Artha - The Means to Meaningful Creative Leadership

In my last blog post I wrote about the meaning of 'Dharma'. In Indian philosophy, for thousands of years, people have believed the whole dynamic life cycle of any human being might be aptly described by four significant concepts represented by four words pregnant with layers of meanings. These are Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. Much latter in the development of Indian philosophy, Buddhist philosophy leaned heavily on this basic framework which it laid out in a more elaborate fashion in the form of 8 fold path. However, these four concepts are deeply interrelated and flow from one other to make a meaningful whole. It puts forward a 'wholistic' view of life that not only offers us deep understanding, meaning and purpose of human living but also provides us a path to live it or a way to live it successfully.

I would now dwell on the meaning and significance of the second concept, i.e. Artha as I understand the concept in its different levels of reality.

Level 1

The most ordinary meaning of it is 'money'. It is obvious that we all need some money to survive, live life with dignity and do some useful work for self and for the society.

Level 2

But there is something deeper than that. Artha means 'resources' or a set of well defined 'resources' that help us to consistently and constantly engage with the perils and hazards in life. What are these? Well, there are five important resources we could possibly ask for in life, which are the following:

1. Knowledge -- of physical phenomena that go around us along with the methods of expressions and teaching others -- in modern day context we can say this as knowledge in arts, science, technology, communication etc...

2. Courage -- a kind of courage that comes from the heart, which is courage to act from the heart. More often than not we are blocked in life for this lack of this specific resource to act from our heart thereby also missing the psyche energy that comes along with it.

3. Wealth -- money and property in the usual sense of the word. But there is also a special significance which I would highlight little later.

4. Wisdom -- note that this is the link to the earlier concept of Dharma, which was nothing but the development of empathy and wisdom. So wisdom provides the basic link between Dharma and Artha indicating that without Dharma there can't be any Artha or the Artha gained and utilized is meaningless.

5. Network -- the strength provided by our group of good friends, well wishers, coaches, teacher and others in society. The strength of the network is also important for purposeful living.Without a reasonable and meaningful social network we are as good as dead. We stop learning and we stop growing.

Further explanation of wealth: -- The consistent symbol of wealth in India is the cow. Hence it is not killed though earliest Vedic literature does mention killing of cows. Hence it is obviously a later day development, say around 4000 BC. Whatever it might be the symbol of 'cow' as understood in context to Artha represents Nature. So it means that Nature can't be killed under any circumstances, whatever it might be. That to my mind was a tremendous leap in human understanding and thinking especially if we consider people thinking of ecology and sustainability 4000 years back. Therefore, it wasn't unusual in India to measure the wealth of a person in terms of cows. That was crafty thought indeed. More the number of cows that would be available more open spaces must be ensured for cows to graze on. Grazing meadows and cows are inseparable. One can't be without the other. In this way both Nature and ecology was preserved. It is no wonder that India still has the highest cow population in the world and along with it enough open spaces for them to feed upon. A beautiful balance has been maintained for over 4000 years without launching a single campaign or educating the public on Sustainability and Ecology and Global Warming etc. ... This is a brilliant stroke of wisdom to my mind. 

Level 3

At the third level, the concept of 'Artha' is meaning. There are two parts to it. While the first focuses on the means by which wealth is earned, the second focuses on the way it is meaningfully spent. There exists till this day a sort of social or peer pressure on these two critical points. Ilegal means of earning wealth is looked down upon in society. Too much wealth, more than what is needed, is also despised. And people are always bothered about the way wealth is spent.

Therefore, it no longer remains a mystery to me as to why the business of 'credit cards' miserably failed in India. People simply refused to spend money without having earned it in the first place. Or in other words don't spend beyond your means. It has done India good. The way the country waded out of crisis during the Asian Crisis and the more recent recession bears testimony to this fact. Self respect or self esteem comes before earning money in illegal ways and spending it wantonly. Perhaps for the same reason the recent campaign in India championed by none other than Bill Gates, his wife Milenda and his fast friend Warren on philanthropy failed since most Indians believe that family wealth is a thing to be passed down generation by generation. No wonder, India retains its top slot as the gold hording nation in the world for the past 2000 years of its history. Every family, according to its capability, converts money into solid gold. I see even very poor families (even under poverty line) engaged in converting their wealth into gold and storing them for hard or harsher times.

Conclusion

So 'Artha' has different layers of meanings which are really significant. At the basic level it means money. At the next higher level it means 'resources' made up of five different elements. And at the third level it is all about meaning.

The way to earn Artha is through Dharma that springs from 'empathy' and 'wisdom'. So, it is not very surprising to hear Mahatma Gandhi saying, 'The customer is the most important visitor to your premises....." This is simply a modification of the age old saying 'Guest is God'.

All empathy and wisdom spring from this intention.

No doubt Artha gained through Dharma is well worth its weight in gold -- both symbolic and factual.

And it does provides the means to lead a meaningful life. It would be foolish indeed to turn away from it. 

In the next post I would deal with the generally controversial issue of Kama, the third concept in this series -- the superficial meaning of which is 'sex'.  

 

 

Culture Based Design -- For Sustainable Economy

The continuing Global Economic meltdown and Japan's nuclear mishap are clearly man made disasters that caused lot of pain and agony to humanity as a whole.

How are we to come out of this crisis? Do we find a new way to survive? How do we stop environmental degradation? How do we build sustainable societies?

These important questions are not new. Even Neil Bohr expressed concerns on such issues back in 1950. Of course people did not care to listen then. They could afford not to listen. However, such questions were vigorously followed up by many activists and serious champions for the past 30 years or so.

Most predicted doom for the earth and humanity. Some thought that nothing might possibly be done unless individual consciousness or the way we think and act change for the better.

Nothing happened. Perhaps there was no need to. Critics were harsh when they sneered by saying that more than 95% of humanity suffers the 'boiled frog' syndrome. Others were frustrated and almost gave up. Still some wanted to find the culprits and punish them. 

But there are new signs of change. Harsh economic reality has rudely shaken us up from our deep slumber. It is like pouring ice cold water on our face on a winter morning.

What are these signs? More visible of these that catch our attention is the dramatic and swift wave of revolt sweeping over Middle East. People can't go hungry for sure.

However, there is another vital sign that is virtually going unnoticed -- sort of happening very quietly away from the glare of the media. And that is Culture Based Design (CBD) as I would like to call it.

In essence it is simple indeed. Look around what is unique in the culture of the land. Build up the economy through products and services based on the uniqueness of such culture. This is indeed a far cry from the standardized offerings being pushed around the globe by fairly large corporations who have no other business but to grow and keep growing richer at the expense of everything (champions of the old Industrial age thinking) only to flatten the earth.

Now this small but vital sign of Culture Based Design (CBD) might be a clue to greater unfolding possibilities to answer those serious unresolved questions humanity has been asking for the past 60 years.

Some examples might be in order:

1. Chinese are deeply studying the culture of India to design products that match the cultural traditions of India and her sensitivity. Recently during Holi (a spring festival in India) they did care to provide the accessories needed for the event -- designed and manufactured in China and sold in India at affordable prices. A win win situation for both countries.

2. Iceland whose economy was virtually wiped off by the Great Recession in a matter of days is hobbling back on its feet through intense design activity. They have tapped into the country's Nordic/Viking cultural heritage for their economic revival. As of now Iceland occupies the number 1 slot as the innovation champion displacing the mighty USA (as per ISEAD)

3. India is yet to leverage this idea as Chinese and Icelanders have done. But a new generation of entrepreneurs, mostly trained in the West, is successfully exploiting traditional culture and techniques coupled with narrative marketing (good old storytelling) in areas like jewelry and ornaments. 

What possibilities might unfold from this new phenomenon?

1. A paradigm shift from globally imported cultural criteria to more local home grown products and services based on traditional culture.

2. A sustainable economy that would look more distributed than unified and based on local needs and aspirations.

3. More job creation. People would have a choice to either work as laborers in dark and damp factories or in more exciting fields touched by the glow of human creativity. Education and knowledge gained through the traditional environment would be enough to create most jobs -- a far cry from Obama's urgent plea of 'go to college again or starve'. 

4. Solve the nagging problems of environmental crisis since such efforts are not energy intensive and have been around for centuries when issues of global warming were nonexistent. 

5. Cultural preservation is also ensured.

Hence Culture Based Design would need more serious attention and development if it were to become a part of the integral solution to sustainable livelihood and economy. New internet based social learning technologies would surely come to great help in this endeavor.This would be closely coupled to the Observation Based Learning (OBL) as proposed in my earlier posts. My guess is that CBD along with OBL would be evident in every sphere of a local economy even worming its way into traditional brick and motar companies barring major infrastructural activities.

A seriously inward looking world is unfolding its still rough and jagged edges poised to draw in lots of creative energy to throw up possibilities that would impact the way we live and think.

We shall live by design -- by the people, of the people and for the people!

I may be totally wrong or am I missing something?

 

Ref:

1. http://davidreport.com/the-report/design-culture-time-cultural-fundamentalism/