Business Analogies for The Life Divine

Matter and Spirit, Being and Non-Being:	Neither sales nor production is exclusively    important
Universal and Individual	Sales fulfils itself in production, vice-versa
Subconscient and Superconscient must be united:	Scientific discovery and need of the ignorant people who are satisfied with nothing.
Ego:	It is selfishness that brings loss. Business integrated with customers won't incur loss as inside a company excess material is profitably used.
Vedantic knowledge	Separate sensationalism of accumulating profit, one attains abundance.
Pure Existence	Commercial world is one of great conscious energy
Conscious Force (5 elements, 5 senses):	The society is conscious in what it wants and how it gets.
Delight:	Society tries to express in the individual its great power. Man runs after the trappings
Maya:	The selective force of organisations for individual works. Social and government organisations.
Supermind:	.Neither the Rishis, scientists, wise men or the ignorant men can create. Only the businessmen who are a link can manufacture and supply.
Supreme Truth Consciousness:	Society by its will creates in the planes of manufacture (and education) and distribution
3 poises	Society, Government., citizen
Supermind and Mind:	Mind here is the subdividing government administration that ends in the least officer and society that ends in the family and the individual and family.
Life:	Social life is the social force that is energised by the mind in the process of which mind is lost. Life creates sensation in the customer and public and makes the scientist create new products which in turn changes the public.
Double soul	Self-evident.

 

Sevenfold Chord of Being: 

The  4 above changing into the 4 below	The elite is unmoved in knowledge and wealth	The poor are unmoved in their resignation
	The great of the soul are full of compassion	The poor do have their compassion
	The life of the great are in great equilibrium by virtue of their self-awareness	The life of the masses remains at some equilibrium somehow

 

The substance at all levels is the same:

Overmind takes each aspect and takes it to its final.	Every act of specialisation goes further and specialisation reaches its ultimate limit. Specialisation brings out other aspects and naturally will lead to synthesis
It is not the mind that determines but the Supermind	It is not the companies that determine but the market.
Dualities, simultaneous (Time) Integrality	Man has to learn how to live the life of the whole. It is possible. It is not as if he can either be a professor or a businessman. He can be both.
Eternal and the Individual	The citizen is the society.
Divine and Undivine	Unity, Truth, Goodness, Knowledge, Will, Love are all necessary. Man needs all, but we only notice poverty, not the lack of other things.
-	-
Knowledge and Ignorance	Neither the ideal nor the material but that which includes both makes for knowledge.
Memory, Self-Consciousness, Ignorance Memory, Ego, Self-experience  Memory helps the Self in Ignorance to be conscious. It is the same memory that makes consciousness of the self to become Ego in Ignorance, but the Self is to experience itself on the surface and depth.	Ignorant businessmen in their  conscious awareness build ego but they must build the Self experience overcoming memory.
Boundaries of Ignorance	Practical Ignorance - Does not know what product to sell.  Constitutional Ignorance - Village, town and metropolis each is unaware of the other.  Psychological Ignorance - No idea when labour will strike, a hartal will hold up work.  Temporal Ignorance - Products are being developed over time and suddenly appear in the market.  Universal Ignorance - Floods, volcano, earthquake, hurricane take us unawares.  Cosmic Ignorance - Pollution  Original Ignorance - Revolution, war, cold war
4 types of knowledge	The least of men only know themselves (surface knowledge), busy themselves in their specialisation.  The vitally intuitive know the environment too (subliminal knowledge). The specialist either in research or in trade due to his vitally intuitive knowledge suddenly comes upon a valuable insight into something great (Microsoft). (intuitive knowledge)  Einstein is lost in relativity. (knowledge by identity)
Origin of Ignorance. Ignorance begins  when mind severs its connection with  Supermind	Businesses stall and shrink when they emphasize profit and profit only, cutting their  relationship with the society at large.
. Exclusive concentration - Ignorance. Ignorance is created by the exclusive concentration	do
Origin of Evil, Falsehood, and so on.  The simple contrary by a wrong insistence becomes complex perversity. The separate being needs evil for its evolution.	The muscle man or a military power like  Saudi Arabia by flexing their muscles successfully is enamoured into an anti-social position. Individuals, communities, nations like Japan have occasion to dwell on their purity and superiority which leads to the formation of their respective ego. Once you are into that shell, of course, it is painful to voluntarily break it. When it is broken from outside, it is also painful. Pain comes out of the insularity they have chosen.
Reality and Integral Knowledge                                                                               Level 7  Knowledge and Ignorance Ignorance is a self-limitation of knowledge	The candidates in the election campaign feign ignorance, try to minister to the level of the knowledge of the voters. This is self-limitation, not ignorance itself.
Aims and Theories of Life	Excluding globalisation is wrong. Not only that, each business must try to integrate itself with other businesses and other sectors.
Progress - God, Man and Nature. To unify these three in Man is progress	The customer, the citizen is the centre. Production and distribution must be united in the customer.
Ascent and Integration Double opening. Shift the concentration from outside to inside.	Business aspires for technology above. It should open above to the new technology as well as to the new needs of the customers below. The analysis of the market must be changed to what the customer feels.
Sevenfold Knowledge
Rebirth The spirit cannot accomplish its evolution in one birth; it needs several births.	No company can achieve in its single lifetime-in a single generation-its aim. It needs to live over several generations.
Man and Evolution  Change of body to house higher consciousness in man reverses itself as change of consciousness to alter the body that houses it, making evolution inevitable.	It was revelation each time the society changed. Now the government as well as society evolve.
Evolution of spiritual man. To discover his own spirit and help others discover their spirit is the aim.	The businessman must discover the formula of luck and help others to discover in their business.
Triple Transformation, Ascent to Supermind, Gnostic Being. Psychic - Spiritual - Supramental	Psychic - to find the formula of unfailing success in work.  Spiritual - To do that work only positively.  Supramental - The individual business must become a catalytic agent to change the entire business as GM, IBM, Microsoft
Divine Life To be full is to be conscious, forceful, delightful and universal.	In business universality is made possible by one who is conscious of his work and delights in it. He becomes a force.

Introduction to Sri Aurobindo's Theory of Creation in The Life Divine

There is no human being who is without the most serious aspiration for something. The Life Divine is written for those who have the aspiration to know how this world was created. Human aspiration at all levels is the same in intensity but varies in its expression.

Businessmen are keenly interested in business success. They would value the knowledge by which ‘markets can move towards them,' ‘people can be dedicated to their work,' ‘an organisation can be automatically created for any work to be done', and ‘all the money they need for work will be there without their effort.' At least with respect to market and money, we can expect total interest in business people. If a sufficiently appropriate analogy between the theory of creation and running a business can be constructed, it will be possible to make known the knowledge that business seeks, available from a reading of The Life Divine.

People exist at various levels of physical perception, vital sensation, mental understanding and subtle awareness. The rural folk of physical perception not only refuse to see life outside that charmed circle, but are fascinated by their way of living which writes them off to a life of mental understanding of an educated city dweller. Vital sensation is so engrossing whether he lives in a town or a village that, though he looks down on the physical folk, they are unable to see that mental life offers them a better deal. Each is insular in his own way. The Life Divine is written for those who are aware of their self at the level of Self. If it is not available for us, our own intense awareness, be it business or idealism, is there through which it is possible to reach the knowledge of The Life Divine.

Superstition of any type, subjection to vital sensation, a mind of well-fashioned opinions and satisfaction in intellectual explanations are outside our scope. An idea that can detach itself from the sensation of its object as well as the object itself can perceive this knowledge as it is conceptual knowledge, though it still falls short of the true standard of integral knowledge.

The vocabulary in what is known as spiritual field is far and wide and is undefined. At one extreme the vital being is understood as spirit, a gross distortion. The vocabulary of The Life Divine is special to itself in the sense He uses the words in a certain sense and maintains it throughout. Much of it is known to serious writing on spirituality in English. For example, the word Silence is used in the sense of absence of thought, a well-known concept among spiritual seekers, though linguistically Silence means only the absence of noise. Sri Aurobindo further extends its connotation to the absence of activity. It is better that before we begin, all his vocabulary such as Self, soul, being, spirit, consciousness, Supermind, infinite, Infinite, Truth, Immortality, energy and so on,  is clearly defined in our minds. At least as and when these words occur, it is good to draw the clear distinction between the common usage and His usage. Peace is understood as absence of war, while to Sri Aurobindo it is Spiritual Peace that is greater than ecstasy.

The constitution of a country is written by the founding fathers of the nation who fought for its creation or freedom, conceived of a nation, dreamt of its future, lived her aspirations in their lives and nerves. Later scholars read it. The country creates educational systems, markets, administration, and so on. People who benefit by these organizations and institutions often mistake the market or their local community for their world or nation. Their conceptions are narrow, and their experience is after the nation has come into existence. Naturally they cannot conceive of the nation as the founders have conceived of it. For them, the constitution is a valuable or a sacred book. We live in a world created long ago. For us our life and our environment matter, not the wide world we live in. How can we interest ourselves in its creation even as a curiosity? Our own world is real to us. Let us start from there. The curious thing is, if the world is not important for us, we are important for the world and our constitution is the same as that of the world. We can understand the world through our own world.

The world is not created by an individual or his mind. Neither is the creator, the mind. For this reason, the mind cannot grasp the process of its creation. But the mind has in it that which exceeds itself. Sri Aurobindo calls it Supermind. To explain the process of creation, we have to resort to something greater than the logic the finite mind is used to. That logic is all-inclusive, not exclusive like our mind. He calls it logic of the infinite.

That which was in the beginning was the Eternal, Infinite, Absolute, the Unknowable, It created the world out of itself and the objects in the world are all its creation including Man. Sri Aurobindo's fundamental proposition is the Omnipresent Reality created the Universe of Ignorance out of itself. Hence all the finites we see around are really the Infinite that is immanent in them.

For the metaphysician, Time is a concept, but to us Time is a reality. For the mathematician, infinity is a concept, but to us it is a reality. In the mind it rises as infinite ideas, in the vital it is infinite energy and in matter the material resources are infinite. It is this perception that will help us understand the Book; the right reading of the Book should lead us to understanding the Practical Concept of Infinity. They are complementary.

As He is addressing people of all levels who live by philosophies of all levels, it is necessary He should take each of them and answer them, rather place His position against them for clarification. Primarily the traditional Hindu view that man should attain liberation and the world is evil occupies His attention. The Christian faith and the Buddhist position often come in the way of his explanation even as He touches on the materialist view frequently. The length of the book will be considerably reduced if all these arguments are removed and only His philosophy is left. But to understand His philosophy in the light of others which is in our subconscious makes for greater clarity and precision.

It helps us to create another parallel of how the society has created government, administration, their various institutions. Humanity creating society and government out of it is a parallel process of the Absolute creating manifestation and the world out of it. We see in this parallel that the administration splits into various departments whose offices go to all corners of the nation till it meets the public. Creation of Supermind and mind out of manifestation leading to life and matter completes the parallel. A detailed construction helps clarify our understanding of the process of creation, a process of the known yielding the unknown.

One of our basic ideas is that creation, life, an organisation and the individual are similarly constituted and function similarly. Sometimes we act creatively. If we can see the process by which we have acted on these occasions, it is yet another way of comprehending the process of creation.

In a creative moment we give the go-by to our past and act spontaneously. At those moments the impossible becomes possible, great things get done. We can see that at these moments we create out of our own potentials, as we choose. The only determinant is ourselves. In the chapter on Determinism, He says the Absolute is the ultimate determinant. It is also possible for us to see that at these moments at least we are constantly seeking delight. He says the Absolute created the world for the purposes of delight. The Absolute seeks delight by first concealing itself and then discovering itself. All discovery leads to joy; Self-discovery when the self is lost gives the greatest delight.

The businessman who has the money goes in for a company in the hope of increasing his capital. In the process, he invests the money, rather risks it. At some time, he sees things have gone out of his control and his money is really lost. He strains hard, innovates, and regains his capital. When it comes back, it comes in a greater abundance. The Absolute begins by self-absorption to turn into its opposite - Being into Non-Being, Knowledge into Ignorance, and so on - till it is fully lost to itself. Now it is not even aware of the fact that it lost itself. The self-finding is the evolution whereas self-absorption is the involution.

The book explains how the Being comes out of the Unmanifest and through involution the Being changes into consciousness, Spirit, Supermind, Mind, Life and Matter and evolves back to return to its unmanifest condition of That.

Occasionally, we ask a question, how did I come to exist? What am I doing? What is behind me? Is there anything behind me? Apply these to your acts and you will easily see that it is not you who act but the family and the society behind you. Such observations, if pursued, will lead one to see that he is clearly seeking joy. This is the beginning. This observation can also lead one to see the Infinite we are. Should one be able to see these two things, he is equipped to fully understand The Life Divine.

The businessman who starts a company creates an administration which is an organization. It is analogous to Time and Space through which the Being creates by its vibration of Real Idea. The Idea of the entrepreneur is the Real-Idea of the Being. As it expresses through Time and Space, the business Idea finds expression through the Organisation that is administration. It further splits into smaller departments till it reaches an individual who executes even as the mind divides the One into Many till it reaches the atom.

We see in a company that new ideas of technology, advertising, human relations, strategy and so on enliven people. In creation, Mind acts on Force and as a result Life is created. Life being energy, the parallel is self evident. When the Force fully absorbs the Mind, what results in creation is Matter. In a company when the staff and workers ‘fully absorb' the idea, that is, are impervious to it, they remain dead matter, the physical workers who are incapable of ideas.

In Sri Aurobindo's yoga the very first step is to go below the surface to the inner mind, reach the subliminal plane and look for the psychic that is hidden there. In this process, the sadhak moves from mind to Supermind, from ego to the psychic, from Time to Timelessness and the finite flowers into the Infinite.

Some of the main lines of His yoga and philosophy are creation of mind and how it creates life and matter which is explained above; creation of Time as subjective extension of consciousness and space as objective extension, the formless infinite acquiring form, losing its character of infinity and power; the sadhak shunning the Being and reaching for the Being in the Becoming.

The central idea of the book can be summarily stated in more than one way:

1. Reconciliation of Matter and Spirit by moving to the simultaneous integrality of Time-eternity and Timeless-eternity.

As our position is that all is Omnipresent Reality, we cannot afford to neglect either Matter or Spirit. They must be taken together. He explains they meet at the plane of cosmic Consciousness and both reveal as vibrations of energy which one can see if he moves from thought to consciousness. In the chapter on Omnipresent Reality, He explains in another way of uniting Matter and Spirit, Being and Non-Being. Rishis have reached Being and having discarded it, moved into Non-Being. He advocates moving into Non-Being without losing hold of Being when the sadhak rises above both into the Unmanifest That. In the 2^nd chapter of the 2^nd Book, He explains the same thing differently. Time-eternity and Timeless-eternity meet at a plane of their simultaneous integrality. Here Matter and Spirit meet.

The best analogy for Being in the Becoming, Matter and Spirit uniting in That, the simultaneous integrality of Time-eternity and Timeless eternity is supplied by Glenn Doman. The Indian system of education is based on memorising; while the Western is based on understanding which is superior to the other as Timelessness is superior to Time. Doman goes further. He sets store neither by memorising nor understanding which are methods chosen by the teacher for the pupil. Doman wants the child to choose his method - the life around revealing itself to the curiosity of the child. These children not only acquire greater education but are devoid of all life-motives of jealousy, competition, bickering, gossip and are balanced individuals.

2. Spiritual evolution

The idea of evolution itself is only one hundred or two hundred years old. It is the evolution of the external form. The Indian tradition looks upon the Spirit as immutable, ageless, changeless. He says that Spirit is  the objective form of Existence and it too evolves. Vedantic idea of evolution stops with mind evolving from life. He goes further to Supermind. This is a revolutionary concept in the yoga of the world.

The spirit evolves out of Nature, Prakriti, through the different planes of body, vital and mind as annamaya purusha, pranamaya purusha and manomaya purusha (spirit of Matter, spirit of Vital and spirit of Mind). Sri Aurobindo extends the idea. As Nature evolves spirit, spirit too evolves into the psychic. The spirit embodies itself to acquire experience. When one body exhausts its usefulness, the spirit moves to another body. Thus the spirit evolves through body, life and mind, the physical psychic, vital psychic and mental psychic. The psychic continues to evolve through the higher mind, illumined mind and so on and reach the Supermind as supramental purusha. At this stage it becomes Ishwara. This is the spiritual evolution that is the core of His yoga.

3. Creation is explained as Play, the World as Playground and God as the Player

Tradition in India consider all the three as separate entities and build up their conflicting philosophical positions. To Him, He is the Player, He is the Play and He is the Playground, thus expressing our basis of Omnipresent Reality converting itself into the universe. The poet writes a poem, reads it himself and appreciates it or criticizes it. We see the Poet, the Poem and its appreciation are all really one.

4. Consciousness evolving out of inconscience

He takes this as a hypothesis in the chapter on Determinism and proves it.

5. A process of manifestation

Absolute - Being - Consciousness - Bliss - Supermind - Mind - Life - Matter - Life-Mind - Supermind - Consciousness - Being - Absolute.

6. Eternal becoming the Individual and back to Itself

The eternal becomes the universe which unable to create an intense enough concentration produces the individual who when he concentrates enough, to fulfil himself in the universe, spread all over the universe and goes back to the Eternal.

The entrepreneur creates a company wide enough to reach the community but is unable to develop the needed intensity in the market. So, he creates salesmen who when they become powerful enough, spread their influence all over the market. Rising still further, each salesman now is as powerful as the original entrepreneur.

7. A process of determinism moving from the lowest physical to the highest Absolute

The ultimate determinant is, He says, the Absolute. But we take the Supermind as the determining factor. Till the advent of Sri Aurobindo, tradition took the mind as the determinant. Mindless people take the vital, even the physical as the determinant.

Physical determinism - A child is overjoyed by a toy whoever gives it.

Vital determinism - Only heartfelt presentation pleases us.

Mental determinism - we choose a TV set by a particular opinion.

Spiritual determinism - Sometimes we disregard a blatantly mental opinion that is right in favour of a high outcome. When it is so justified, it is a spiritual determinism.

Supramental determinism - Behind the injustice done to us, we assume there is a greater justice and it proves to be right.

To explain a very long scale of determinisms from the physical to the Absolute we, in a way, summarize the core of the Book.

8. Man's warped vision rising and seeing the marvel.

Krishna took away the clothes of gopis while they were bathing. The naked eye sees a shameless prank. The spiritual vision sees yet another. Only when the human souls of the gopis shed shame and sense of shame, it can reach the Divine Soul of Krishna.

9. Uniting the Superconscient and the subconscient

or

Seeing the nature below the surface and the being on the surface

10. Achieving perfect forms or perfection in forms

11. Rediscovering the Absolute in the relative

12. Knowledge emerging out of Ignorance (Two chapters on Memory)    

Any theory of creation must account for three things: 1) manifestation, 2) the universe, 3) Determinism.

Manifestation:  The unmanifest, absolute, unknowable Eternal Infinite choosing the object of delight resorted to achieve it through self-discovery, first having lost itself through self-absorption.

The universe:  The Unmanifest One, the Identical by a selective faculty of Maya, created the Many in the universe.

Determinism: He assigns the determinism to a faculty higher than the mind called Supermind. He denies that function to Mind. He says the ultimate determinant is the Absolute.

Life Divine - Business Analogy for each section of a single or more chapters

Chapters 1 to 4

Matter and Spirit; Being and Non-Being

Neither Matter nor Spirit is the whole. We need the whole to be integral. Therefore we must reconcile them both in something higher, the Omnipresent Reality.

Neither sales nor production is exclusively important. The other cannot suffer neglect. The true growth of the company needs both. Moreover, production must be tuned to sales and sales must be precisely coordinated with production. Modern computer systems enable it to be done mechanically. Any businessman who realises the value of this idea and can go back to the reconciliation of Matter and Spirit and understand the spiritual truth behind it will witness the expansion of his business not twice or ten times but fifty or sixty times. I am unable to say infinitely because the lack of organisation will stall the expansion.

Chapter 5 & 6

Universe fulfils itself in the individual and the individual fulfils itself in the universe.

The society is the universe and the company is the individual. It is Sears who first recognised that truth and tried to integrate the society at one point with the ‘money back guarantee'. Compare companies one hundred years ago and of the present day, in customer satisfaction. We are ond hundred times better. I would say, if you see the companies from a 2100 A.D. view point, you can know there are hundreds of other things to be done. I often say that the brain uses a fraction of a percent of its power. It is true of all fields. The unused part is infinite. The used portion is finite. The only example is that of Doman. We can always have an axiom that the used part is infinitesimal.

Chapter 5 

Subconscient and Superconscient must be united

In no field today even in the USA, have the discoveries in the lab reached the market fully. I can say this even of computer, though there the proportion is far greater as it is a new field.

Ignorant uncultured people are satisfied with almost nothing.  In the sphereof non utilisation of available technology, particularly available systems, the same can be said of the shops and even customers. Should a shop owner venture seriously into the discoveries relating to the field of audio, he would discover what has come to be used in manufacture is precious little. You may not agree, the same can be said of the shops in utilising the products on the market. It may be unbelievable to you. You may swear that the utilisation is one hundred percent. In the direct utilisation of available product, it will always be less than ninety percent. That ten percent when utilised will give a great edge to the shop over others. Next, there are products in the market. Shops use them as such. These products permit a great many variations by different combinations. I do not know whether this is resorted to in the market. If they are, that gives a greater opening.

Chapter  7 

Ego

It is selfishness that bring the loss. Business integrated with the customers won't incur loss as inside a company excess materials are profitably used up.

Ego repels, it repels in spite of the external manners. Ego kills in us all that is good. It kills in the customers likewise. One can, at least for one day, genuinely remove all traces of ego and see what happens. The store will sell at the inventory. There will be crowds still, even if products are not there. Without ego, if one tries to integrate with the community of customers, he won't expand one hundred times. A serious sincere attempt for one day or one week will prove this truism.  It will peter out having proved the value of it. It is not a monumental experiment to try to be egoless for one day. I would say the whole staff should do so.

That company which is egoless cannot have any loss

Chapter 8 

Vedantic Knowledge  

Separate the sensationalism of accumulating profit and one will walk into abundance soon

This chapter says reason is now fed with facts by the senses. So the reason receives facts coloured by the senses. When the sensations are removed, the facts are pure facts. Still they are facts to the senses!  Like the broken rod in the water. The senses fully removed from reason makes reason intuition.

The senses bring sense impressions. All our facts, almost all of them, are of this description. Will anyone have the patience or knowledge to sift the facts from the impression, from the feedback we have? It will be a great revolution. The worst type of impressions are inverse - when the customer likes our product most, news will come that they do not like it.

Chapter 9

Pure Existent

The commercial world is one of great energy. He says to our egoistic vision, we see the moving humanity. When the ego is shed, our eyes turn into the eyes of the past to see the ocean of energy. A businessman should come forward to shed his ego - at least to some major extent - and see the commercial world. Then he will see,

The huge sections of the society which remain untapped. As Peter Drucker warned of the colleges of  hidden student population in the coming years, they can see the hidden areas.

The vision may reveal the new products that would be on the market later.

The new areas in the existing customers.

The commonplace errors they commit with customers.

The future, the hidden areas, hidden possibilities would show up.

Kapali Sastriar used to dream often that he was bodily thrown into a big room. When he first met Sri Aurobindo, he saw it was the same room. He ended up here. For businessmen as it is his own great personal interest, his own affairs may reveal in an unegoistic vision. It may be common with a few successful businessmen.

Chapter 10 

Conscious Force 

The society is not an ignorant mass which goes in all directions. It is a conscious force and a conscious being. Anyone who wants to be a successful businessman must tune himself to that force consciously. When one has the knowledge that the society is conscious, then he will be able to turn himself to it better.

How conscious the society is, is best seen at times of revolutions. At the time of a revolution a country is astir. For those who see only the surface like foreigners, ten year olds or indifferent citizens, the society will be functioning almost as usual. Neither in the market, nor in the offices, nor in any place of public evidence, one can see any change at all. When the transfer of power talks were going on in Delhi, I remember that six months earlier people were asking, 'who will believe India will be free?' On August 14, 1947 Chidambaram was as quiet as before. It was on August 15^th that the entire population was on the road almost in all cities and towns in India. The three Musketeers had some inkling of this knowledge, prior to the French Revolution.

In personal lives, several such transformations can be seen, a month before a few millions are received by an ordinary man, life looks placid. Once the money is put into one's hands, one finds he is a new person. New power hitherto unknown rises from inside.

Society is conscious below the surface. We are not conscious of its inner situation.

Even when heart attack comes, it comes suddenly. For an unconscious perception, the subconscious preparation of the society is imperceptible. The fall of Berlin Wall, the declaration of the II World War, even the spread of computers in the 80s have this appearance.

Should one be perceptive to such a change below the surface, when it surfaces, he will find forces and energies not five or ten fold, but of infinite dimension emerging. Read this chapter and try to become aware of the material truth. He draws our attention to the life in plants and then goes on to show the life in metals and minerals. When you perceive the significance of that argument, the book, becomes a page turner.

When the Society which is all market, is perceived in this light, any businessman can visualize himself as Sears in the future. Before the infinity of the society, Sears is a speck in the ocean.

This perception will be further fortified, if you already get it from this chapter, when you read in the chapter of ‘Life' that life is a mighty pulsation that will continue to exist even if the universe is abolished.

Chapter 11, 12 

Delight

The world is one of delight. There is no sorrow or pain except for the ego. There is no obligation to return the response of pain to events that are now painful.

• Satchidananda is trying to express the objectless delight in the objects. Man sees not that intention, but seizes the objects and enjoys pain.
• Man has no failure in life.
• Business has no loss in its vocabulary.
• Business is of the community.
• Society is trying to compress all its wealth into one man's life through business so each individual will be as wealthy as the entire society. But man reaches the business and society through his ego, its profit motive, cuts himself out of his roots, becomes lifeless and ends up with the duality of profit and loss. He emphasizes profit which enhances the chances of loss to equally greater dimensions. He enjoys the precarious existence!

Chapter 13 

Maya

• This is a selective faculty that helps to create the basis for an order. Even Sat, chit, Ananda, the differentiation, He says, was due to Maya.
• The pessimists miss the link between the Divine Maya and lower Maya and end in the theory of illusion.
• Maya, the original word of wisdom in Veda, has now become one of a curse word and a joke.
• Business is risky.
• Job is safe.
• Business means loss, loss even of your property.
• Government job is secure with its pension even after retirement, even after your death, it takes care of your wife.

Business is not risky. Even job is not safe for the weakling. There is no loss at all in any business for one who works hard, energetic, has the right mental values and chooses the strategy of unfailing success. A weak upper middle class man on the strength of his degree and status enters high in life, but he ends up one or two levels below where he started or even as low as a tramp or a criminal sometimes. It is not business that is risky. It is the man.

Take His advice that higher or lower Maya is wisdom and is essential to life to create an order and serve as its foundation. In business or any work, classification of work is necessary. We see, as long as it does not hurt us, the Manager looks after the production and accounts. In many companies we see the all purpose man at the top, even down below. People even feel a pride in such men.

The rule of administration is clear in this regard.

I stage of company	The proprietor does all work.
II stage	Division of labour sets in and efficiency is increased ten or twenty fold because of division.
III stage	Such demarcation should go down to the last file, last function. As the specialisation increases, efficiency increases. At this stage, the all purpose man will bring in confusion or at least inefficiency.
IV Stage	Starting from the top, one must be able to do more than one work, discharge greater responsibilities. To stick to specialisation at this stage is retrograde or reactionary. It should go down to the very bottom. Specialization remains as basic responsibility, additional ability accrues.
V Stage	Very few companies or governments reach this level. The IAS or the previous ICS cadre was created by this principle.

Chapter 14  

Supermind as the creator

• Indian tradition very much assumes mind has created the world.
• It says Brahman is the God of creation.
• Supermind is known from Vedic times, but was not emphasized.
• Tradition has not attempted a theory of creation. It ended up as the Bible saying Brahma created dolls and breathed life into it.
• Evolution was known up to mind, not beyond.
• No single principle, fact, experience Sri Aurobindo gives is unknown to the tradition in essentials. Their minds knew it, as mind can know that is, as an isolated aspect, not part of a whole.
• The process of Supermind is occult to mind. Still, tradition knew many of these facts. As occult knowledge by the mind can acquire only esoteric efficiency, the science remained a secret and degenerated into magic.
• Such power of knowledge can produce isolated results - curing a snake bite, dematerializing, knowing another's mind, finding a lost article - but not have general wholesome results on the national life.
• Business very much assumed that money has created the business and now gives that pride of place to technology.
• Business feels that money or status or bank or technology has created business whereas in fact, all these are created by man.
• Man's primacy is known long ago. World scriptures hail his significance, but in daily life, it is not man but his possessions that matter.
• The business world has not created the science or even the subject of management. Till now the emphasis is on survey, statistics, advertisement, decentralisation, A/c, customer satisfaction and number of other trinkets that are useless tinsel. management theories, though effective in many ways are childish or at best the wisdom of the illiterate.
• Management was very well known as efficiency, particularly cost cutting, not beyond. It never came to the first foundation.
• None of the principles we will be giving from Life Divine or facts or insights, however striking they are, are unknown to the business experience. They know everything as an isolated fact, not as an expression of a principle. The question of knowing that principle as part of a theory does not arise.
• Market forces acting is unseen. When results precipitate, everyone exclaims, 'What a surprise. Whoever thought of it.' The power of business now goes to 1) securing political influence, 2) destroying the competition, 3) aggrandizing oneself. This is selfish. It must change. One must be able to see the trends in the market, especially in one's own business. A serious reading of Vital Difference can give this knowledge. The accumulated power of business should go to 1) serving the market and beyond that community, 2) converting competition into cooperation, 3) never assert your company.  Assert the trade, better still, the market or society or higher human values.

Chapter 15 

Supreme Truth Consciousness

Supermind is a part of our being as mind and life are or a faculty of Sat. He says it is the psychological truth of impersonal consciousness or impersonal psychological truth of consciousness. It is this that creates through the planes of Time and Space. It also creates mind by the apprehending faculty of Supermind. The unitarian knowledge that is one splits here into knower, known, and knowledge, though not yet distinctly separate.

Supermind put the works of the all before it as the poem is placed before the poet. It is a further step of involution. Hence there is greater division, greater possibility for clarity.

The businessman knows his shop very well, not the market so well. His concentration is in his factory or company or shop. But the field is the market; still beyond it the whole market and the economy lies behind. Society and humanity are further.

If a businessman knows his own shop in terms of the market of his product, he rises from half a million to 15 million dollars. Knowing the entire market in terms of their production and technology, he will multiply his stores and reach $200 million as someone who has done it and is now a consultant. Rest lies beyond.

By reading The Life Divine, expanding one's personality, extending it to his work and market, he will observe that his expansion is non-stop till he is weary of it. Study the biography of the founders of IBM, Sears, GM etc. They are all people who enjoyed expansion at each stage as they correspondingly expanded their personality. Man is mercenary. With a little refinement his mercenary nature is limited to money. At the next level he is not so enamoured of money, but work attracts. In a company founders this transition can be seen. Work then gives way to values. Such people go after quality and standards. A more refined soul has several lines from here to branch off.

When the unitarian knowledge splits into Knower, Known and Knowledge, though there is a diminution of consciousness, the divided parts gain in significance in the descent and clarity.

Such division, clarity  and so on are possible in business only when one is centered in the realities of the market and the economy. Thinking on these lines, it can be seen that the book reveals through each of its arguments wider truths and our own work will gain in clarity. It will be obvious that no one in the field has any insight closer to ours. That was what the one strategy of money-back guarantee gave Sears one hundred years ago.

Today there lies dormant in the market:

• 1) Dozens of such strategies the store can imitate from the market.
• 2) At least one new strategy like FedEx can be fashioned.
• 3) You can enjoy the reading of the book; you can enjoy expanding the business or you can simple enjoy existing.

Chapter 16   Three Poises of Supermind

Supermind can take any number of poises as it is under no restriction as the lower triplicity is. Here it takes 3 poises of God, Jivatma, ego. God is the poise of unitarian consciousness of Satchidananda. In the Truth Consciousness of differentiation without separation, the poise is Jivatma. In Ignorance Supermind takes the poise of ego.

In the society, especially within the limits of Market, the determinative character (Supermind) takes innumerable poises. Let us consider only the poises corresponding to the above 3.

Unitarian consciousness of Satchidananda will correspond in market to the level which unites all the possibilities in potential. Management that knows and has power to move the market and has the powers of money, manpower, weight, command over the market, etc. is the management that determines the stock market, bond market, etc. All top companies belong to that area. Let us take GM as its representative.

Next comes Jivatma which is soul and spirit but which remains a witness incapable of action which is of the Many. Hundreds of companies like Jerry's Complex who can really become a GM by inherent capacity but acting circumscribed by sons like Harold, circumscribed by his own predilections, remain a passive witness to the non-growth  of their companies.

The last is Ego. Indeed it is Jivatma and God innately but as the ego is acting in the plane of Ignorance and is enamoured of the circumstances of Ignorance, it loses the company, loses the market, incurs losses, goes bankrupt.

The spiritual truth is ego is innately Jivatma and God. In fact, God and Jivatma are inside the individual if only it comes forward to shed its ignorance and ego.

If only any businessman recognizes his ignorance and comes forward to shed it, he becomes Jivatma and God. He can become a $200 million company or a $100 billion company.

Any businessman who reads this chapter and sees the parallel in business, if he tries, first giving up the narrow ways of human life, is destined for the growth spoken above.

There are village youth who are extremely talented but who believe, in their social circumstances, they cannot rise up. Similar youth in towns having undergone aptitude tests, when they know they have an aptitude, end up with the Tatas.

This book shows the reader the spiritual possibilities he has. It is for him to take it up and make a great capital out of it. The question is whether they will see and whether they will consent to that effort.

Chapter 17   

The Divine Soul

This is God in the ascent.

It emerges when the ego is shed.

It knows all beings are made of Self, it sees all beings inside its own Self and it sees the self in all being.

• The parallel in the businessman will emerge when he sheds the petty profit motive, for profits' sake.
• He must see in reality of emotions that his own business is the result of market.
• He must see that all business are similarly made possible by the market.
• He must be able to see the whole market in himself and see himself in every business venture.

That is the point at which the lone member of species who takes care of himself defensively by offence becomes a civilized member of a wider peace loving community. As the emergence of the market is because of the existence of a community where law and order prevail, offensive-defense posture is alien to its texture.

The significance of this chapter to a businessman are,

• No one businessman can exist all by himself. First of all he would not have come into existence. Suppose I own a petrol bunk an I do not want any other bunk in my town and assuming I succeed, I will have to close my place. If there is a large clientele for petrol, bunks appear. That is how I came into operation. In the absence of such clientele, several bunks would not have emerged. If in a town there is only one bunk, car owners will soon sell away their cars and my shop too must close. Our assumption that all cars will come to my shop is not the way markets function. In all expanding business, where competition is severe, what happens is all the poor tradesman are wiped out and only the stronger ones remain. The average trade before that expansion and after the expansion will see now his business as three to four times as before.

The rule is, competition is healthy and pushes business overall to a high level. Egoistic businessmen try to cut each other's throat. Sooner or later the breed entirely vanishes. Civilised, unegoistic businessmen replace them at a higher level. Now the average size will be several times bigger.

The chapter ends in asking in what conditions the Divine Soul can emerge and function?   It answers its own question that in the absence of ego, Divine Soul can emerge.

Chapter 18  

Mind and Supermind

• Supermind exists at two levels, comprehending and apprehending.
• This is the first division, the parent of all divisions.
• Mind is a subordinate power of Supermind.
• Mind is created to divide.
• It continues its division till it reaches the infinitesimal.
• Mind divides the force on the surface, not the being below.
• As the infinitesimal resists its further division which will make it into one ocean of consciousness, the division converts itself into aggregation.
• It is this aggregation that creates matter.
• Mind is a divisive instrument, but an instrument that creates Ignorance.
• The dividing instrument turns into divided one, forgetting its origin.
• Mind becomes ignorant when it is lost into its own workings.
• There is a veil above overmind created by this operation which we must rend.

The Supramental Force is formidable. When it entered Mother, she walked around her room several times a minute. That force is there on earth since 1950 available for those who open their being to it. The mental, social, physical conditioning stand in the way. Sometimes through the unorganised part of our being which is not conditioned, a sincere call brings down the Force. It is at such times miraculous things happen.

Society is a great Force. An analogy can be created within the society for Supermind and mind. As they are analogies they won't serve our purpose as examples. At the top end of society the socially creative forces in politics, business, thought and laws are there. There is a lot of money in the banks and there is the Federal Reserve which has the full power of money but is not released into the market. This stratum of power can be called Supermind in society as an analogy. At this level ideas, rules, conventions, values are high and are scrupulously upheld as in the Supreme court. Lower down, life in the local courts and small shops, values are not in the forefront. It can be called mind. Our shops are in that area.

If the business at our level (mind) does not sever its relations with business at the highest levels, our values will rise to the values there. Down below we lose ourselves  in the shop and work and lose our vision that exists above. We divide ourselves from the above and divide ourselves from our neighbours. Only when we lose ourselves in ourselves - be selfish and egoistic - we lose the high values and ethics of society and business. Then we degenerate.

• Can we live by the higher values of business?
• Can we always think of our work in terms of business above?
• Can we stop dividing ourselves from others?
• We cannot fully carry the division to the end. At some point others come to work with us. Such cooperation is necessary. At this point depiecing stops and aggregation starts.
• The Veil is Ignorance of great business. Rend and rise above that.

Chapters 19-22  

Life, Death, Desire and Incapacity; Ascent of Life; Problem of Life

Matter is subconscient will.

The Self-Existent has arranged Himself in all things according to its Truth.

Life carries force of form as sensation to mind's will and brings it back to rule matter.

Desire is the law of hunger that changes into the law of Love.

Incapacity that generates strife rises to increase the power of both the contending forces and ends in Love.

Death, Desire, Strife are ways of self-affirmation of the Law of Life.

Mind, with the psychic nodus, reconciles the individual and the aggregate by the principle of Love which grows by giving.

Only by universalizing, the harmony between the Force and consciousness can be found.

• If the customers - the population - is considered Matter, the store is considered as Mind and the innovative scientists and engineer who design new products as Supermind, for the purposes of only this page, we can say that Matter is subconscient Will of Mind, the customers and their preferences are the creation of the store. It requires a long detailed discussion based on facts of the store to convince the entrepreneurs of this truism. Imagine if they are convinced of it, what the potential could be?
• The store decides what the customers purchase!
• The text of The Life Divine explains how desire changes into Love. The desire in the customers is so strong that they will carry the product for a song. But the quality of the product makes them pay their due to the product. The crude desire when it is willing to pay its due, becomes Love.
• Incapacity of strife leads to Love - the above is the same principle. What starts as incapacity turns into capacity for the high vibration of love.
• That customers desire to pay a tenth of the price, is the law of affirmation of social life that is offensive to defend itself.
• Education in the population is mind with the psychic nodus that turns desire into Love. Suppose in a primitive community a modern man opens a shop and offers incentives. The population will loot the shop. The educated modern man has that desire to loot, but his civilisation makes him pay.
• Evolution takes place by the Force, which originally came out of consciousness going back to it. It is done by universalisation. In the market it happens only when the whole population is civilized and educated. Now it is extending over the globe.

Chapter 23  Double Soul in Man

•  Mind, life and body are divided into two halves. The surface and subliminal mind; life and subtle life; gross body and subtle body. The soul is divided into the desire soul and psychic.

• Mind opening into the subliminal, life and body entering their subtle party will enable the psychic to emerge and the psychic man, the forerunner of the Supramental man will function on earth. Somewhere Sri Aurobindo calls him the universal man. In such a life there will be harmony at all levels. In the market let us enumerate the conflicts. The technology that is attractive to the customer has many other unattractive parts to it. It rules. Often the very packaging comes in the way of sales. How often the cabinet of the TV sells, not its performance. The customer is never reasonable enough to pay even the cost price. Left to himself, if the customer can have his way, he will never be reasonable to pay a profit to the store. Suppose the store is willing to sell a product for half its cost, how many customers will be conscientious to offer to pay the full price? The price is a major area of conflict. A long list of conflicts can be enumerated.

Psychic life is one of uniform harmony in mind, body and life. What can the store do to make the customer psychic so that harmony will rule. He must himself become psychic.  What is it to become psychic in the store?

The psychic is innately clean, it does not speak, is sensitive to disharmony, has mutuality and unity. Let the store raise its level of cleanliness and lower its volume of sound, endeavour for harmony between the staff and with the customers. Let them all go all out to serve the mutual interest and aim at unity.

Chapters 24 & 25  

Matter, Knot of Matter

Sat became Matter.

It is the mental sense that changed the substance (spiritual) into material substance through quantity, design and number.

Substance is Truth's presentation of itself to Being.

Unity, Mutuality and Harmony are the characteristics of Truth consciousness. By inverting them into division, separated existence and disharmony, the involution began.

Being by self-awareness became consciousness. Consciousness is knowing and doing, that is, consciousness and force. After the separation when they try to unite, force absorbs consciousness generating life first and matter next. At the level of matter, consciousness is fully absorbed into force.

It is the mind that has created matter by the process of division and by losing itself into the form of matter. Matter is subconscient mind or will.

Man's view is that matter generates mind; the truth is, mind creates matter. By a change of view, matter can be transformed into Being

The population, the ignorant masses are really the highly conscious society that is seeking a greater delight for its own sake.

It is the consumer sense that converts the scientific potential into a commercial product.

Scientific knowledge	= Being.
Its objective status and people's accepting it	= Truth
Knowledge perceiving  people's acceptance is the basis for a product	= Being's perception of Truth is substance.

Products can be made to last a lifetime. The manufacturer can pass on all his advantages to the customer. By whatever he does he can make the customer stay with him. But the manufacturer makes products last a short time. He never passes on his advantage to the customer. There is almost an unspoken antagonism between the manufacturer and the customer.

As Unity, Mutuality and Harmony are inverted into division, separate existence and disharmony, the trade does the above.

When pure scientific knowledge wants to take the public into account, it moves out of its pristine pure position of abstract knowledge. Then as consciousness splits into consciousness and force, scientific knowledge splits into pure knowledge and technology. If any product can be made as technology permits or demands, it can be an excellent one. But price is the factor. Force is the public willingness that represents price. As technology interacts with price, a product is produced. It releases commercial energy. As and when the technology comes down to meet the price requirements of customers, technology is almost lost and a little is left out. That is matter. When matter evolves - the public is willing to pay the higher price - the product becomes a wonder.

Chapter 26  Sevenfold Chord of Being

Being           becomes          Matter

Consciousness                     Life

Ananda                                Psychic

Supermind                           Mind

The analogy is the same as in the previous chapter.

Chapter 27  Ascending Grades of  Substance

All planes are made of the same substance and therefore evolution is possible.

All planes from store to manufacturer are the same in the sense the essence of management is the same from top to bottom. If only an entrepreneur masters the principles of management at his own level, he is, from that moment, qualified to rise as high as he chooses.

Chapter 28 

Supermind, Mind, Overmind Maya

The supramental evolution is not only possible, but inevitable.

There is a range of higher, illumined, intuitive, overminds between us and Supermind.

Overmind takes a single possibility of Supermind and takes it to its end.

That all those who have stores today will one day rise to the level of big manufacturers is not only possible but inevitable.

Higher mind understands by silence.

Illumined mind understands by sight.

Intuitive mind understands by no medium.

Overmind has the knowledge, but with Ignorance side by side.

Supermind understands things not outside but as objects inside itself.

The store keeper can raise his understanding on the above scale and in proportion rise in his commercial status. He now understands by his own observation, survey, study of literature. This is the way of mind collects its knowledge. The higher mind understands by silence. By silent will his capacity to sell, manage will increase ten or twenty times.

Illumined mind 

It is the common experience of traders that a product appears before their mind insistently of which they cannot make anything out,  but after sometime it becomes the product for them. It is their illumined mind that saw it.

Intuitive mind 

Sometimes a change of location, choosing a product or recruiting a man  will be as clear as what you have done earlier. That we hired this store two years ago is a fact, an incontrovertible fact. Now we want to change and hire new premises, but it reveals to you as a fact that you are functioning in another premises you know. After shifting to the new premises hired, some months later you end up on the premises which revealed itself to you. This is intuition.

Overmind 

Overmind has the capacity to function undisturbed by the ignorance outside. We have violence in our city, but it never comes to our store and that is ensured by the police. When we rise, competition can ruin us in a hundred different ways. Suppose you are in Overmind (not overmind proper) with respect to your work, such violence will leave you untouched. We often hear successful people say, 'I passed through hell, but I wonder how all those forces spared me.' Such a man is in overmind with respect to his work.

Supermind

Intuition sees objects outside without the media of light, understanding or thought. Supermind sees the object inside. It has the knowledge, it need not try to get it. When man is tuned to work, in a bargain of say one million, he knows in his mind that he could not offer less than three quarters of a million to start with for him to end up in two. Sometimes he knows it to be otherwise. He knew the property's market value is one million but inside he would know it will be purchased for half a million which he will never believe but the bargain ends in half a million. It may be one and half million. Whether it is high or low, the intuition knows ahead.

Life Divine

Book II: Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara

Form, finite, time, outer manifestation, mutability and so on are aspects of dualities valid in manifestation, not outside.

There is the simultaneous integrality of Time-Eternity and Timeless-Eternity where Form and Formlessness meet

The customer and the store are at opposite ends always. According to Sri Aurobindo, heaven is on earth. He discounts Being as well as Becoming but advocates the Being of the Becoming.

When the store thinks of its profit, and the customer his own, there is a tussle, an endless bargain. Take a simple case. Forget your profit at all. Genuinely try to understand what the customer is asking for, why he wants a certain product. Often the customer does not know what he wants, what the market offers him. If only the personal gain goes away from the salesman's mind, and then he addresses the felt need of the customer, even if he has to send him to another store, at the end, the salesman will end up with five times the sales, never twice. The only true criterion is one must be genuine.

Being is God, Becoming is Nature and both are opposites. Being of Becoming is God in Time and Timelessness. By this strategy, we, in our work, rise to a very high spiritual status. Or at least end up selling five times every time.

Chapter 3 

Eternal and the Individual

The Universal and the Eternal are subjectively dwelling in the individual.

Market outside, the manufacturer who supplies the store are psychologically in dwelling in the store owner.

Now we buy what the companies manufacture and sell what the public demands. We can see beyond what the market perceives - what the market needs. That perception can gain power and the market will come to you asking for that. We can see, by the light of our market experience and our knowledge of the manufacturer's capacity to produce, what new products can be marketed. He will soon produce it. It is by this process today that the market develops and products come in the market. Mine is a further point issuing from the chapter.

Neither the Eternal nor the Universal can directly evolve. The key is the Individual for evolution. He is the evolutionary spearhead. It is he who fulfils the universal and reaches the Transcendent. The store is the meeting point of the market and the manufacturer; neither of them is in touch with the end user as the store is. So, if the store develops insights in both the directions, it can expand to their dimensions. Their dimensions are infinite.

Chapter 6 

Divine and Undivine

Unity, Truth, Goodness, Knowledge, Will and Love are the aspects of a complete being.

Man notices only the lack of Love as it ends in pain.

The Force is working comprehensively. There is no loss, wastage or pain except for the divided being. 

Once the store espouses unity with the market and supplier, he witnesses the following:

There is no financial loss

There is no loss of any kind

He is able to see the truth of everyone concerned

Everyone's goodness and knowledge  impacts positively on him

He acquires the will for the above purpose.

It simply means that the store grows in size and name as if without any effort of his and continues to grow. Sometimes he gets to worry about the growth. The effort is not physical or vital. He has already taken the mental or spiritual effort to concretely conceive of unity. To be able to conceive that everyone's profit and joy is your own joy and profit requires universal energy.

Chapter 7   

Knowledge and Ignorance

A universe free of ignorance is conceivable.

Assuming the nature of existence undiscoverable, Buddha shunned it.

Being part of ignorance we cannot know its origini

The definitions of Vedas and Upanishads are inadequate.

The object of enquiry can only be approached by consciousness.

Penetrating consciousness, they unite in the Omnipresent Reality.

All embracing, opposition and compromising are the three ways ignorance relates to knowledge.

Ignorance and knowledge are the same.

A commercial world without loss, competition, secrecy, cut-throat behaviour is conceivable.

No one so far has tried to discover it because they assume that it is not possible.

Being inside profit motive, we cannot know it.

The economic and social definitions of commerce are inadequate.

Our goal can be approached only from the point of view of self-giving.

Penetrating the conventional wisdom, we discover our goal in the native goodness of society or even humanity.

The crass ignorance of the public as well as the business community alternately opposes or compromises or embraces the new ideas unthinkingly.

Chapters 8-9

Chapters on Memory and Ego

• Self-Consciousness becomes Self-experience.
• Ignorance grows into ego in the above process.
• Our surface being is only the deeper eternal self in us adventuring in Time.
• Object, Act, Occasion, Subject.
• When the mental person is fully detached from the mental act, first ego and then the witness reveals.
• Consciousness and events are not divided. They are divided in our observation.
• Must see both our self and nature as a whole on the surface and depth.

Chapter 10   

Knowledge by Identity

Four types of knowledge by self, inner being, subliminal being and surface being.

The ego resides on the surface. When you go in, you walk into the inner being, which is wider and subtle, but not spiritual. The subliminal is lodged in it and the psychic is in the subliminal. The eternal Self is beyond the subliminal plane.

Surface       -  Profit-seeking store.

Inner being  -  the wider market which sets the rules and values for commercial behaviour.

Subliminal   -  The greater sensitivity of the individual about the public good.

Self            -  The idealist in man who is a lover of humanity.

The store owner rising in this scale incidentally rises in the level of his operations.

Chapter 11  

Boundaries of Ignorance

Original Ignorance                   -     Not to know That.

Cosmic Ignorance                   -     Not to know the Cosmic Divine

Universal Ignorance                -      Not to shed the ego

Temporal Ignorance               -      To be bound by Time

Psychological Ignorance         -      Not to know the different planes

Constitutional Ignorance         -      Each part unintegrated with the other

Practical Ignorance                -       Not to know the next step.

In business their versions will be:

Practical Ignorance  - Not to know the next step, where to locate the store, what products to buy, whom to recruit and so on.

Constitutional Ignorance - The sales people, management and the owners remaining uncoordinated.

Psychological Ignorance - The market is influenced by sudden changes in exchange rate, interest rate, raw material supply, appearance of new products and a dozen other factors which positively or negatively affect us. We are unaware of any of them.

Temporal Ignorance - We are bound by Time in several senses of the word. Delivery, payment, money movement and such transactions. Nothing is in our control.

Universal Ignorance - Our ego always determines, we are selfish, parochial, national and are never global and broad-minded.

Cosmic Ignorance - We have the least idea how we are here selling this product, how this product came to be a product. We take many things for granted. If we look into our thoughts we do not proceed beyond a certain level.

Original Ignorance - As we are unaware of the product and the business, we are more unaware of how this society came into existence and what is all this about.

Chapter 12  The Origin of Ignorance

• When Mind severs its relationship with its origin Supermind, Ignorance starts.
• Basic reason for Ignorance is because Mind starts to lose itself in its own play.
• Business is a child of the society. When the business is active and is expanding, it tends to forget its origin of the society and begins to lose itself in its own details.

Chapter 13 

Exclusive Concentration of Consciousness-Force and the Ignorance

• Ignorance is the greatest power of consciousness.
• Ignorance is not incapacity; it is a capacity to hold back.
• There will be no manifestation without Ignorance.

Suppose people have not immigrated to the USA from Europe the nation as we know as USA today with its world leadership would not have emerged. Europe never needed USA. The founding of USA has a parallel for our purposes. Europe, which had achieved, assumed Ignorance and started afresh in USA. Therefore, civilization has achieved greater heights and world leadership. This is an achievement Ignorance has made possible. The parallel in the society for business is not so evident but it is the same. Let us assume the parallel exists then,

The lack of information and the skill of the population is a greater power that makes business endeavour reach their ignorance more and more. That is why technology develops and business methods develop. That is how the USA is a world leader in business.

Chapter 14  

Origin of Evil, Falsehood and Error

• The simple contrary by a wrong insistence becomes complex perversion and evil.
• The separate divided being needs evil for its growth.
• All the evils of business such as corruption, competition, jealousy, ruining the rival, underhand dealing, tax evasion,  and so on come under this category.
• Suppose a businessman genuinely moves away in his mind, not in external appearance, he ceases to be a divided being and he does not need to meet evil in his work. Mother says She will not give him the occasion to meet evil. In my experience, She has never given one such opportunity. The only opportunity of evil coming into our life is when we resort to it.

Part II, Book II

Chapter 15  

Reality and Integral Knowledge

• Neither the One, nor the Many is ultimate. That which includes both is ultimate.
• Neither the customer, nor the manufacturer is ultimate. Society that holds both in it is ultimate. Accept not the values of the customer or the manufacturer but the values of society. Then you will witness the Practical Concept of Infinity in work.

Chapter 16  

Theories of Life

• That which excludes the Transcendent is partial.
• Neither cosmic or Supra cosmic or terrestrial life is acceptable, but only a synthetic view of life is acceptable
• Business that benefits either the manufacturer or the customer or the store only is not acceptable. What is acceptable is what serves all of them.

Chapter 17  

God, Man and Nature

Conscious unity of God, Man and Nature in his own consciousness is a sure foundation of knowledge.

God is the manufacturer, nature is the customer, the store is the individual. The store consciously uniting in himself the interests of both the others is a sure foundation of great business achievement.

Chapter18  

Ascent and Integration

The secret of the new evolution is the double opening.

Shift from outside to the inside.

Evolution speaks of moving high. All men who wish to rise up look up. The new theory is only he who looks down will be able to rise above. Only when you open the subconscient below the Superconscient above will be accessible.

God down, know the customer, go further down, study the non-customer, go still further down, study the future needs. Only he will be able to rise.

Chapter 19 

Sevenfold Ignorance and Sevenfold Knowledge

These ideas were discussed in the earlier chapter 11.

Chapters 20-22 

Chapters of Rebirth

As the soul is evolving, it needs more than one birth to complete the evolution.

No one product or one line of business can give a man maturity.

Chapter 23   

Man and Evolution

Change of body to house higher consciousness in man reverses itself as change of consciousness to alter the body that houses it, making evolution inevitable.

The store owner should become the manufacturer and customer to undergo those experiences. Now, with this changed attitude in his own position, he will be able to experience as all the three.

Chapter 24  

Evolution of the Spiritual Man

To discover one's soul and help others to do so is the real service.

For a store to discover his true role and help other stores to do so is real service.

Chapter 25 

Triple Transformation

• Psychic transformation. Ego dissolves, one goes into the depth and subliminal where he meets with the psychic.
• Spiritual transformation. Where the liberated psychic rises beyond the golden lid and a descent from there takes place.
• Supramental transformation. Where the blind imperative Necessity of Inconscience is met with by the luminous imperative of Superconscience.

The store shedding its profit motive enters into the depths of commercial knowledge where he meets a strategy of unfailing success.

This enables one to rise to heights of manufacture and R & D where the store is in direct touch with new inventions and manufacture whose benefits descend copiously on the store.

The people, their ignorance and incapacity and resistance have a need to be met with by the new research and manufacture. When they meet with each other, without the intervention of the store, they fulfil each other.

Chapter 26 

Ascent Toward the Supermind

• Purusha becomes the conscious master of the prakriti.
• Supramental transformation is completed as above (*).
• No longer the owner of the store is an unconscious helpless witness but a master of his movement.

Chapter 27 

The Gnostic Being

• Liberty, not law.
• Infinite works out the finite.
• Inherent self-knowledge and intimate world knowledge.
• What Law achieves by enforcement is accomplished by Liberty, by self-discipline.
• Almost all activities are hereafter expressions of the Infinite.
• This is possible by inherent self-knowledge and intimate world knowledge.

Chapter 28 

Divine Life

• Realise the inner reality.
• Force, delight, consciousness and universality make for fullness.
• All processes are inner processes.
• Unity, Mutuality, Harmony release higher powers.
• Spirit masters matter.
• Only intuition can do it.
• Transformation is the only process.
• New creation is self-creation.

The above in the context of a store is self-evident.

Realising the inner reality of the unity of the society, the inner process of unity, mutuality and harmony makes the store full, giving it force, delight, consciousness and universality when market is moved by the thought of the store owner. Intuition and transformation achieve this new creation which the store creates itself.

 

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*  This principle will hold true with every idea that the following chapters will yield. Therefore, I am not repeating them anymore.