By Junaid Shaikh
Managing Director – RoshanSpace
Born into a business family with Sufi background, I spent three years in the corporate world in Mumbai and endured an early broken marriage before walking out of my house at age 22 to register my rebellion against family restrictions. I then went to the Himalayas and witnessed the perfectly harmonious setting, highly productive elements of nature, creating patterns, activating support functions to sustain their existence, and consequentially, our existence.
Let us look at the universe as an organisation. The sun is the CEO that shines, directs and drives all of nature towards growth. Air is the COO, the transport and ecosystem that acts as a medium to organise the atmosphere and works in harmony with other resources.
Water, the CFO, grows anything it touches, provides richness and freshness to departments and resources.Earth as the Head of HR, provides infrastructure, stores information and knowledge and yields as it is ploughed. As the R&D, trees are responsible for providing raw materials to create products and services, design the culture, thus giving the organisation its foundation and strength. Moon is the board, a reconciler bringing all into a state of rest and harmony. All of fauna are executives and navigators; their way of life as a team that provides music and entertainment and have mastered the art of living in nature, demonstrating ways of exploring and utilising nature’s offerings at its best.
The big question is, what is the role of humans in all this? We are the catalyst in this entire game of creation. All elements exist within us. We are spiritual beings having human experiences. The elements share a relationship, a method, a sequence coming together to accomplish a purpose that is ‘balance’.
Corporate organisations are similar to the laws of the universe, which are based on knowledge, discipline, inter-dependency, synchronicity, common intent, process, communication, struggle and selflessness.
According to the fundamentals of Sufi yoga, the purpose is to balance the relationship with the self, the higher self and the others. It simply means knowing yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, realising limitations and potential. It is like a SWOT analysis of the self, to assess, review, plan, strategise and implement to navigate through life. That profound experience of self-realisation occurs when we understand our relationship with our divine source and our connection with all of Life.
To facilitate the flow of the laws and its relationship, I had to pass though being a ‘nothing’, as a door-to-door salesman in New Zealand, making pitches at strangers’ doors. I had doors slammed at my face, thereby destroying all the self-perceptions I carried. This self-realisation happened in a fraction of a second.
The process of self-awareness came through the jobs I did and the people I interacted with, my relationship with my family, my acquaintances, strangers and nature. From a salesman to the Managing Director, it was the same self but a different action. The purpose of self-realisation, however, remained the same throughout.
Sufi yoga is applied mysticism; the heart in action. It is the harmonious engagement with the world to restore both inner and outer peace. It is a discipline that not only empowers the vital aspects of yoga but also creates a strong sense of inner focus and awareness, which Sufis call the ‘magnetic centre’. It helps to sustain the practice in the midst of life’s challenges by creating a strong and unshakable sense of the self.
We, similar beings living a similar life and facing similar challenges, are driven by our responsibilities. Essentially, each one of us should establish a relationship with the self. This will guide our relationship with the higher self, the ‘balance’, giving a meaning to our relationship with others.
