2. Ingredients of Success

Everyone wants to be successful in life, but not many are aware of what success really is.

Success is an attitude, not just a phenomenon. The sign of success is overwhelming joy, confidence, compassion, generosity, and a smile that none can snatch away. Whatever happens in life, if you can keep these, then you have really found success.

Tough situations arise in every business, every organization, and you need skills to handle them. These skills come from our inner space, which I call the Spiritual Space.

There are five ingredients for success by spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Guruji:

1. Establishing a congenial atmosphere: Peace and prosperity are interlinked. Prosperity cannot flourish in a disturbed atmosphere. While working with others, you need to function as a team. Have a sense of respect for your team members, and do not indulge in blame games. As a team leader, you need to create an atmosphere of trust, cooperation, a sense of belonging, and celebration. Nothing can last if the focus is only on productivity and net result.

2. Skill in action: The whole essence of the Bhagavad Gita is to act without being attached to the fruit of the action. If you can manage your mind in a war-like scenario, then you can manage any situation. This skill in action is called yoga. It is this wisdom of yoga that transforms one’s attitude from arrogance to self-confidence; from meekness to humility; from the burden of dependence to the realization of interdependence; from a limited ownership to oneness with the whole. When performing action, if the attention is only on the end result, then you can’t perform. Just give yourself fully to the task with 100 percent sincerity and commitment.

3. Being courageous like a lion: There is a saying in Sanskrit that says, “Great wealth comes to one who has the courage of a lion and who puts in all his efforts.” Passion and dispassion are complementary like the in-breath and out-breath. You breathe in but you cannot hold the breath too long; you have to breathe out. Similarly, you need to have passion to make things work but also the dispassion to let go. When you don’t crave for abundance, it comes to you.

4. An atom of luck: If all that is needed for prosperity is one’s own effort, then why are so many people who put effort not prosperous? This unknown factor or luck is enhanced by spirituality. The whole material world is run by a world of vibrations which is subtler than all that we see. Spirituality enhances intelligence and intuition. Intuition comes to you when you balance your passion with dispassion; profit with service; aggressiveness to get things with compassion to give back to the society. Intuition is the right thought at the right time, and is an important component for success in business.

5. Meditation: The greater responsibilities and ambitions you have, greater is the need for you to meditate. In ancient times, meditation was used as a way to find the Self, for enlightenment and to overcome misery and problems. Meditation is all the more essential in today’s hectic lifestyle full of stress and tension. Stress is too much to do, too little time, and no energy. It can be difficult to reduce your workload, or increase the time that you have, but you can increase your energy level.

Meditation gives lot of benefits, not only relieves you of stress and strain, it also enhances your abilities, strengthens your nervous system and mind and releases toxins from the body. We are made up of both matter and spirit. The body has some material needs and our spirit is nourished by spirituality. Meditation also helps us get in touch with our inner space – the source of joy, peace, and love.