 Inner
Clarity in Business (Part One)
by Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters)
from Cities of Light: A Plan for this
Age, Copyright Hansa Trust
(see also Part Two)
Paramhansa Yogananda used sometimes to speak
wryly of the “romance of religion.” By this expression
he meant the outward trappings of religion, and those gestures
and expressions which are so often associated with the religious
life: the whispered “bless you’s,” the saintly
smiles, the pious sighs, the humbly downcast eyes, the fantastic
irresponsibility. These, he would remark, are merely signs
of beginners on the path. They soon wear off.
The truly spiritual person displays common
sense and practicality, high energy, an attitude of constant
even-mindedness and cheerfulness, and an effort always to
relate to any reality with which life presents him.
Some years ago, the Ananda community in
America bought the East West Bookstore in Menlo Park, California.
Already famous at the time of purchase, it has since become
one of the three or four leading metaphysical bookstores in
America — probably, indeed, in the world.
The lady from whom the store was purchased
had achieved her success through her unusually wide knowledge
of the thousands of books in the store, and of their hundreds
of authors. The Ananda members, however, who now had the job
of running the shop, had only a very limited familiarity with
the books and their authors. Following the approach to truth
taken by Paramhansa Yogananda, they were more interested in
direct spiritual experience than in reading about it vicariously
in books. And yet, the bookstore seemed a worthwhile business
for Ananda.
Applying Ananda’s principles to salesmanship
required an appraisal of why Ananda was there in the first
place. Obviously, the goal was service. Even department stores,
however, believe in serving people. Service in a consciousness
of service seemed to demand much more than satisfying the
customers’ desires.
As the central principles of Ananda were
applied to salesmanship, new concepts began to emerge. One
of Ananda’s unofficial slogans is, “We communicate.”
In selling to people, it became clear that people need to
be heard. They need answers in terms of their own realities,
and not of the realities of those selling to them.
Very often, the customers’ need to
be heard wasn’t related specifically to a request for
any book, but to a need for deeper clarity in their lives.
Better than any book, then, what an Ananda salesperson could
try to do for them was tune in to them and try to hear what
their own higher self was trying to say to them. For people
often are too close to themselves to hear this inner guidance
when it applies to them.
Inner clarity in dealing with the customers
meant relating to them not as customers, but as divine friends
— even if they came with unfriendly attitudes. It meant
trying to be an instrument of light, and to direct that light
into all levels of their lives.
It meant mentally trying to bless them as
they entered the store, and again as they left. It meant smiling
at them from the heart, and with the eyes, not only with the
lips.
It meant setting aside personal worries
and annoyances, and asking God inwardly, “Help me to
channel Your love to this person,” or, “What would
You like to give this person, through me, today?”
It meant looking beyond the personality
of the customer, and relating to the Divine Presence within
him.
Selling to people with this attitude is
a wonderful spiritual practice. The Ananda salespeople began
sitting regularly in meditation and silent inner communion
before opening the doors to their customers for the day. They
would pray that all who came into the shop would be blessed.
They would pray that God use them as instruments of His peace
and love.
Soon, people began visiting the store even
if they had no books to buy. They came simply to greet the
personnel, or to share some thought or discovery that they’d
made that day. Members of many different spiritual paths found
a sense of unity with one another in God’s all-embracing
love.
(continued in Part
Two) |
