EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH GORAN GOVINDANANDA PEJAKOVIC, LECTURER, ADVISER AND PERSONAL TRAINER, ZAGREB CROATIA
PROGRESS IS SERIES OF
ADJUSTMENTS IN RIGHT DIRECTION
Tatjana Stankovic, PXD SYSTEM INTERNATIONAL's Bord Director, had an excellent opportunity and honor to talk to Goran Govindandanda Pejakovic from Zagreb, Croatia, experienced lecturer, adviser and personal trainer on the Topic that had brought many controversies, in our general believe and taught schedule of living.
The Topic Spirituality Business has now became one of most discussed topics, especially when that Topic brings new PARADIGM in the DEFINITION OF SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS ON LONG TERM BASIS
Goran Govindananda Pejaković lives in Zagreb Croatia. He is a lecturer, adviser and personal trainer known
for his dedication to lifelong learning. Last 20 years he practices
spirituality under capable guidance and shares experience in compassionate and
trans-formative communication and spirituality through seminars, lectures,
workshops and personal mentoring. He is also an organizer of the retreat for
personal development and spirituality. Knowledge gained in Croatia, Europe and
India he complements with skills in
mediation and ombuds work through which he serves in international spiritual
organization as a representative for Croatia.
T.S.: Goran it is very nice to talk to you. Few months ago we have started a media debate, that I have to admit paid such a huge attention and still it is on the matter of Spirituality - Business connection. So, Goran is there a connection between Spirituality and
Business ?
G.G.P.: There is deep and essential connection between the two. It
is the connection between the soul and belly. Soul gives life to body and belly
too. It doesn't seem so in today's world focused only on business and giving
pleasure to the senses that there is connection between spirituality and
business. But such world view is incomplete. Business and giving pleasure to
the senses is just a part of the social
picture and, if presented as complete, brings people in illusion that there is
no other reality.
Spiritual reality is the source of the phenomenal world
and social phenomena has basically four main components: dharma, artha, kama and moksa.
On the top of the social hierarchy of needed components is dharma,
or high system of values according to the principles of religion given by God. Artha or economic development follows this
principles in activities of earning ones livelihood. Kama, or satisfaction of ones desires according the religious principles
is next. After realizing that these three together do not bring lasting
happiness comes moksa or serious
search after the purpose of life that is higher then visible reality.
Business is connected to spirituality and business
principles should evolve from spiritual principles. In this way the society
follows high values and prospers economically at the same time. Separating one
from the other is like separating the stomach from the rest of the body. Business can not be sustainable without
spiritual principles as guide.
According to spiritual knowledge there are four types of
business based on people's qualities and types of work: intellectuals and
teachers as head department of society, military men and state leaders as arm
department of society, farmers and merchants as belly department of society,
and laborers as leg department of society. The whole body is one unit but has
different departments.
The head department is most important department, because
without the head the other departments cannot function. The head is meant for
culture. Without culture every type of business creates confusion and chaos.
Any business you do in chaotic condition will never be perfect. And that is
what we have at the present moment. So there must be one section of people, the
head department, who give advice to other departments. They are meant to guide
society in culture. Culture means knowing the aim of life. Without
understanding the aim of life, a man is a ship without a rudder. This head
department is the first need in today's society, then the other departments can
get good advice.
Business can be done nicely only in society following a
proper cultural system. Instructions for a perfect cultural system are given in
Srimad-Bhagavatam. This is a holy
book, part of the books of knowledge, Vedas.
In a state, you have to follow the rules of your
government. If you don't you are a bad citizen and cause chaos in society.
Similarly, in the cosmic state – that is, in this material creation as a whole
– if you do not satisfy the Supreme Lord, the proprietor of everything then
there will be a chaotic condition. Vedic culture teaches that whatever you do
you must satisfy the Supreme Lord. That is the real culture.
Here I presented a part of knowledge that connects
spirituality and business. Of course, there is lot more for those interested in
the topic.
T.S.: OK, then the next question is can Business function in Mode of goodness without Spirituality?
G.G.P.: The modes of ignorance, passion and goodness interchange.
This world is the place of constant change; panta
rei. The atmosphere governed by these three principle qualities of the
world is like a river, never the same.
Regular contact with spiritual reality ( pure goodness )
brings functioning in goodness. Adjusting to the level of activities in
goodness and constant practice also bring goodness. Just like when plane flies
from destination A to destination B, it is mostly out of the route. Still, the
plane gets to the desirable destination by adjusting it to the course
constantly.
That's why one of the definitions of advancement
says:“Progress is series of adjustments in right direction“. In order to be in
goodness one has to practice acts in goodness and regularly visit spiritual
reality through chosen spiritual practice. Without spirituality, business is
sentenced to modes of passion and ignorance which lead to degradation of values
and principles in society. In such society exploitation and violence is common
thing. There is no goodness when such atmosphere prevails.
Goodness is characterized in this simple way:
Be – do – have
What I do springs from what I am (qualities and
character) and results in what I have.
Passion has different order:
Do – have - be
What I have comes from what I do and then I can be in
certain way.
Ignorance is like this:
Have – do – be
I need to have something first in order to act in certain
way and become a person of certain qualities.
Business is, in this regard ,more in passion then in
goodness. Goodness is still needed in business to keep it focused on high
values of conduct.
T.S.: What are Basic Spiritual Principles commonly used in everyday Business
?
G.G.P.: Most of the valuable principles in business are spiritual
in origin. Some of the principles are:
- Think
long term (eternal)
- Be
trustworthy
- Take
full responsibility for what happens to you
- Adjust
your action according to place, time and circumstances
- Be
enthusiastic
- Endeavor
with confidence
- Be
patient
- Lead
by principles
- Stay
in association of the people with same high values
- Seek
first to understand then to be understood
- Ask
for the help from 'higher authority'
- Be
cooperative
T.S.: Tell me something about connection Spirituality - Religion - Religious
Customs - Business ?
G.G.P.: Spirituality gives us information and experience of our
eternal identity. It gives us knowledge
about our relationship to God and nature that surrounds us. It gives us the
goal of life and a process to achieve
it. It gives the whole picture.
Religion gives us specific way of following the principles
of spirituality according to specific time, place and circumstances. Each
religion derives specific customs suitable for that time and people.
Business is supposed to follow the line of religious
principles that connect us to God.
If the society is godless or on superficial level of
following religion, such society lacks power and business tends to impose
itself as the savior of the world. Money becomes God and those that have money
become the priests who set up the rules of conduct. Disconnected from higher
purpose, such rules bring more misery to the people.
There is no such thing as spiritually disconnected and
happy.
Such business takes care of short term profit and does
not give lasting solutions.
God-centered business takes care of high spiritual
principles, other people and nature, and searches for sustainable economy.
Vedic knowledge says that economy should be based on land,
not on machines.
Einstein
said that he feared the day when technology will overlap with our humanity. He
conclude that the world in this case will only have a generation of idiots.
T.S.: How would you define Spiritual Intelligence ?
G.G.P.: When you know who you are, what is this world, what is
God and when you know relationship between these three, then you are intelligent.
This knowledge makes humans so special. When you know your eternal identity as
soul, part of God and you act on it, that is called spiritual intelligence.
T.S.: What is the difference between Spiritual Intelligence and
IQ ?
G.G.P.: IQ is a way of trying to measure intelligence. Different
tests are made for this to assess intelligence. It is more or less capability
to find solution in new situation. That's why different tests are given to show
how someone solves different challenging tasks.
Spiritual intelligence is that intelligence which sees
soul in every living being and sees unity of all beings in relation to God.
Basically IQ speaks about human being trying to find his
place in the universe while spiritual intelligence speaks about soul having
human experience and coming back to his original situation of eternity,
knowledge and bliss through the process of re-connection with God.
Spiritual world view says:“ Without the shelter of the spiritual soul, the material body cannot
exist...“
Following that knowledge, soul searches after God as
ultimate shelter. This connection gives all needed intelligence for success in
life.
That is why it is said in the Vedas, yasmin vijnäte sarvam evam vijnätam bhavati: if one properly
understands God, he can understand any subject matter very nicely...
T.S.: Communication is
very important part of life and business. What is Spiritual Communication ?
G.G.P.: Spiritual communication is somewhat unusual because in
such conversation even between two people there are three persons. God is
present. If you alone address God through prayer then you can say two are
present.
When does spiritual communication take place? It takes
place from the moment a person realizes that he or she needs help. That is
wonderful to ask God for success in business or any other communication. For
that we should be sensitive enough to see if God likes our proposal. Spiritual
communication means respecting the free will of those involved and taking 100%
responsibility for what is happening to us.
It also means that God has a free will to support our
ideas or not. We can judge our endeavor by the results we get. If the results
are long term beneficial for all living beings and brings us closer to God
(eternal results), then we are on the right track.
If the results are detrimental for living beings and
nature and does not give pleasure to God, then such endeavor is a highway to
trouble.
In spiritual communication it is not enough to have good
intention. It is also important to know the right way.
T.S.: Non-violent
communication is part of the Business that should be used. Why ?
G.G.P.: The basis of compassionate communication is respect of
free will; ours or free will of others.
Such communication creates an atmosphere of
understanding, respect, trust, support and focus on satisfying the needs of all
subjects involved. Such communication
respects every moment as wonderful gift meant to teach us something in other to
make life more wonderful. In modern terminology it is sometimes called win/win communication.
On the opposite side is communication that does not take
care of the free will and needs of others and searches for one sided profit of
different kind, no matter what is the cost. It is easy to understand which kind
of communication is sustainable.
It is very important to understand one principle: We can't make anybody do anything.
All you can do is make them wish
they had. Whenever we do that, they will make us wish we hadn't made them 'wish
they had'.
In other words, we will pay for
our manipulative, careless and disrespectful communication sooner or later.
Most probably it will come when we least expect it.
From the spiritual perspective it is mostly done through
more then one lifetime.
T.S.: Can you name
some examples of avoiding violent communication and turning them into
non-violent with achieved results ?
G.G.P.: Compassionate communication is a vast area. You can be violent
towards other people in so many different ways and on so many different levels.
Some of violent communication is obvious while the other is not so easy to
detect. Here are two such examples:
● Obvious:
„You are such a lazy full.“
● Not
so obvious: Father speaks to a daughter: „Here comes my princess.“
If we examine these examples closer, this is what was
violent:
● 'Lazy full' is a judgement. Judgement is one of the
common ways of blocking the communication. It is most likely that the other
side will response by defending or attacking the person back.
To
turn such communication into compassionate is to replace judgement with
observation.
For
example:“You came late for the job five times this month and this resulted in
20% less salary to support your family.“
If
you add how you feel about it and what is your concern in caring for the person,
it will probably bring completely different result.
● 'Princess' is a judgement. A positive judgement
is still a judgement. This judgement is static and does not really describe
person . Maybe even the daughter is not satisfied with her behavior at the
moment and she still gets this judgement from the father.
She
can even become attached to the 'title' and hide some misbehavior in order to
keep the 'princess' on the throne.
To
turn that in compassionate communication father might say:
„I
love you so much, whatever happens I want you to know this.“
Intended
message might be the same but the communication is different and respects the
free will of the person we speak to.
Compassionate communication focused on needs is very much
helpfull in solving different situations that we usually call 'problems'. Here
is one simple example:
1. Two
people are working at the kitchen. Both of them want lemon and only one is
left. So, they fight to win the lemon by taking as strong position as possible.
One
can say:“I am the head of the kitchen.“
The
other may say:“I can not wait for the other lemon, people depend on me having
it.“
They
may try to outdo the other in arguments supporting their position. That will
not solve the problem.
Solution
is to ask: what do you need a lemon for?
The
answer might be:
A: I
need it for the cake.
B: I
need it for the lemonade
That
can bring both parties to the level of satisfying their needs. For cake you
might need peel, while for the lemonade you need juice.
In order to speak compassionately we need to learn what
are the obstacles on the way and what is the process of communication which
respects the free will of those involved and focuses on needs. The result might
also be that 'we agree that we do not agree', but we do not fight with each
other and do not behave violently in different ways.
T.S.: Is there a
connection between nonviolent communication and usage of four regulative
principles
1. *No* *E*ating
of meat, fish and eggs
2. *No*
*G*ambling
3. *No*
*I*ntoxication
4. *No*
*I*llicit relationships ?
G.G.P.: Following this four regulative principles gives space for
the person to make decisions which are on the line with spiritual goals. Breaking
this principles takes power from the four pillars of religion: compassion, austerity,
truthfulness, and purity which are very important for spiritual practitioner.
Common men might not agree to follow this rules because of difference in goals.
In the same way a spiritual perspective of nonviolence is
also on a frequency of the soul and says that to be non-violent in the highest spiritual
sense is to give person a knowledge about the soul and God.
All of these four activities mentioned above are
preventing a person to absorb in this knowledge of the soul. Thus it brings
people on the level of gratifying the senses as the prime goal of life, which
is available in all species of life.
Beside that there is obvious violence in this activities:
1. Killing
animals is obviously violent and supports the culture of violence. It is
violent also because we deny our responsibility for the unnecessary pain we
give to animals and denial of responsibility is a great obstacle in
communication.
2. Gambling
disrespects honest work and gives a message that you can get something for
nothing. We all know about the violent effects of addiction to gambling for the
family life and other relationships.
3. Most
of intoxication is very much violent to the body and mind. Addiction to
intoxication is next level which very often results in different ways of
additional violence.
4. The
ways illicit sex is violent to the relationships is more then known. Just read
the daily newspapers and see the results.
Real nonviolence which has high aim will certainly avoid
this four activities.
T.S.: Can you name
some rules and principles of non-violent communication ?
G.G.P.: First of all „Be the change you want to see“, as Gandhi
said. We need to show with example if we hope for the change in others to
occur.
There are some do's and some don'ts on the way to achieve
this..
We can start with recognizing the habits that are
unfavorable for trans-formative or compassionate communication:
Judgement, giving 'names', labeling, comparison, denying
responsibility, demanding ...
All these habits block giving from the heart.
A person wants to communicate the need for something but
because of unwanted habits and many other reasons it can come out as labeling
or some other tragic way of expressing the need. Possibility for the other
person to hear the need behind such communication is minimal. It is more likely
that a person will take it as offence or attack. The response is usually 'fight
or flight'.
One of the main principles in heart communication is to
try to guess the feelings and needs of person. Even if we are not right, a
person will rectify us and lead us to true feelings and needs. Then we can work
on strategy which will satisfy the need.
Another principle is to understand that all needs are
good. They are common for all people and we can accept them as such easily.
We can choose to learn observing without judgement if we
want to come closer to people.
We can learn the proper use of feelings.
We can learn to ask for the specific, positive and doable
activity from person to increase our chances of meeting our needs.
We can learn to communicate and transform our life.
If we do not learn how to communicate, we will have only
one big problem. We will be in illusion that communication happened.
T.S.: In nowadays it
seems to me that the values are turned upside down and what is bad is named
virtue and what is virtue is qualified as bad. Can you say something more about
that ?
G.G.P.: The flower of high values is in the care of intellectuals
and teachers – the head department of society. They are traditionally godly
people independently thoughtful and endowed with high qualities like:
peacefulness, self-control, austerity, purity, tolerance, honesty, knowledge
and wisdom. Such people live simply, think deeply and advise all other classes
of society in the values given by God. State leaders and military men rule
under the umbrella of such good advise. They take care that merchants and
farmers do their duties and they protect them from other rulers and protect laborer
class from being exploited. The social body functions nicely. Such godly
culture under care of capable monarh can provide for all the needs of society
members and have the highest values at hand.
If the head department people forget God who is the soul
of the body, it is only the question of time when will social body collapse.
Rulers will notice that advises are not giving the same result and will try to
rule on their own advice. Without the head, monarchy leads to tyrrany.
Merchants and farmers do not feel protected and decide to rule on their own
because they are the ones who have wealth. The body is without hands for
protection and cooperation. Without good advice and protection, their set of
values degrades more and they oppress laborer class. Thus you have feudalism or
capitalism. The main value is wealth in money and enjoyment in different
pleasures of the world. Laborer class
can not withstand such life and take over the rule through socialism or
democracy. Belly is cut of and now you only have legs running around.
Basically, today's society is belly and legs.
In order to restore sustainable society with high values,
we need God-centered social order lead by the people whose loyality to God and
personal qualities are stronger then the pressure of the selfish desires of other members of the social body. Such
influence is required and is based on the strength which is beyond this world –
the strength of following God's advice.
Learned man said once:“If you do not love God, you will
love dog.“
It is up to us to choose. We are destined to love and be
loved and we will not settle for anything less.
T.S.: Did we forget
something and you want to add ?
G.G.P.: Let us do our best and God will do the rest.
This Interview brings New Paradigm and New Understanding in this strong and very important connection. 
