Religion in the Work Place or Professional World

chillibreeze writer — Martin Kovacic

At the beginning of the 21st century, at a time when almost every nation has been influenced by the forces of globalisation and the homogenisation of economic and social policy that can come in its train, it would seem that the place for religion in the modern professional context has become negligible, if not entirely obsolete. After all, many would say, work is for effecting skills, producing goods and services, earning income and contributing to the economy. Religious belief or metaphysical principles are irrelevant to the business of succeeding in those functions, which by their nature are purely utilitarian necessities of life.

The Classic Thinkers – Separation of Church and State

In the spirit of secular liberalism, many would agree with this sentiment. It was the French philosophes, such as Voltaire and Diderot, back in the 18th century who loudly declared that religious hypocrisy was largely responsible for the unjust economic practices that kept lower class people in a condition of permanent subjugation to the greed of the clergy, as well as the nobility who sponsored them. Throw out religion, they said, and you throw out with it much of the corruption of the ruling classes, replaced instead with a universal system of accountability grounded in egalitarian rights rather than ‘divinely apportioned providence’. Economic thinkers such as Adam Smith and J.S.Mill in the 19th century, not to mention Karl Marx himself, followed this belief with more detailed systems of theory that virtually left God out of the picture entirely. God, at any rate, was not responsible for holding the purse strings any longer. This was the domain of the rule of law and enlightened liberal democracy working in a free-market.

God in Today’s Market Place

The irony of this historical trend, however, is that some 200 years later, God seems to have tiptoed back into the picture. After a century of American-style capitalistic endeavour which made an art out of the secular virtues of self-will, proactivity and entrepreneurial spirit, some would say such practise has been carried to caricatural extremes in the last twenty years of New Age-style corporate gurudom: a long line of inspirational heroes from Henry Ford and Dale Carnegie to Bill Gates and Anthony Robbins. What can be seen perhaps in such inspirational discourse is to what extent the prescriptive principles of commercial success begin to function as quasi-religious exhortations to a near-miraculous transcendence of merely mortal abilities and achievement. Somewhere during the course of nearly fifty years of global capitalism, the nostalgia for God has found its way back into the marketplace, dressed in the guise of a corporate Superman. It is no surprise that some of the most religious and secular of countries – whether U.S.A. or India, to take two obvious examples – also take their business very seriously.

However, these reflections do not immediately answer the question of how contemporary religious practice actually works – if it does – in the workplace. Certainly it would be difficult in 2005 to find any inner-city office stopping work to perform puja, prostrations, or Buddhist ceremony. It is in the interests of business to optimise time to optimise strategy to optimise profits. Few CEOs are going to believe that an appeal to Ganesh, to the prophet Mohammed or to Sakyamuni Buddha, is going to tip the yield-curve that extra percentage-mark.

Finding Happiness and Satisfaction in Professional Life

Or are they? Shasta Rinehart is an American director of a clothing-import company who initially experienced great resistance among her colleagues to her long-held Hindu beliefs. Her visits to India in the 1980s led to a deeper investigation into the nature of religious belief, and now based in Pune, she cannot imagine how she would succeed without it. “Most of my clients are Western business people who simply laugh at my Hindu belief, and see me as a hopelessly clichéd Westerner duped by my own naivete. And who knows – perhaps they’re right! But the fact is – I prefer it that way. I’ve experienced the other side – business-life where the only consideration is a black and white spreadsheet that at the end of the day doesn’t tell us how to be happy in both work and life. Yes – I pay attention to astrology, to reading the energy of a system or situation. It’s a fine attention that spiritual experience gives you – an ability to see a little under the surface of events. For example, in following my intuition I once doubted a relationship with a company that offered the best profit margin we’d ever experienced. But something was wrong in the picture, and I pulled out of the deal just before that company went bankrupt. You can call it luck or animal instinct, or what you will – but I can attribute it to my whole lifestyle and twenty years of immersion in a belief-system that suits me and offers me new surprises every day – in the home, in the street, as well as the office.”

Needless to say, her colleagues now hear her out, though perhaps with bemused smiles, when Rinehart suggests that goddess Lakshmi is pointing the business in a new direction.

Religion and Economics

The major religions have, in truth, always held a place of respect for the attention given to economic realities. The 3rd century B.C. Hindu Artha-shastra of Kautilya is a body of teaching, explaining the science of artha, or material prosperity (one of the four goals of life), as economic wealth relates to the divine right of the King – all-powerful, but also subject to the laws of dharma and divine dispensation. For most of these systems, the basic karmic assertion states that “give and so shall you receive”. It would be foolish for a business to follow its tenet to an extreme, and yet most successful company directors pay respect to such a policy in practice.

Interdependence

Arvind Sharma is a Paris-based software-consultant who as a non-religious businessman deeply inspired by the Buddha’s example, believes that disregarding the welfare of a client is worse than disregarding your own. “The fundamental principle of the dharma, for me” he says, “is that of interconnectedness. Without my clients, I have no purpose. Without cultivating them my skills lie dormant and no progress can be made. All of us are absolutely interdependent for everything. That is the nature of the symbiotic organism of the market as much as the social body. I don’t carry any direct religious practice into my business – I think it would be disrespectful to the wishes of my colleagues. The last thing I want is religious discord in the office, over something as private and mysterious as spiritual belief. But what I think is most lacking in the contemporary business world is the spirit of generosity. Religious belief can’t be translated in exact terms, but it has, overall, a positive effect. At the same time, I would never think of imposing my ideas of karmic law, for example, onto my associates.”

Economic Rationalism

Sharma perhaps represents a middle-way between the over or under-emphasis of spiritual practice in the work-context. Lacking here are those points of view that would condemn any such influence of religion in the professional context. However, they are omitted for a reason: they can be heard or read at any moment, at the flick of a switch, on the TV, in the newspapers, drowning the airwaves. They are the voices of an economic rationalism that dominate the global media, living perhaps in a privileged zone that the man on the street or small businessman can barely understand. Ironically, through lack of belief, economic rationalism allows for a whole class of those living a near ‘God existence’ themselves. Where Lakshmi and Ganesh have been expelled, their celestial palaces are newly occupied by a new generation of secular deities. Religious belief, however, offers an insight older than both: Lakshmi is a goddess not because of wealth but because of wisdom, that cannot be bought, but once grasped, can perhaps result in any manner of worldly success.

What does the modern business-world afford to lose, in ignoring that call? The answer to that, as it has always been when speaking of spiritual belief, lies in the doing: belief, as with professional endeavour, demands experiment, practise, and even a little risk. Then, who knows, perhaps small miracles are apt to make even the hardest-headed CEO smile.

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—About our writer:

Martin says, "I'm originally Australian, 33 years, divide my time between Paris and India, work in international Buddhism, education and ethical enquiry, write fiction and non-fiction, would like to retire in Kerala one day."