Karma & Innovation

In this article, I wanted to discuss some excerpts from a speech that I gave recently to a small audience of people who are part of an innovation group in one of the companies I worked for.

Isha vasya upanishad features a stanza “Kurvanneveha karmani jijivisec chatam samaha, evam tvai naanya tetoshthi na karma lipyate nare”. (excuse the bad transliteration) .

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The basic meaning of this stanza is that “Be so happy doing your duty that even if you have to continue doing the exact same thing for the next 100 years you would still stay excited”. Now that is a tall order indeed! The prospect of laboring on the exact same thing for the next one or two years itself is sufficient to make us feel bored. Not to speak of doing it for the next hundred years!

Now, how is it possible that a person can derive satisfaction from such an onerous, repetitive task?? The answer is to make the task non onerous and repetitive. In order to achieve this, there is only one way out – innovate! If the exact task is performed in the exact same manner, then it is impossible for it to grip over a period of time. Hence we should be able to do things in better ways so that the process of innovation itself will keep us interested and motivated. This, I think, is the true distinguisher between people and companies itself for that matter. Hence viewed in this manner, I would interpret this upanishadic utterance to mean that a true karma yogi is a constant innovator. Such people can and would go closer to divinity and godliness by virtue of their karma.

And such a true karma yogi is not going to be attached to the fruits of his action. Why? Because the innovation itself is its own reward. Hence this upanishad says that attachments dont affect such a karma yogi. His work is its own reward.

This at least according to me is an interpretation of this stanza. So folks! innovate and be happy!

Sarva jano sukhino bhavantu