The Nectar of Gita…for you, me and all! Essay 7: Are you aware of your ‘Internal Hierarchy’?

Om Namo Bhagavathe Vaasudevaayaa!

Essay 7:            

Are you aware of your ‘Internal Hierarchy’?

As employees working in different organizations, we all are quite conversant with the Management Hierarchy of the organizations we work for. It is generally a linear controlling structure vested with supervising and controlling the activities done by a level lower by the next higher level.

Typically, any Organization will have a main office building out of which all functions are done. At the base and the front office level, we have the Executive Wing(EW) that is responsible for day to day operations like sales, service, marketing, customer interaction, etc. This wing is the interacting point with outside world. All experiences with the outside world are handled by this wing.

The EW reports to the Business Head(BH) who supervises, reviews, approves or disapproves the deals done by the EW. The BH consolidates all the deals or activities found suitable by him and presents them to the CEO for final endorsement. The CEO being in a position of high responsibility, uses all his mental maturity and wisdom, evaluates the deals for their short term and long-term impact on the sustainability and finally approves or disapproves all or some of the deals that are recommended by the BH. His decision is final and is carried out by the organization. Beyond the CEO, there is a non-executive Chairman who watches over the affairs of the company. He does not get involved in the day to day affairs but gets posted of the developments and keeps an observant eye.

Corporate Hierarchy: Lets summarize this as under:

Office Building ---- Executive Wing(EW) ---- Business Head(BH) ----- CEO ----- Chairman

While this is the typical Organogram of the companies we work for, do you know we have more or less similar Hierarchy within us doing similar functions? Surprising, isn’t it?

Internal Hierarchy:

To start with, let’s look at our physical body which is the Corporate Office from where all actions are carried out. We have the 5 sensory organs – Eyes, Ears, Nose, Tongue and the Skin which form the Executive Wing of our Body Corporate. These interact with the outside world very strongly and transmit this data to the Mind which is the Business Head of our Body Corporate. The Mind experiences the sensory data and undergoes its own feelings of pleasure and pain. It gets influenced by the sensory experiences and strongly gets associated with such experiences and desires to go for corresponding actions. But we have the ‘Buddhi’ or the discriminating intellect which is the CEO of the Body Corporate who carefully evaluates the short term and long-term impact and propriety of such actions and decides to act in a befitting way. Finally, the decision of Buddhi or the CEO shall be implemented.

Watching from a distance with an observant eye, is the Aatma (‘I’) or Soul, which is the non-executive Chairman of this Body Corporate. Here, all actions of the Body corporate are done in the name of the ‘I’, though the actual sensory experiences are undergone by the Mind. That’s why we say “I saw it’; “I heard it”; “I ate it”; I smelled it”; ‘I touched it” etc. Without this “I”, one cannot have any experiences.

So, Let’s summarise our internal hierarchy!

Our Body (Office) --- The Sensory Organs (EW) ---- Mind (BH) ---- Buddhi (CEO) ------ Aatma (Chairman)

Gita says, controlling the sensory organs and mind through discriminating intellect is the key for sustained happiness and bliss. The sensory organs are compared to horses tied to a buggy which run amok if not properly reined in by the driver. So spiritual progress leading to eternal bliss and happiness requires an effective control of the sensory organs and the mind by a discriminating intellect. This can be achieved through ‘Sadhana Chathustayam’ (The 4-pronged Practice methodology) about which we will discuss in subsequent blogs.

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