| We live in an interrelated, interconnected world. Every move of ours affects every other individual in the society. Being conscious of this fact that what we contribute affects the growth or decay of society; brings the responsibility that is so much needed in today’s business community. |
| Have you noticed, when you walk around the graveyard, you find something written as, so and so, born on such and such a date, and died on such and such a date. They don’t indicate that they lived in between those two dates! |
| Life needs to be honored. Ethics is simply honoring that period between birth and death. This is the basic rule of ethics – What we don’t want others to do to us; we don’t do that to others. |
| Imagine you are running a business, and your employees don’t follow any ethics or discipline. Would you be able to run the business? The obvious answer is, ‘Certainly not!’ We expect people around us to be honest, integrated, responsible, and well-mannered. We expect banks to be honest, accountable, and reliable. However, when we do our business, if we don’t follow ethics, but expect others to be ethical, we are not setting a good example. This is exactly what needs to change – our expectation from others, and our own behavior. |
| Communism took almost ten years to come down, but it only took a few months for capitalism to collapse. Why? It is just the greed of a few people that made millions suffer around the world. |
| Without humanism, without compassion, without a sense of responsibility, no ism will work. Communism will not work, capitalism will not work, and every ism will fail if we don’t have humanism. Business with humanism is what I call Ethics in Business. We need to replace corruption with compassion. We need to re-establish commitment and trust. Trust is the backbone of business. |
| We expect others to keep our trust, but if we don’t keep it, then that is lack of ethics. So, just as we expect others to keep our trust; we should keep the trust of others. Then, there is enough for everybody on this planet. |
| Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘The planet Earth has enough to fulfill the need of everybody, but not the greed of everybody.’ Greed needs to be replaced by service, by a sense of social responsibility. It is not enough to produce things, we need to empower people to be able to buy these things. You produce wonderful television sets, but if people are poor, they cannot afford to buy them, then that slows you down also. |
| We live in an interrelated, interconnected world. Every move of ours affects every other individual in the society. Being conscious of this fact that what we contribute, affects the growth or decay of society; brings the responsibility that is so much needed in today’s business community. |
| I am happy that these days, people are becoming more aware; they have seen the consequences of unethical business. You can rise very high, but then sooner or later, you will land up in prison. |
| I spoke to a very honest businessman who said, ‘Gurudev, if I do unethical business, I lose sleep. I don’t want to lose my sleep, and my health. I do ethical business so that I can have a good night’s sleep, and good health.’ |
| For one’s own personal benefit, to have good sleep and happy holidays with the family, one should be ethical. And it is worth it, otherwise what is the use of all the money that we earn if we have no happiness in life. |
| The purpose of business is comfort and happiness. If business does not bring you comfort and happiness, you may as well live in poverty. The purpose of money is to bring comfort. We miss the boat if we don’t understand this crucial, central focus of our existence. Business is not for business sake! |
| Usually, we spend half of our health to earn wealth, and try to spend half of our wealth, to gain back the health, which normally does not happen. I think that is bad economics. |
| Our health is important. To have vibrant health, our spirit, our mind is very important. To have that mind in the right place, ethical business is inevitable.
More quotes of Shri Shri Ravi Shankar http://quoteping.com/Quotes/Religions/
|
No comments:
Post a Comment