An incident which happened in Swami Vivekananda's life:🔗

One day Vivekananda was sitting and relaxing on the banks of Ganga enjoying a smoke on his hookah. One disciple was sitting at his feet and pressing his feet, doing pāda seva. An elderly gentleman came there; he was a well-learned pundit, a high intellectual. He came to Vivekananda and started boasting, 'I take bath everyday in Ganga three times and I do all the sandhya practices.' And he claimed that he would thus achieve the highest moksha, heaven. Vivekananda said, 'If by just taking a bath in Ganga you will become God, then the fish which are in Ganga are the gods and the holiest creatures. So I can't say just taking a bath in Ganga will make you holy.' The pundit was shocked and he left the place.

After a few minutes one young man came; he was a graduate from Calcutta University. He said, 'Swamiji, I heard that you are a very modern person who does not bother about the traditional things like taking bath in Ganga, doing sandhya and all these kinds of things. I really appreciate your teachings and I am searching for a Master like you. I also don't like all these traditional things.'

Vivekananda said, 'Who told you? Everyday I take bath in Ganga and I worship Ganga. Who told you I don't acknowledge all these traditional things! I respect tradition. I live according to tradition.' The young man said, 'Oh, is it so?' Anyhow Vivekananda gave him a few teachings and the young man left.

The old man had received the teachings which were for him. The young man also received the teachings which were for him. Now the disciple who was sitting at the feet of Vivekananda and watching both the scenes, got confused. He asked, 'What is this? What are you telling? When that old man came you said something and when this young man came, you were telling something else. What do you mean?'

Vivekananda says beautifully, 'That teaching was for that old man, this is for that young man. Who needs what kind of teaching, is given to him. As for you, you press my feet.'

Before entering into the great Truths of enlightened Masters, we should analyze to whom they are given, what the ulterior motive is, what the purpose is; then we should enter into the teachings. Only then we will be able to understand, assimilate and practice the Truth in its purest form. Here Mahāvīra's teachings are given only to liberate you, to give you enlightenment. The goal is achieving the ultimate level of consciousness, experiencing the greatest Truth. See the beauty of these teachings, see the whole philosophy of Mahāvīra – it looks negative but all the followers of Mahāvīra lived with such richness. See the Jain community it is the richest community in Hinduism.

We should enter into this paradox. We should analyze how this happens. Here Mahāvīra is not giving any management techniques. He is not a management Guru. In the modern day all our philosophies and teachings are used for management. There are so many management books which came based on the Vedic tradition. Even the so-called Masters in the modern day became management Gurus only.

Mahāvīra is not a management Guru. He is not giving you any solutions related to the outer world. But when you follow the very teachings, the expansion of the inner space happens as a side-effect or as a byproduct of that expansion; wealth accumulates around you.

Understand, Mahāvīra is the ultimate management Guru - not only for the inner world, but even for the outer world. He never speaks about how to create or manage wealth. All he does is, he creates the beautiful inner space in which you can accommodate many things. He is not talking about karma yoga, because if he talks about karma yoga you can use those words and make him a management Guru.

The other day I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal. It says, the Bhagavad-gītā is taking a big shape, and is getting an important place in many corporate companies of the US where they are using it for management.

Mahāvīra is not talking anything about karma yoga. You can easily use the teachings related to karma yoga for management. He is not talking anything. He simply does something in your consciousness, you become a leader. He is not telling that you should become a leader. He just makes you a leader. He creates a beautiful inner space. One important thing you should understand: when your inner space is expanded, when you are living with inner richness, the outer richness follows you. The outer richness not only follows you, it even becomes your servant.