. After completing my education in the Ashram, I was planning to go to the USA for my higher education. So I wrote to the Mother on 17.1.1969 seeking her decision regarding my desire to go to the US. I had even communicated to the authorities at Monmouth College, Illinois, USA, through my father who was there at that time, that I would be joining from the winter semester. Still, after posting the official admission forms to the University, I wrote to the Mother: “I await your decision, your choice, your advice, your will and your blessings” indicating that the final decision would be hers. She replied on the same day:

“I can tell you immediately that all depends on what you expect from life. If it is to live an ordinary or even successful life according to the usual old type, go to America and try your best.
“If, on the contrary, you aspire at getting ready for the future and the new creation it prepares, remain here and prepare yourself for what is to come.

“You will answer on your birthday. Blessings.”

For modern youngsters it may sound funny and they could ask me: “Couldn’t you decide for yourself? We are free to decide our own destiny, is it not?” But that was not the attitude we had in our younger days: we were learning the spiritual lesson of the process of surrendering to the higher consciousness represented by the Mother. After all, yoga begins with surrender and ends with surrender to the Divine. So for us it was not a teaching; it was more a living process of a spiritual growth.

In this example we see that one of the Mother’s foundations of working with human beings was self-offering and conscious surrender to the Divine consciousness. Surrender to the Divine was the only security of our life and in her guidance we had found the meaning of all our action. And most often, her guidance, her replies to our queries would come as a happy surprise (as seen in the letter quoted above), perhaps instructing our minds that it cannot plan and execute as it wants; that there is a higher consciousness, which when surrendered to, guides us cutting across all logic and reasoning of the human mind.

On one side we felt her immense grace and on the other we felt sweetness. She was indeed the central authority of the Ashram’s management but she did not act as a CEO, blind with the power of professional egoism. Her authority was centered in her having a far superior spiritual consciousness than the human, which could regard all devotees and non-devotees with equality and equanimity. She kept in view the totality of work and the needs of managing the Ashram and Auroville on different levels such as the physical, the psychological and the spiritual. She was at all times generous, sweet, loving, understanding and forgiving, but at times also strict where there was hypocrisy, insincerity or falsehood.

As an organizational leader, she set high examples of aesthetic sense, work discipline, interpersonal relations, positive attitude, and a high aspiration for change and transformation of the lower nature.

Apart from her dealings with the human beings, the other fundamental lesson that we learnt from her wisdom was the equation between spirit and matter. We came to understand that matter is the body and form of the Spirit. Because of this profound equation, which became a living truth of our life, we knew that our own body is verily the temple of God. Going further, if that were the truth on the individual level, then it should be so on the collective level too; human society is also an embodiment of the collective or the group-soul. Further, Nature and the whole earth itself is an embodiment of the Spirit; a physical extension of the Divine: All is a single whole, one Divine Consciousness.

Power

This changed worldview, a recovery of the Vedic vision, definitely determined our way of thinking, feeling and acting. In the earlier centuries, religion had made the power of God more powerful than that of Divine Love. This belief in an omnipotent and intolerant God was reflected in the ruthless attitudes of the human managers who dealt inhumanly with their workers and employees. The tendency to believe that God is only transcendental and not immanent ultimately led to the stage of thinking that there is no God. And atheism seemed to be the best solution, for the atheist would be more humane and rational and less despotic. But, unfortunately, it was not to be so: bereft of belief in the Divine, man succumbed more to his demoniac ego, became immoral and violent and his relations with his colleagues and subordinates in the work area suffered more disastrous consequences.

But having been given more of a unitarian vision of existence, we learnt to be non-coercive and more collaborative in our relationships with others. In fact, even those who were in-charge of some of the Ashram departments were discouraged from dominating or imposing their views upon their co-workers. All tried to carry out with the utmost sincerity the work that was given to him/her by the Mother.

Each tried to follow her dictum without ever doubting her decisions’ wisdom or questioning her attitude. Each tried his/her best way to follow what the Mother would want in a particular situation. Nothing else mattered; no other principles of management were applicable. Personal feelings, differences of opinion were all drowned in the wave of harmony that originated from her consciousness. Those who were not receptive to the command of the higher consciousness or those who resisted or opposed her wish and will often did revolt, but surely suffered disharmony, despair and depression in their own inner being.

The Mother was slowly establishing an ideal institution with exemplary management principles while the world in general languished in dualistic and materialistic worldviews. Convinced by dualism which proposed that human beings by virtue of their superiority in creation were totally different from all other creatures of the world, men, in general, got a sense of superiority, which in its turn, brought in the unholy right to exploit Nature and to utilise her for men’s fancies and comforts and pleasures. This anthropocentric and its consequent materialistic view resulted in “an increased tendency to treat other human beings, especially women and ‘primitives’ as mere objects….” (Griffin, p.147).

This notion of regarding others and especially women as mere ‘objects’ did not even enter our ken of understanding! The Divine is equally in all and thereby all were to be treated equally. It is said in the Upanishads, “One does not love the wife for the sake of the wife… but for one’s self’s sake one loves the wife” (SABCL, vol. 24, p. 759). We were trained to view all as forms and figures of the one Divine consciousness. In fact, women have greater openness to spirituality, we were told by the Mother. This attitude of equality between the sexes was also reflected in the co-education system at the Ashram, and even in our physical education activities no discrimination was made between girls and boys. I suppose the Mother established this gender equality long before the western world woke up to the women’s liberation movement!

Harmony:

To achieve harmony and beauty not only between human beings but also between man and materials – used or produced – was the daily dose of consciousness that was given to us by the Mother. Not only was harmony being established between the in-charges and workers of the several Ashram departments, between men and women, but Mother also pioneered what has come to be known today as the ecological view of existence. She had experienced, even as a child, a close communication between herself and Nature. Birds and animals endeared themselves to her and she could even communicate with them. That is how she established the inner contact with the flowers and named thousands of flowers after their inner vibration and aspiration. Such a communion with the flowers and fauna gave us a consciousness of interdependence of each species and each individual in the world. The deep ancient vision of Vasudhaiva kutumbhakam—whole humanity is one family—had become the reality of a daily existence for us. Such a living steeped in a sense of oneness with our surroundings saved us from the ecological crisis which is, these days, one of the main themes of management studies.

That is why some of us are surprised when we read today something like the following: “Postmodern thought is ecological through and through, and it provides the philosophical and theological grounding for the lasting insights popularized by the ecology movement. If it, in fact, becomes the basis of new paradigm of our culture, future generations of citizens will grow up, with an ecological consciousness in which the value of all things is respected and the interconnectedness of all things is recognized. The awareness that we must walk gently through the world using only what we need, preserving the ecological balance for our neighbors and future generations, will be ‘common sense’” (Griffin, p. 152). Long before the postmodernist thought became popular, at the Ashram we had grown up with an ecological consciousness, thanks to the Mother’s example.

To feel the divine consciousnesses permeate each animate and inanimate object, to experience the Divine sweetness in the sap of life is the very essence of spirituality. The Mother awakened in us this deep sense of oneness, this touch of divine harmony, sweetness and beauty into our daily life, because for her management was a spontaneous expression of her consciousness and not something of a science or an art to be learnt or adopted from books of management theories. She took the Ashram sadhaks not as workers or ordinary inmates, but as living souls to whom she could impart this deeper oneness of Nature and god and man. By all means and methods she communicated this consciousness of unity and continuously guided the inner growth of our consciousness towards such heights.

For the Mother, it was the growth of consciousness of an individual that superseded all other considerations such as profit and loss. Once when a sadhak asked the Mother: “Mother, why is it that here, in work, some people venture to satisfy their fancies and thus much money is wasted?” she replied:

“It is not money alone that is wasted!

“Energy, Consciousness is infinitely, a thousand times more wasted than money. Should there be no wastage... my word, I believe the Ashram couldn’t be here! There is not a second when there isn’t any wastage—sometimes it is worse than that. There is this habit—hardly conscious, I hope—of absorbing as much Energy, as much Consciousness as one can and using it for one’s personal satisfactions. That indeed is something which is happening every minute. If all the Energy, all the Consciousness which is constantly poured out upon you all, were used for the true purpose, that is, for the divine work and the preparation for the divine work, we should be already very far on the road, much farther than we are. But everybody, more or less consciously, and in any case instinctively, absorbs as much Consciousness and Energy as he can and as soon as he feels this Energy in himself, he uses it for his personal ends, his own satisfaction.

“Who thinks that all this Force that is here, that is infinitely greater, infinitely more precious than all money-forces, this Force which is here and is given consciously, constantly, with an endless perseverance and patience, only for one sole purpose, that of realising the divine work—who thinks of not wasting it? Who realises that it is a sacred duty to make progress, to prepare oneself to understand better and live better? For people live by the divine Energy, they live by the divine Consciousness, and use them for their personal, selfish ends.

“You are shocked when a few thousand rupees are wasted but not shocked when there are... when streams of Consciousness and Energy are diverted from their true purpose!

“If one wants to do a divine work upon earth, one must come with tons of patience and endurance. One must know how to live in eternity and wait for the consciousness to awaken in everyone—the consciousness of what true integrity is”
(Collected Works of the Mother (CWM), vol. 6, pp. 155-56).

Of course, money and financial management have their own important place in the affairs of running the Ashram or Auroville. For her, the idea “that money must make money is a falsehood and a perversion. Money is meant to increase the wealth, prosperity and the productiveness of a group, a country or, better, of the whole earth. Money is a means, a force, a power, and not an end in itself. And like all forces and powers, it is by movement and circulation that it grows and increases its power, not by accumulation and stagnation. What we are attempting here is to prove to the world, by giving it a concrete example, that by inner psychological realization and outer organization a world can be created where most of the causes of human misery will be abolished” (CWM, vol. 13, p. 154). Money is a power that is at present controlled by the anti-divine forces, she said, and that by impersonal and desireless use of it, it could be brought back to the Divine’s work upon the earth. She explained further the deeper truth of possessing money and how to utilise it in a spiritual way:

“The conflict about money is what might be called a “conflict of ownership”, but the truth is that money belongs to no one. This idea of possessing money has warped everything. Money should not be a “possession”: like power it is a means of action which is given to you, but you must use it according to... what we can call the “will of the Giver”, that is, in an impersonal and enlightened way. If you are a good instrument for diffusing and utilising money, then it comes to you, and it comes to you in proportion to your capacity to use it as it is meant to be used. That is the true mechanism.

“The true attitude is this: money is a force intended for the work on earth, the work required to prepare the earth to receive and manifest the divine forces, and it—that is, the power of utilising it—must come into the hands of those who have the clearest, most comprehensive and truest vision.

“To start with, the first thing (but this is elementary) is not to have the sense of possession—what does it mean, “it is mine”?...Now, I don’t quite understand. Why do people want it to belong to them?—so that they can use it as they like and do what they want with it and handle it according to their own conceptions? That’s how it is. On the other hand, yes, there are people who like to store it up somewhere...but that is a disease. To be sure of always having some, they hoard it.

“But if people understood that one should be like a receiving and transmitting station and that the wider the range (just the opposite of personal), the more impersonal, comprehensive and wide it is, the most force it can hold (“force” that is translated materially: notes and coins). This power to hold is proportional to the capacity to use the money in the best way—”best” in terms of the general progress: the widest vision, the greatest understanding and the most enlightened, exact and true usage, not according to the warped needs of the ego but according to the general need of the earth for its evolution and development. That is to say, the widest vision will have the largest capacity.

“Behind all wrong movements, there is a true movement; there is a joy in being able to direct, utilise, organise in such a way that there is a minimum of waste and the maximum of result. It is a very interesting vision to have. And this must be the true side in people who want to accumulate money: it is the capacity to use it on a very large scale. Then, there are those who very much like to have it and spend it; that is something else—they are generous natures, neither regulated nor organised. But the joy of being able to satisfy all true needs, all necessities, is good. It is like the joy of changing a sickness into health, a falsehood into truth, a suffering into joy; it is the same thing: to change an artificial and foolish need—which does not correspond to anything natural—into a possibility which becomes something quite natural. So much money is needed to do this or that or the other, so much is needed to arrange this, to repair that, to build this, to organise that—that is good. And I understand that people like to be the channels through which the money goes exactly where it is needed. That must be the true movement in people who like to...translated into foolish egoism, who need to appropriate.

“When the need to accumulate and the need to spend (which are both blind and ignorant) are combined, they can lead to a clear vision and a most efficient utilisation. That is good.

“Then there comes, slowly and slowly, the possibility of putting it into practice.
“But, naturally, the need is for very clear heads and for intermediaries of high integrity (!) to be able to be everywhere at the same time and do all at the same time. Then this famous question of money would be solved.

“Money does not belong to anybody. Money is a collective possession which should be used only by those who have an integral, comprehensive and universal vision. I would add something to that: not only integral and comprehensive, but essentially true as well; a vision which can tell the difference between a use which is in accord with the universal progress, and a use which could be termed fanciful. But these are details, for even the mistakes, even, from a certain standpoint, the waste, help the general progress: these are lessons learned the hard way” (CWM, vol. 13, pp. 275-77).

So, the Mother dealt with money with a divine attitude. Once there was someone who wanted a loan from the Ashram, but the Mother said: “The money is not mine, the money belongs to the Ashram and the Ashram does not lend money” (ibid, p.155). In spite of her being the head of the Ashram, and being the centre of inspiration for all the donations to the Ashram, she considered that the money coming to the Ashram did not belong to her! A wonderful example of divine detachment indeed!

Perfection:

The Mother kept high standards of care and maintenance of the material things, Ashram buildings, cars, furniture, etc. because matter itself is to be respected and cared for. Material objects have a sensitivity of their own and they respond to touch of our love and care. Here we could give as an example the furniture at Golconde guest house. Instructions written in the guest rooms tell us that one should not drag or change the position of the furniture; except for the chair no other change is acceptable. All this furniture is there for the last 59 or more years and they have been kept more or less in their original positions. We can almost feel as if the furniture itself were speaking to us and thanking us for treating them with respect! This is the respectful care and attention we should have for all material things. One can see the Ashramites maintaining their cycles and vehicles in such a perfect order, not that people do not do that elsewhere, but at the Ashram it is done more with the consciousness that it is the Mother’s vehicle, that they are only custodians of her property! For us everything that belonged to the Mother had to be taken care of. This is, in a way, applied spirituality: we are not talking about the higher ranges of spirituality but this is an all-inclusive spirituality which teaches us how to interact with the Mother’s consciousness through matter and material things.

The material things were not supposed to be just used and thrown away just as the employed workers in a company are often just hired and fired. The ancient Indian tradition of the ayudha puja was a daily attitude with her. In India, on this ayudha puja day, we clean every little object that we use in our daily life: a carpenter would clean all his tools, a driver would wipe and oil all the mechanical tools, etc. It is not simply the cleaning that we may do throughout the year, but on this particular day all the material objects are worshipped in an elaborate way. This day reminds us of a sense of reverence and respect we should have towards material objects. Such an attitude has been emphasized in Indian culture since ages. Each object, even the pen, the pencil, the eraser, the computer, the table, the chair… has its specific value, its own proper place in a perfect harmonious order. Beauty is in fact perfect harmony, a harmony when everything finds its proper place and respect!

The Mother instilled in us the true feelings for objects, especially those which we use in our daily life. We had to be carful not only in using any object, but also to avoid any wastage. Today, one of the reasons why the world economy is melting is because we have utterly disrespected and wasted much matter. In a way it reflects our utter egoistic stand over matter. It is gross commercialism that has given us false values of matter: we use it promiscuously.

Behind all these attitudes towards matter and money and management principles, there was one central motive, that of the perfection of man! All circumstances of life, all material comforts and discomforts, all events—sad or joyous—are there for the growth of human consciousness. If only one could be conscious of these ups and downs in life, as in sadhana, then the progress towards one’s perfection would be faster and smoother.

It is true that perfect perfection is obtained only on the supramental level, where matter is fully conscious and transformed, but one could always attempt for a progressive perfection here and now. Perfection is a state of harmony: it increases in dimension and depth as our consciousness enlarges.

Behind this attempt to bring in perfection in our inner and outer nature through our works, devotion and meditation, there is one principle that was emphasized by the Mother: it was the freedom to choose. This is something I myself learnt when I was a student. She always gave us the choice: the letter that I earlier referred to is a very good example of this. She didn’t say “don’t go to the US,” but she gave me two alternatives: One was: “If it is to live an ordinary or even successful life according to the usual old type, go to America and try your best.” And the other was: “If, on the contrary, you aspire at getting ready for the future and the new creation it prepares, remain here and prepare yourself for what is to come.” The choice was given to me; it was not imposed upon me. That is the principle of her education also, she said that we should always give the child the different possibilities and let the child choose. At the same time, it is the duty of the teachers and parents to tell the child what the result and consequences of his or her action and decision could be. She always said you have the right to choose, but once chosen you have no right to be undisciplined. This principle too could be used in management of co-workers and labour.

This was a fundamental thing in life: you have all the choices but, once you have made a particular choice, then you will have to follow that path—that is sadhana. Your freedom is there to grow spiritually, that’s the true freedom; to express one’s own vital desires and fancies is not freedom—that is only license. To grow spiritually you have to have true inner freedom.

Freedom of choice and consecration or self-offering—these are two principles which could be applied to a spiritual life or to any management situation. What does surrender to the Divine actually mean? Some might question, especially the youngsters of today:”Why should I surrender? After all I am an independent individual, I have my capabilities, I have my possibilities, etc.” The Mother tells us that surrender is the only means to grow spiritually. But we wrongly think that surrendering in itself is self-abnegation; it is not abnegation, it is, on the contrary, a means to grow out of our weaknesses, to increase our own potential, to increase our own capacity. If that is the essence of surrender why shouldn’t I do it? After all, I study, take courses, do all my other works etc. only to increase my capacity, only to increase my self-expression. If the Mother says ‘I am here to help you, you just raise your hand and I will hold it’, what could be more wonderful? It is like the island seeking to rejoin the continent. Who is it that gains in such a situation? The Mother is the continent of spirituality and we are the islands of ego. So, she is not there to take away our freedom, but she will give us the true freedom, the inner freedom.

She asked us to surrender our weaknesses as well as our strengths! Sometimes when we went to see the Mother on our birthdays or on a specific day, we were asked to wait in the room on the first floor or on the terrace on the second floor. In the beginning we had great enthusiasm and aspiration. But for some persons, as the time passed slowly, most of the enthusiasm and aspiration seemed to wither away like the flower bouquets in their hands! When Champaklal-ji suddenly called out the name, some people, who went to her, tried to show their best faces, never their weaknesses. We humans have a tendency to suppress our lower nature when going to a sacred place or when we go to see a spiritual person. But it could not be so in her presence: even if we tried to suppress it she saw it and she asked us to offer it to her willingly and consciously instead of her having to pull it out. She says in this regard:

“People come for blessings in the morning,…when they come to receive a flower, I have only to look at them. There is something around their heads, and at times it is as clear as though they said, “This indeed is something I shall never tell.” They tell me this “Never will I tell you this and this and that”; you understand, they tell me this by telling me that they will not say it. By telling me, “I shall not tell you this,” they tell me” (CWM, vol. 6, p. 164).

In fact, in one of her conversations she explained beautifully this phenomenon of the personal darshan: “When I see people and am busy with them,…I want to see in them their psychic being, their ideal, what they want to do, what they want to be, in order to keep it, pull it out to the surface; all my work consists of this: what I see I pull out always” (Ibid, p. 165).

About this experience of what the Mother says, “I want to see in them their psychic being,” I can elaborate by giving my own example. The most marvelous thing I remember is that when I sat in front of her, during the personal darshan, she used to grip my eyes with her look. When she looked into my eyes, it seemed that I ceased to exist for a while; the world did not exist, as it were. She pierced through my eyes and seemed to ask my soul what it wanted. Mentally and vitally I may want a lot of things from the Mother, but have I ever seen or heard what my soul wants? We are hardly ever conscious of our soul’s demands! But when she would finish communicating with my soul she would pull back her piercing look and burst with a smile giving a gentle nod. Then I did my pranam at her soft feet and again time was arrested; a sense of timelessness prevailed. Then she would touch me on my head and when I rose up she would give me some selected flower/s. And when I would leave her room she would always follow me with her eyes till the door.

I don’t know for how many lives we can benefit from her touch and her grace on our soul. I am sure that it is not just for this life…once you become her child, we are blessed for lives together… I don’t know…I will come back in a new body, in a new place, but this thing is for sure that the contact with her will continue for lives together.

This is how she helped in our inner growth, helped us come out with our true spiritual needs. This was, I suppose, the result of surrender. This was her way of guiding our inner aspirations and putting in front of us our own highest ideal.

In this process of self-offering and surrender, there was another message by Sri Aurobindo which helped me much in managing my own life: “‘Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you,… because she is, indeed, always present” (ibid, pp. 163-4). This has helped me to guide myself in many circumstances. Once you are convinced that the Mother is omnipresent you tend to act as if you were acting in her very physical presence. But if you believe that the Mother is only in Pondicherry, she is only a physical being, it would be wholly false. She is not a physical form alone; she is a Divine consciousness, ever present, omnipresent. The Mother once commented on this aspect of hers:

“From this point of view Sri Aurobindo wrote a little rule which for some time we had put up everywhere. But, I believe, it must have disappeared now or else people are so used to it that they no longer even look at it. It said: “Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you,” and Sri Aurobindo added, “because she is, indeed, always present.” Still these physical eyes... “No, no, no, she is not there”, and so the first instinct is to hide things. Not only does one do everything that one wouldn’t do before me, but as one doesn’t at all believe the last part of Sri Aurobindo’s sentence, that even though I am not there physically, perhaps still I know how things are, so the first instinct is to hide things, and the moment one enters that path, it is like stepping into quicksand. One goes down, down, down; it seizes you, swallows you up, it draws you down in such a way that it is very difficult to come out of it. Of all things this is the worst: “Ah, provided that Mother does not know!” And so it begins like that and that’s the end. Well, I hope not many among you tell lies, but still, usually the end of the curve is that! And so, you understand, this is one of those stupidities without equal; for—I am going to tell you something—and I can tell you this with impunity: even if you don’t want that to happen, it will happen all the same!” (CWM, vol. 6, p. 164).
She is an omnipresent consciousness and her photographs kept in different places in our houses, centres or offices etc. are more of a reminder of her omnipresence. However, it is not like the religious belief that God is overlooking on you at all times in order to punish you or reward you. It is not the punitive attitude of the ancient God with which the Mother’s consciousness is looking at you. Nor is it of the company boss looking over your shoulder. It is more a consciousness which guides us through life, taking us nearer to our souls with each step in life. And this is best done by a sense of intimacy with the Divine, for it is in the intimacy with the Divine that we grow fastest in spirituality. In the usual management system why is it that we are not able to open up inwardly? That is because of the fear of the superiors, fear of the targets to reach, fear of losing the job etc. But here, in spiritual management, we have the principle of love and intimacy. And those who have read the Bhagavad Gita would have noted that Sri Krishna and Arjuna were more like friends, they were intimate like two good friends although one was an incarnation of God and the other a human disciple. When we look at God as some kind of a ‘Superior Boss’ then intimacy does not take place, for fear of God obstructs it. With the Mother it was different: we looked up to her not as a disciple looks up to his Master, but more as her children. Apart from friendship, the other intimate relationship with the Divine is that of the mother and the child. If we want to be an instrument for the Divine’s work, it is better to be the children of the Divine Mother and be guided and cared for by her.
After 1961 we could not see the Mother on a daily basis, but till then we saw her every day at the balcony darshan, or when she used to come to the Ashram’s sports ground or the play ground etc. I have seen the Mother expressing the Divine consciousness in every little act of hers. In all her acts and responses, she exuded this divine intimacy and sweetness in great abundance, and we profited by it to the extent we were open to her in our inner being. If the psychic is open within then we can get all the guidance needed both in the inner and the outer journey of life. In fact, we are told by sadhaks who had come to the Ashram as children that the Mother used to tell them constantly that the only value in life is to realize one’s own psychic being, one’s inner being. She would reiterate this in so many circumstances that today in those who have grown up under her this advice seems to be the ringing message in their ears.

Conclusion:

It is with her loving ministry of the Ashram and Auroville that the Mother established integral principles of management on a small scale as well as a big one. If the most important element of management is man, the Mother gave us a new vision of man – his weaknesses and capabilities and his awaited destiny.
At the same time, the Mother brought back the synthetic view of Matter and Spirit, emphasizing the truth that matter too can respond and reveal the spirit if we delve deeper into it with love and respect. She established in a living manner, and not didactically, the quadruple principles of Wisdom, Power, Harmony and Perfection, which, in fact, are the principles of a spiritual self-management both on the individual and collective levels.

With this living inspiration and guidance of the Mother’s ministry, if I can manage my own life and manage to go a little deeper towards my own inner being, then I would consider that I have lived my life meaningfully. That, I suppose, is the goal of management by consciousness – to make each person manage his or her life in the light of his or her highest consciousness.

It is said that a drop of practice is better than an ocean of theories; so all these theories of management would be meaningless and all the seminars on the principles of management redundant if we do not take a plunge into our soul and let it govern and manage all the parts of our being, for the soul within each one of us is the true manager, the true governor of our life.

Let me end with a quote from Sri Aurobindo which summarises the main idea of self-management: “For man intellectually developed, mighty in scientific knowledge and the mastery of gross and subtle nature, using the elements as his servants and the world as his footstool, but undeveloped in heart and spirit, becomes only an inferior kind of asura using the power of a demigod to satisfy the nature of an animal” (SABCL, vol. 17, p. 237). So let us recognize and install the Divine Manager within us and then there would be no need of any outer principles of management. It would be a spontaneous harmonizing between the inner and the outer, between each being and each object in the world and that, I suppose, would be the acme of all ideals of management by consciousness.

References

David Ray Griffin, Editor, Spirituality and Society, State University of New York Press, New York, 1988.