Gita for Professionals

| 28 | Gita for Professionals Man’s actions are often governed not by what he actually sees, but what he thinks he sees. He weaves theories around facts seen or heard or experienced by him and comes to some conclusion which may not be the correct one. The brain subconsciously adds its own deep rooted beliefs and presumptions to a message received by it, and its intellect judges data or information in the light of such presumptions. Thus his perception is a result of not only his vision but also his mindset, preconceived notions, deep-rooted beliefs and past experience. For example, consider the question ‘Why are 1990 Indian rupee coins worth more than 1960 Indian rupee coins?’ Many people would jump to the conclusion that the answer has something to do with the quality of the coins minted in 1990 or 1960. However the answer is quite simple: One thousand nine hundred and ninety rupees are greater than one thousand nine hundred and sixty rupees. What happens is that the brain is so used to seeing such a number as 1990 as a calendar year, that it does not consider the other possibility of 1990 as a pure and simple number one thousand nine hundred and ninety. An imperfect understanding of the question is reached and consequently the simple answer is missed. In such circumstances, sometimes, his judgment is clouded and possibly he could become a victim of an incorrect interpretation. Therefore, it is advisable to approach a problem with care and caution, to understand it clearly, and distrust anything that is too obvious unless and until it is proved, preferably by hardcore evidence. 7. The biggest tools of Satan – jealousy and ego Parable 1 – jealousy: A group of devils were trying to enter the soul of a holy man who lived near Cairo. They had already tempted him with Nubian women, Egyptian food, Libyan treasure, but nothing had worked since the man was truly holy. One day, Satan passed and saw his servant’s efforts. You’re hopeless – said Satan. – You haven’t used the only technique no one can resist; I will teach you. He went over to the holy man and whispered in his ear. Remember the priest who studied under you? He’s just been made Bishop of Alexandria. Immediately, the holy man was filled with jealousy and consequent rage, and blasphemed against God’s injustice. The Satan’s tool of jealousy worked instantly and devastatingly. ‘Next time, use this temptation of jealousy’ said Satan to his subjects. The greatest of men can resist almost everything, but they are always jealous of the victory of a fellow man, and even more jealous of greater success of his wife. There is another example indicating the peculiar trait of human jealousy. Astonishingly, small successes of those closer to you can affect you much more than huge successes of those you don’t know. For example, if there are two beggars on a street and a rich man is passing by, the wealth of the rich man may not even cross their minds in spite of their own poverty. However if the rich man gives even a small coin to one of the beggars, the other beggar will feel very jealous of that beggar because he is richer by that one small coin. Parable 2 – Ego: The second tool of Satan is ego and false pride. There lived a Sage, who was very pious and was doing penance for the interest of mankind. By caste, he was a Brahmin and was known to Lord Krishna. He was wandering in secluded areas and had no fixed house for him. He had no desire, no lust, no hatred, and no greed and was in a different world of his own. Lord Krishna was very happy with his prayers and showed him his cosmic form or ‘Virat Swaroop’ and asked him for any boon. Sage Uttanga told the Lord that he was desireless and he did not want anything, but Lord Krishna insisted that some boon to be granted to him as a

| 29 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures reward for his penance. Since Lord Krishna insisted, the latter asked for a boon that whenever he was in need of water (since his area was a desert area) and whenever he felt thirsty, water may be provided to him. Lord Krishna granted him the boon. One day, the Sage Uttanga after walking for a long distance in the desert area felt thirsty, but there was no trace of water. Then he remembered that Lord Krishna had granted him a boon that he would find water. The moment this thought was within his system, he saw a hunter dressed in torn rags accompanied by furious dog, carrying water in a leather pouch and asked him, “Sir, would you like to have some water.” Looking at the apparent condition of the hunter, and he himself being a staunch Brahmin, the sage felt repelled. He politely refused “No, thank you”. The hunter again approached him for the water, but in utter disgust and in anger the sage told the hunter to go way and that he was not interested in the water. The hunter and the dogs disappeared. Witnessing this, he realised that it must be God, who disguised Himself and came to quench his thirst. He felt hurt how Lord Krishna could send water to me through a Scheduled Caste. How could He expect a Brahmin to accept and drink water from the leather pouch? Meantime, Lord Krishna appeared, smiled. The sage asked him ‘Who was the Chandala?” The lord replied that he was actually Lord Indra who had been instructed to fetch the water; but in reality Lord Indra had actually brought nectar to make him immortal, but he wanted to test him whether he had reached that stage where you could see Divinity in all. Hence Lord Krishna allowed him to do so. Sage Uttanga understood that he had failed in the test. It was his ego, which made him refuse the nectar, which came in the form of water and through Indra Devta dressed as a low caste hunter. Message: One of the most common issues faced by professionals in every stream is jealousy. Jealousy and ego are a lethal combination and surest paths towards devastation. Jealousy has peculiar traits. We may not be jealous of rich men like Bill Gates but if our close friends or relatives or even our wives or spouses get a little bit of recognition, it hurts. This stems from ego. We must understand that when wise sages like Uttanga could fail when tested, what are we? We are not capable nor fully equipped to always understand and address the challenges life offers us. For professionals to meet this challenge, it is absolutely imperative to kill our evil emotions like jealousy and ego. On the path of progress, professionals need to accept that there could be others better than them. This will facilitate development of a balanced approach in life and a much better handle to meet its challenges. Remember that God always puts us to test. The following example of a husband and wife illustrates this message. Illustration: There was a couple where both the husband and wife were chartered accountants. They were doing reasonably well. While both specialised in different areas they often helped each other in assignments once in a while. It so happened that in one particular assignment the husband asked his wife to take over because he was occupied in another major other assignment where he had to travel quite a bit. The wife did a good job, and the client liked her work. When the husband was free at a later date and went back to continue offering service to that client, the client brushed him aside stating that the wife was more competent and wanted her to continue working with them. This came as a shock and shook him up quite a bit. The wife being more understanding, downplayed her role, but as one would expect it, there was an argument and as is usually the case, the husband got the upper hand. This

| 30 | Gita for Professionals was a situation in life where the difficulty was of a different kind: A difficulty which arose from ego and jealousy. The predictable options that the husband had were: a) Either to stop the wife from working with that client and offer himself forcefully to the client, or, b) If the wife decided to continue working, to continuously harass and taunt her, perhaps even decide to separate. Invariably in life most husbands would opt for the first choice. Friends, that would be running away from a problem. The second choice is the correct choice of letting the wife continue but without harassment and taunts. In the above case the husband like any other human being, was smarting and hurt and for a few days quarrelled and had plenty of arguments with his wife. But for all the monstrous sentiments, he was also a sportsman and had won and lost many games in competitive tournaments. He had been a good loser in his sport. Therefore, within all that ego and jealousy there a small shred of decency which constantly nagged him that he was being unfair and unjust with his wife. Even if he was not at fault, his wife certainly was not, but she was suffering. The sportsman within him gave him the clarity of thought to realise that she was paying the price for his ego and jealousy in spite of her competence and good work. The ‘Dr. Jekyll’ side of the author got the better of the ‘Mr. Hyde’ side and, he made efforts to mentally reconcile to the situation. It was difficult at first, but, he had tremendous faith in God, and accepted the difficult situation as his gift. While it was not possible to completely remove all ill feelings overnight, he at least made sincere efforts to concentrate in his own work. He was reasonably good in his own work and because he wanted to forget about the problem, he started concentrating on his own work more and more. It is said that God helps those who help themselves. Fate and providence smiled on him and he got some good assignments and earned good fees. Within a matter of time not only did he earn well, he also became famous in his own work. Today he is a known writer and also gives talks on his subject all over India. His articles are published in India as well as overseas and the chartered accountant is none other than the author of this article. Friends, this is a personal experience without an ounce of distortion. The author wishes to accept in all humility that ego and jealousy are the greatest stumbling blocks to success. These create difficulties which are difficult to overcome. The author could not digest the fact that his wife was accepted as a better service provider than himself, but the moment he himself accepted it, success was there for the asking. Many of us are afraid to face and bear the truth. But that is the problem, like a bitter medicine. Once we drink the medicine we become better. That is what happened to the author; once he accepted his wife’s success, his heart was clear and strong and again invigorated. He really concentrated on his writing skills and brought out the best in himself. Since humility and truth were on his side, they gave him tremendous strength and he won awards from the highest professional bodies. However he still maintains that his greatest achievement lies not in those prestigious awards but the victory over his ego and jealousy. Symbolic Relevance: Difficulties come in the form of worries, troubles and sorrow which activate our emotions such as anger, hatred, jealousy, and ego. The solution is in accepting the truth boldly and concentrating our efforts on our laid down duties with even greater emphasis. To accept that another person is better than oneself is difficult, to accept that a colleague or a classmate has done better is even more difficult but to be able to live down the

| 31 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures fact that the wife has bettered the husband is the most difficult. But once the realisation is there, life is wonderful and the ability to deal with problems is enhanced phenomenally. The author does not have any prescribed solution in such matters but what really helps are any or all of the following. Cultivating the habit of telling the truth, appreciating good work done by anyone instantly, and working hard at whatever one is good at are definitely catalysts in acceptance of truth in all situations. Lastly the one thing that the author also recommends is playing sport regularly as this is also useful because it helps one to be a good loser as well as a good winner. The following shlokas of the Gita highlight the importance of shedding ego. They offer a wealth of knowledge in this process of controlling ego. Chapter 3, Shloka 27 Òeke=Àlesë ef¬eÀ³eceeCeeefve iegCewë keÀce&efCe meJe&Meë ~ DenbkeÀejefJecet{elcee keÀlee&nefceefle cev³eles ~~27~~ Òeke=Àlesë – of nature ef¬eÀ³eceeCeeefve – are driven iegCewë – by the qualities keÀcee&efCe – actions meJe&Meë – in all cases DenbkeÀejefJecet{elcee – one whose mind is deluded by his ego keÀlee& – doer Denced – I Fefle – thus cev³eles – thinks All actions are driven by the three qualities of nature (Prakrti). He whose mind is deluded by his ego thinks “I am the doer”. (27) ocYees oHeexçefYeceeve½e ¬eÀesOeë Hee©<³ecesJe ®e~ De%eeveb ®eeefYepeelem³e HeeLe& mebHeoceemegjerced ~~4~~ ocYeë – hypocrisy oHe&ë – arrogance DeefYeceeveë – self conceit ®e – and ¬eÀesOeë – wrath Hee©<³eced – harshness SJe – even ®e – and

| 32 | Gita for Professionals De%eeveced – ignorance ®e – and DeefYepeelem³e – of the born HeeLe& – O Partha mecHeoced – state Deemegjerced – demoniacal O Partha (Arjuna), hypocrisy, arrogance and pride, and anger, harshness and ignorance too, these are the marks of him, who is born with demoniacal attributes. (4) Chapter 18, shloka 17 says: ³em³e veenbke=Àlees YeeJees yegef׳e&m³e ve efueH³eles ~ nlJeeefHe me FceeuueeskeÀeVe nefvle ve efveyeO³eles ~~17~~ ³em³e – whose ve – not Denbke=Àleë – egoistic YeeJeë – the notion yegef×ë – intelligence ³em³e – of whom ve – not efueH³eles – is tainted nlJee – having slain DeefHe – even meë – he Fceeved – these ueeskeÀeved – people nefvle – slays ve – not efveyeO³eles – is bound He whose mind is free from the sense of egoism, and whose reason is not tainted, does not really slay, even having slaughtered all these people, nor is he bound by sin. (17) 8. The sympathetic strings of sitar Parable: The sitar is a wonderful Indian musical instrument which has about 17 strings, of which seven or eight strings are on an upper layer and about 10 strings on a lower layer. Amazingly, from out of all these seventeen strings, the sitar is largely played by plucking

| 33 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures only one main string. Only one or two other strings on the upper layer are directly plucked when required. None of the other 14 strings are plucked at all. They are called sympathetic strings required for resonance only. But this function of resonance is much more than what is ordinarily understood. All of them don’t vibrate together. They are all tuned separately as different notes of the sargam like ‘sa’ or ‘re’ or ‘ga’ and so on. They have to be perfectly and precisely tuned. Thus, whenever a note, say ‘re’ is played on the main string, ONLY that particular string which is tuned to the note ‘re’ from the bottom layer will play while the others will remain silent. Thus only the relevant string will play a ‘sympathetic’ echo. That string’s echo will be loud and clear only if the note is played precisely on the main string, therefore it signifies perfection only when it automatically echoes the note played. None of the other 15 strings will vibrate or echo any sound, however hard the main string is plucked. This theoretically if two sitars are placed side by side, if a note is played on one sitar the sympathetic echo will automatically come from the string which is tuned to that note even in the other sitar. This perhaps is the origin of the proverb – ‘touching the right chord’ or ‘truth rings true’. Message: Always think good, hear good, and speak good. By this we will touch and resonate only the good thoughts within and around us and prevent bad thoughts and evil actions. When we have a habit of consulting our conscience then our conscience remains active sympathetically and keeps echoing all the time. In other words if we train ourselves to think good we are activating the good and silencing all negative traits. For example a mother will always see her child as the most beautiful child irrespective of what his or her appearance may be. This is because a real mother’s vision is divine and accepts only positive thoughts about her child. In the following illustration a complete transformation is experienced when the good side of a manager is activated by ‘touching the right chord’. Illustration: In one engineering company, the Systems Director (SD) had recommended a proposal for purchase of an expensive software for a turnkey project, for ` 38.75 lakhs. The Managing Director (MD), being a CA was not technically qualified to evaluate the merits of the proposal. He had some doubts regarding the honesty of the SD and the transparency of the transaction. Because of the technicalities involved he was all at sea. He was uncertain whether the software was at all required, or if required, with such a high degree of sophistication and cost. He was uncertain whether the cost was reasonable and the other fear was whether the software ordered and delivered would be correct as per the purchase order. He was entirely at the mercy of the SD. This was an ideal situation to try out the ‘right chord’ approach of motivation and awareness. The MD accordingly decided to try out a strategy to stimulate the good chords in the systems director. Accordingly, he showered praise and admiration for the innovative approach and the vision of the systems director in recommending the proposal and announced a fat bonus for the SD if the cost could be scaled down in any way without affecting the productivity and utility of the software as visualised earlier. Simultaneously he wanted to ensure that the negative traits remained silent in the SD. This is did by creating awareness of risks to the SD for any corrupt intentions. He explained that there was an alternative available to him, that of a German software solutions company consultant who could also provide additional inputs and an independent evaluation of the proposal if the SD was unable to make any refinements in the earlier proposal. However he made it very clear that the German consultant would be invited, only if required, after the proposal was reviewed once again. This was a ploy to encourage the SD to think more positively and to divert his mind from doing something wrong if at all that was the case. If the SD was honest,

| 34 | Gita for Professionals SD would do the right thing in the larger interests of the company and the alternative of the German consultant would have not made any perceptible impact on him because he would have nothing to fear. If the SD had been dishonest, and was planning to use this transaction for ulterior motives, (for example, a kickback from the vendor, etc.), the risk of a being exposed by the German company would deter him from that corrupt action. The prospects of earning a bonus would automatically become much more attractive; thus the good chords would be activated within him and the MD calculated that the negative chords would be subdued considerably. Sure enough, the plan worked and within a few days the SD came up with a revised proposal stating that he had found a new vendor who would be able to provide a software with fewer modules without compromising on the company’s requirements. The cost would be now scaled down to ` 25 lakhs. He himself recommended jettisoning the earlier proposal. The software was received and implemented successfully, and the company gladly gave him a bonus which was certainly well deserved. Covert, independent inquiries with the earlier vendor revealed that indeed the software price had been inflated by the vendor by ` 10 lakhs to provide a kickback to the SD. However the MD’s strategic plan of ‘touching the right chord’ worked. Thus the results of dealing with human beings in the right way can make a world of a difference. Symbolic Relevance A look at the above picture can be puzzling. Some people may spot the adorable, cute and loveable, bunny rabbit while others may identify this as a picture of a grouchy and detestable bird like a vulture. The picture is a fascinating icon of real life situations and applicable to the SD in this story. All of us including the SD have within us the chords (traits) of both the rabbit and the vulture; it is up to us to spot and strengthen the rabbit (good) within us and to eliminate the vulture (evil) which tries to get within us. What is important is that all our actions must send out good vibes have to reach out to activate good chords in others. We must make the positive energies vibrant in everyone around us; touch the right chord. For this purpose it would be advisable to use the dual approach of motivation and awareness. Motivation means offering a reward for a person to do something good while awareness means

| 35 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures informing him of consequences of non-compliance. Awareness is to be distinguished from a threat which means a promised punishment for non-compliance. Motivation can activate good chords while awareness, as explained above will subdue negative thoughts or chords. Threats, on the other hand, will activate the negative chords. In our Vedic scriptures there are several mantras which can be recited for our well-being. The Mrityunjaya Mantra is one such maha mantra. The Mritunjaya Mantra is supposed to directly touch and activate the good chords within us and protect us from negative feelings, ailments and diseases of the body and mind. It eventually helps us to conquer the fear of death. Readers may try out this mantra for such well-being. All such vedic mantras have one fundamental requirement: They have to be chanted precisely with the right tone and correct emphasis on the individual notes. Only then will they activate the latent energy and touch the right chords within us to generate the benefit. 9. Laxmi’s Swayamwar Parable: When the swayamwar of Laxmi was held there were many suitors who wanted Laxmi. On the day of the Swayamwar, no one knew exactly what quality Laxmi was looking for and each one tried their best to impress and acquire her. However Laxmi threw the garland in Lord Vishnu’s neck preferring him to all the others. What was it that motivated herself to be offered to him? The legend has it that Lord Vishnu did not covet or want Laxmi, while the other suitors were willing to go to any length to acquire her. This made Laxmi want Lord Vishnu. Message: Fees, treasures and wealth will automatically come to us if we do not run after them. We also succumb to corrupt practices in order to get quick money and easy money. Our focus at all times is on fees, collections, and wealth in general. This anecdote teaches exactly the opposite. Our focus should not be on fees but on the quality of work to be taken up, the level of competence in our work done, and our usefulness to clients and Society at large. Once this is pursued with a single pointed effort, ‘Laxmi’ or wealth or fees will be there in abundance for the asking. In our professional practice most of us are trained to fast target achievements, prompt raising bills and hurried collections. While this may be necessary in certain situations, they are best avoidable. It is the author’s experience that seldom will a client refuse to pay for good and satisfactory work; he will not be averse to pay an incremental value for sincere work done. Effort is always visible and sooner or later it will be rewarded but as per God’s discretion. Undoubtedly there are times when this approach is easier said than implemented, it may well end up in cash flow difficulties, but in the long run will have better results than those who are ‘huffing and puffing’ for money in whichever way that is possible. They do not necessarily get the money but instead get blood pressure, diabetes and other ailments. This anecdote of Laxmi is intended to inspire confidence in all of us who want to do good work and earn money; the message is, please go ahead and do good work and do not worry about the money, like Laxmi, it will automatically come. Spiritualism teaches us that what you renounce, you will get in abundance Illustration 1: There was a very difficult situation before a CA. He had completed a risk assessment assignment where there were findings which revealed that the MD had committed a grave fraud by inserting fictitious expense bills. The amount was over four crores in a span of 13 months. The MD met the CA and explained the entire matter. This was an inevitable

| 36 | Gita for Professionals expenditure to get certain government clearances and licences for the office premises and the plant which provided employment to 1,000 workers. His mistake was that he had taken this decision without taking the entire Board into confidence. However he had consulted to a few Board members individually, who had agreed with his line of action. He explained to the CA that since there were certain government directors appointed as Board members, he had not discussed this matter at the Board level. There would have been obvious adverse ramifications. All this made sense to the CA and he sympathised with the MD. The MD requested the CA to dilute the findings in the report and furnish a non-committal report. He even got a couple of directors on Board to speak to him on this. He further made an offer to the CA that hence forth he would be given a regular assignment of review of expenses to check and ensure that such a wrongdoing will not happen again. The MD was willing to pay him a large fee for this. From a practical viewpoint, the CA was convinced that the MD himself did not have any personal benefit and that these clearances and licences were definitely required for the business operations of the company. These were legacy problems left behind by the previous Board. The current MD had merely provided a solution but the wrong way. Since this was not a statutory report or an internal audit report, he had no legal obligation to the Board or the shareholders. His appointment was by the MD himself for a general risk review of expenses and the terms of reference were to comment on the internal control over expenditure and risk assessment in the process in the given period. Therefore statutorily, as also confirmed to him by some senior colleagues, he had no obligation to report his specific findings of fraudulent vouchers which were incidental to his report of process and control review. They even advised him to go ahead and accept the regular assignment where a huge fee was being offered. However his conscience did not permit him to do this. The MD was obviously unhappy and upset. The CA went ahead and included all his findings in his report. Since the amount was large, and the matter was obviously deemed serious, the Board asked the MD to resign. The CA felt miserable because, in the heart of hearts, he felt that there was something unfair in this whole thing. He tried to meet the MD to express his sympathy and support, but as expected, the MD did not even take his call. What the CA felt unhappy about was not so much the loss of the future assignment and fees, but the break in relationship with the MD. However he was a regular reader of the Gita, and he took it in his stride and dismissed all emotions. He had done his duty and he gracefully accepted the consequences. Effectively he had not coveted the fees (Laxmi) by rejecting the assignment offered by the MD. Two years passed. One fine day, suddenly out of the blue, he received a call from the MD asking the CA whether he remembered him. The CA was overjoyed and eagerly affirmed that he indeed remembered him. What really surprised him was the reason for the MD having called him. The MD had called him to give him an assignment of a special audit in the new company which he had joined! The CA was wonderstruck. The man who had been discredited and who had lost his job because of him, actually offered him an assignment. This was life and God’s justice. This is the best example of doing your duty irrespective of the fruit. If one does this certainly the fruit, Laxmi, will come. The CA gladly accepted this assignment where he earned exponentially more than what he would have earned had he accepted the assignment earlier offered by the MD in the previous company. Thus the fees (Laxmi) came on their own to the CA because he had been upright, and he had not coveted Laxmi when she was first offered to him under wrong circumstances.

| 37 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures Illustration 2: Let us take the case of a fresh chartered accountant who is struggling to come to terms with life and realities of practicing in this corrupt environment. Since good work is difficult to come by, he is pressurised by the environment and his peers to be ‘practical’. He can possibly earn money by being a part of the corrupt world, instead of fighting it. Initially he does this reluctantly, but in the process, does earn and enjoy material wealth. This is his first step towards a questionable future. The corrupt practice will be rationalised in some way with several convenient reasons: ‘Inevitable, or, everyone does it, or, you cannot run a practice without compromising and so on’. Simultaneously this weakens his conscience. He will stagnate intellectually and be known as a ‘fixer’ or a handyman, and rarely be consulted for his real knowledge. Many such professionals acquire ill repute. Refusing work is neither easy, nor practical, particularly when money is scarce. The situation is even more difficult once a person has crossed the frontiers of marriage and has a family life. The answer lies, perhaps, in finding alternative solutions to corrupt practices to facilitate a client’s business needs. Let us consider a situation where a chartered accountant, is asked by a client to get ‘expense bills’ to evade tax. This is illegal and immoral, but does happen all the time. The chartered accountant can refuse to help and in all probability this ‘holier than thou’ attitude will result in a swift replacement by someone more amenable and flexible. What is the solution then? To sit at home? This is a mistake, which most sincere and honest people make. The more appropriate course of action is to provide a meaningful and value addition service to the client. Find and hunt for a way, a good way, to be useful and be able to render a service to the client. In the instant case, consider what the client wants. He wants to minimise tax not because he wants the pleasure of evading it; more likely that he wants to actually minimise the revenue loss. Thus, if the chartered accountant could find some way of minimising a revenue leakage, or, arresting a leakage in the client’s business or increasing his revenue, his usefulness to the client would be emphasised and restored. This is where his expertise and skill comes in. As long as he is not busy in wrongful practices and as long as he has his expertise learnt as CA, he would be certainly be able to use his project his utility elsewhere in the client’s business. Though he may be replaced by someone else for the ‘bill adjustment’ for tax evasion purposes, the client will recognize his potential for better assignments and certainly use that when the time comes. More than that, the client will hold him in higher esteem, because he will be conscious of his principled stand and the long run dependability of the chartered accountant. All of this may be difficult to believe, but, friends, the author would like to offer his own experience in this regard. He does not claim to have been a saint himself in his past practice. He readily admits that he has seen such compromises happen and has succumbed to them. That is the truth. However, at one point of time, he mustered up the courage and refused to do such work politely in case of a very big client, a corporate client. This angered the client and the work did go to someone else and he had been told in clear terms that even the audit would be handed over to someone else the next year. The CA was asked to complete the current year’s assignment as soon as possible. Fate smiled at him, rewarding him for his courageous stand of being upright and honest. He discovered a fraud of a double payment in a review of the client’s business expense account and recovered for him, in those days, years back, ` 30,000/-. The client saw him in a new light and decided to continue to use him not only for audit but for a major fraud investigation a few years later. The author has not looked back since then and fate has continued to be kind to him.

| 38 | Gita for Professionals Each one of us has similar traits of expertise in different fields. Some of us could be good in investment counselling, some in systems, some in business marketing or planning, etc. The correct approach lies in finding a business solution to help the client, but in a noble manner. He should take care to never adopt the ‘holier than thou’ attitude which actually is negative and often repulsive to the client. Symbolic relevance: A good professional should take two steps to achieve his goals. One, he should earn, not yearn for money. Secondly, he should constantly look for good quality work to come by him. Opportunities for tainted work, corrupt assignments, may tempt one by offering immediate returns but they should be stonewalled. A human being eats to live; a human being should not live to eat. So also a true professional person should want to earn money to be able to provide a quality service, and not provide a quality service to earn a lot of money. Laxmi will definitely come to a CA if the quality of his work is good. This path is fraught with difficulties similar to the ones that Arjun faced. Vanvas or exile into forest is symbolic of the gestation period when work is hard to come by. It is certainly not easy to refuse easy money then, but if one is able to muster up the strength to do so, with humility and a willingness to provide assistance in better ways. The Lord will provide invisible forces within the person not only to survive but to emerge successful, if he has such courage to face the truth and adopt the right road of ‘Dharma’ or righteousness. Prahlad, Draupadi, Sita all had to face severe and extremely difficult situations. They had faith in God and He protected them against unbelievable odds. Somewhere in The Bible also it is said that if all doors seem to close from all sides, have confidence in the Lord and He will open some window for you somewhere. The Lord is certain to help you. The author subscribes to this theory and advocates it emphatically from personal experience. 10. The purity of Laxman’s mind Parable: When the search for Sita was commenced immediately after her abduction, some ornaments and jewellery discarded by Sita, while she was being flown away by the abductor Ravana, were found at a nearby spot. When Laxman found them, he could recognize only her anklets and not her necklace and other ornaments worn above her ankle. Why? The reason was his chaste and pure mind. Sita was his elder brother Rama’s wife and he revered and respected her. Therefore he had only pure thoughts of her and he would only look at her below her ankles. Since he had never gazed at anything worn above her waist he could not identify her necklace or bangles. Such was the pure devotion practiced by Laxman. Message: Professionals must learn to recognise traits in people with whom they deal. Men, who are pure as Laxman, will know little beyond their sphere of activity. Those who know too much, beyond their usual sphere of activities, may not be innocent. Knowledge should be commensurate with hard work and honest effort to derive it. The extra knowledge could indicate involvement in wrongful means to acquire it. As professionals we also have a duty to the Society and not permit wrongdoers to foster. The ability to understand the body language and communication skills also is important. It is necessary to weigh not only the information given to us, but the quality of information, the way it has been given and who has given it. Illustration and Symbolic Relevance: As professionals, particularly with CAs, we have to deal with clients and people of all sorts and kinds. While protecting a client’s interests it is important to understand how his staff talks about the owners, the respect shown to them and

| 39 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures the interest taken in the work by them. This becomes an added dimension for evaluating a business and organisation culture before certifying or attesting anything. Our hypothetical knowledge based on our CA examinations and tests is excellent and facilitates us to provide service to our clients. In this regard though our hypothetical knowledge is good it is not enough to recognize the good from the evil and wrong doers. In fact some experts feel that 60% of a man’s character is learnt not through written words but through the man’s spoken words and body language. In one case the author was auditing in a construction company where one of the directors who was a finance man was showing him around a project and was showing off how he had caught one of the vendors who was cheating the company by using substandard material and thinner pipes in the plumbing work. The arrogance itself gave a lot of negative vibes to the author, but something he said made it clear that this man knew something much more than he should have known. The director mentioned that the vendor had used half inch substandard material pipes instead of the required three-quarter inch pipes. The auditor wanted to see where this was done, but the director said that all this was hidden plumbing so could not be seen now. Obviously if they were hidden now, they could be seen only when they were being installed, so why did the director not stop them then? The Director fidgeted uneasily; the vendor was recalled and asked to explain. The vendor explained that he had indeed used the pipes per the prescribed specifications and he had been sacked because he had refused to pay a kickback to the director. He proved it by breaking a small section of the wall where the plumbing was done and showed that he was indeed telling the truth. Thus like Laxman in the episode above, a man who is of pure and chaste mind will be good and thorough but limited to his domain and his sphere of activities, but excess knowledge could symptomatic of impure mind. A person alleging corrupt behaviour from say a purchase manager would not actually be aware about it unless he has actually seen it or has himself got something in the past. Many cases of whistleblowers are usually those who themselves have been corrupt and have been denied their share of the spoils. 11. The tale of the king who had to be exiled after 3 years Parable: In a certain kingdom, there was a strange precondition for a king to get elected. A person could become the king, if and only if, he was willing to be exiled after 3 years of ruling the kingdom. Obviously, there were few takers and those that did take up the kingship, behaved typically as follows. The first year of kingship would be a year of revelry and enjoyment and the thought of the exile would seldom cross the mind of the king. Of course, whenever it did, that thought would doubtless be frightening but it would be dismissed because it was a distant event. The second year would be more down to earth. The king would realize that the date of exile was nearing and he would start thinking more often about it. Overall his enjoyment and revelry would be perceptibly less in the second year than the first year. Then in the third year, helplessness and fear syndrome would set in. The king would be thinking more and more about the looming exile and be unable to enjoy the kingly pleasures. In the last month, the king would virtually be lost in thought obsessively thinking only of the impending date of exile. The date of exile would be a frightening prospect because it was looming close now. On the last day, he would even try and hide himself but the soldiers were trained to hunt him out and take him forcibly to a boat where the boatman would ferry him away to a far of island, where he would be exiled and marooned for good. The last image of the king would be one who would scream and beg for pity. However one king was different from the rest. He surprised the entire kingdom with his uncharacteristic confidence and unconcern to the exile. Unlike the previous kings, he

| 40 | Gita for Professionals enjoyed very much in the first year, even more in the second and incredibly he enjoyed the most in the third year. Everyone felt that he was pretending and in the last month he would get cold feet and start showing the same symptoms as his predecessors. However they were all wrong; he continued unabated in his revelry and on the date of the exile, the soldiers went to search for him and did not find him anywhere. Thinking that he was hiding somewhere outside the palace they came out where they heard a shout from the river and the boat. They were astonished to see that king had already made himself comfortable in the boat. They told the boatman to take him. He waved out to the soldiers who were wonderstruck. The boatman could not believe this. On the way, he asked the king what made him so bold and unafraid of the exile; the king merely asked him to wait till they reached the destination. The boatman wondered what could be there at that deserted island. He was stunned by the sight that he saw when they reached there. The island was brilliantly decorated and geared up for all possible pleasures and necessities. Food, drink, palaces, and all the facilities for enjoyment, fun and revelry had been created. The king had intelligently foreseen the days of the exile and prepared himself and the island for his future stay. During his reign as the king with the powers he had, the island had been developed and fully equipped to provide for all his pleasures, enjoyment and stay after his rule came to an end. He had made due preparations to ensure that he could meet the exile the way he wanted while he was in power as a king, instead of just worrying about or not thinking about the days of exile. Illustration: All professionals, also need to think like this king. They must constantly prepare for the foreseeable future irrespective of how well they may be doing at any time. It is important to remember that good times are not permanent. Changes in law, technology, and environment are certain and one has to prepare and be ready for the unforeseeable. Constant research, self-upgrading and continuous professional education, etc. are absolutely essential. Long-term strategies and a vision for the future are the hallmarks of every successful man. For example, every CA must realise that times are constantly changing, bringing in new technology, new economic environment and integrating global standards. Days of complete paperless transactions, fully digitalised and computerised workplaces, are not far away. If CAs still continue in their run-of-the-mill practices of small time manual (non computerised) tax returns, accounting and mundane audit practices, with a limited set of advisory services they will not only stagnate, but eventually phase out into redundancy and joblessness. The need to build up and develop diversified areas of providing services to clients will be inevitable and this preparation has to be done right now and not later, else it will be like an impending exile. This anecdote highlights exactly that; all of us do know that in the business environment advancements and developments are constantly happening but we tend to leave them for some future date. Very soon it becomes too late and the exile is inevitable. Message and symbolic relevance: On the physical front, saving for a rainy day, or for old age and medication cost are imperative. On the spiritual front we must prepare ourselves for the day of our death. Reading scriptures like the Gita regularly is one such simple way of preparing us. Don’t just think about this, start reading and implementing the message in our scriptures now. Waste not a moment and we shall have all the pleasures continuing even after our departure from this world.

| 41 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures 12. The cat who came for the discourse in the Ashram Parable: Once in an ashram centuries ago, a guru (teacher) was giving a discourse to his pupils outside in a courtyard. The guru was sitting on a dais and the pupils were sitting in the courtyard on the ground. Suddenly a wild cat came from somewhere and started making a nuisance of itself and disturbed the pupils and the Guru. The Guru was disturbed and immediately stopped his discourse and requested his attendant to catch the cat and then tie it to the pillar so that it would not be able to disrupt the discourse. The discourse was stopped till this cat was caught and tied to the pillar. The Guru restarted and completed the discourse peacefully. The next day funnily, the same thing happened; the wild cat came again and made a nuisance of itself and disturbed the proceedings. Once again the Guru stopped the discourse and issued similar instructions to his attendant to catch the cat and tie it to the pillar. The third day again the same thing happened, and somehow for the entire week, the cat seemed to be fascinated by the Guru’s discourse and would unfailingly come and consequently be caught and tied to the pillar. Unfortunately each time the discourse had to be stopped. The next week the Guru had an idea to ensure the continuity of the discourse without disturbance by the cat. He ordered his attendant to find the cat before the discourse each day and tie it to the pillar every day. This worked well and his discourses went about this procedure obediently. This continued the next week, the week thereafter, the month thereafter, the year thereafter and incredibly, for decades and centuries thereafter in that Ashram. This became such a sacrosanct ritual, that no Guru in that Ashram could give a discourse until and unless some wild cat was caught and tied to a pillar. This is because the procedure became a ritual handed down from one Guru to another and it was considered a prerequisite and an auspicious thing. The genesis of the nuisance value was completely lost in the passage of time and only the procedure survived. Message and Symbolic Relevance: There is no other thing which is more important as developing an open mind for a successful professional. While the goals and principles of life remain unchanged, ideas, thoughts, procedures and approaches need to be adapted to the changing times. The mindless tying of the cat to the pillar represents a stale procedure syndrome, where a procedure could have become stale in the current times and possibly redundant. As in the previous anecdote one should not stagnate and one should not perform any task mindlessly just because it has been handed down over a period of time. Illustration: There was an audit firm where audit checklists and programmes were well designed and standardised and followed meticulously each year. In one year, during an audit, the auditor observed that the checklist included verification and reconciliation of stocks in transit between the warehouse and the service station. This checklist was prepared years ago and complied with each year. Accordingly, in the current year too, the audit team member had checked the reconciliation and ensured that the stocks inward and outwards tallied, so as to comply with the previous year’s check list. However in the current year one of the large branches had been moved from an upcountry location to a location within the warehouse premises itself; therefore there was no transit time and obviously there should have been no stock in transit in the current year at all. The fact that there was stock in transit indicated that there was foul play; in reality there was shortage in stock which was palmed off as stock in transit. However as per the audit procedure the assistant tallied the stock in transit account in terms of numbers but not in terms of reality. The reality that there should have been no stock in transit was missed out and lost in the audit procedures. This happens because of a dull mind due to pressure of work and mental stress and not because of incompetence. In

| 42 | Gita for Professionals such situations these checklists may become mindless procedures to no end. It is therefore recommended that to minimise this kind of a lapse, a daily ten minute meditation habit should be cultivated and it will be very effective. 13. The Mahatma and the young child with an addiction Parable: There was a woman who had a child with a problem. The child was a jaggery addict and would eat jaggery every now and then. His mother was worried and wanted him to be cured of this addiction. She went to a well-known Mahatma to seek his advice and help. The Mahatma heard her and asked her to return after 15 days for a solution. When she went again after 15 days, he again asked her to come after 15 days. The third time he called the child and simply said, ‘Be a good boy, don’t eat too much jaggery’. Explaining this simple act, the Mahatma assured her that, with these words, the child would gradually get out of his habit. Miraculously the child actually got out of that habit after that. The woman asked him why he made her come so many times for such a simple solution. The Mahatma clarified that he himself was a jaggery addict too. Therefore he had to get rid of his own addiction first. This took some time to stop and only when he had done it would he have the power and strength to successfully advise someone. Message and Symbolic Relevance: Advice should be given only if one is himself prepared to follow it. Secondly it should be given to one who asks for it, as per the Gita. The power in the advice can come only when the advisor practices what he preaches. Every teacher, professor, lecturer, or guru must read and implement this anecdote. One cannot impart what one does not have. The period of articleship, which a CA undergoes before becoming a CA is symbolised by the guru taking time to study and learn something himself. The period of articleship must therefore be used to maximise one’s knowledge base and that is why a CA certification is given only after this is properly completed. Dummy articles should be thoroughly discouraged. Illustration: There was a senior CA who was invited to speak at a seminar. He was very popular speaker and invited to speak on various subjects of accountancy and audit. Once he was asked to speak on transfer pricing at a national level conference. The CA declined. He was again invited a few months later but again he declined. The third time he came and he gave a wonderful presentation and one of his colleagues asked him why he did not come earlier, whether he was so busy. The CA truthfully replied that he was not busy. The real reason similar to the Mahatma’s reason for asking the boy to come later. The CA previously had not done any work relating to transfer pricing and therefore it would be incorrect to speak on that subject. After having done that he was ready and his speech was more focused, powerful and meaningful. Every speaker must keep this in mind before accepting the dais for a talk. 14. The ‘Kumbh Mela’ syndrome of losing a child Parable: Two mothers each with her son had gone to a Kumbh Mela (major auspicious fair and exhibition in north India where lakhs of people congregate). In each case the mother son duo had been holding hands tightly, but one of them got lost in a major stampede. What was the difference and why did one get lost and not the other? In the case where the child got lost, it was learnt that the child was holding the mother’s hand. In the other case where he did not get lost, the mother was holding her son’s hand.

| 43 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures Message and symbolic relevance : Professionals, particularly in CA firms are sometimes so overloaded with work that they dump assignments to juniors and presume that if they have difficulties they will come to them. This is exactly like the situation where the child holds the mother’s hand and not vice versa. The work will be unsatisfactory and in crisis situations it may backfire on the senior CAs. If there is no hand holding by the mother it is akin to pushing a person into the sea and expecting him to know swimming or learn it after he is pushed into the water. Hand holding, particularly in crisis situations like the Kumbh Mela situations, is recommended for good quality work. The senior partner or experienced CAs should lead the team at all times rather than just review things at the end. This will facilitate minimisation of risk, competent handling and ultimate client satisfaction. 15. The man who was continuously looking at the sky Parable: There was a man who was looking up at the sky. Another man saw him and he also started looking at the sky to see what he was looking at. A third man also saw these two and was curious. He too looked at the sky to see what was so interesting. In time, a whole mob of people joined with these sky gazers to try and spot what the spectacle was. Eventually someone asked one of the star gazers what he was trying to see or what he was watching. The star gazer responded he too was not aware but he was gazing at the sky because one of the others standing next to him was doing so. That person was asked why he was gazing at the sky and he too gave a similar answer and pointed to another person whom he had seen doing the same, which had aroused his curiosity. Even that person was asked and the same answer was received. By asking all these star gazers one at a time eventually they came to the person who was the first to have started looking at the sky. When asked he continued to look upwards but he answered that he was not looking at the sky; his neck had been sprained due to a fall and dislocated and therefore that was his natural gaze and so could not help it. He was not watching anything particular. Illustration: Particularly as a professional, one should avoid herd or sheep mentality. For example whenever some new provision, Act, budget or bill is introduced CAs attend seminars in large numbers. This is good but the thought process behind this is inadequate or flimsy. The seminar is attended more as a classroom where they believe that they will be taught and spoon fed like school children what has to be done. At a professional level, seminars are far from class rooms. The seminars should be attended after having gone through and understanding the new bill or Act. The intent to attend the seminar is to network, understand the views of experts and apply one’s own mind, think and then implement. So also any procedure, task, assignment or audit should not be done only because others or someone else has done it in a particular way. In many CA firms, when an audit or tax or any assignment is to be done, it can start only with the previous year’s file. Once retrieved, the same audit programme or the same format of the tax computation is used and at best there are changes in numbers and dates. The process becomes so mundane, indifferent and stale that errors or goof ups are commonly evidenced. Glaring mistakes are overlooked. Sometimes due to this stale procedures syndrome the audit reports or tax returns are done so indifferently that even the previous year’s dates inadvertently continue in the next year’s report or return. It is advisable to minimise reliance on other’s work and use them for only reference, upgrade or comparison, but not as a base for commencement. Remember that the environment is constantly changing and the concept of a customised programme is better than a standard programme.

| 44 | Gita for Professionals Message and Symbolic Relevance: As said before, professionals should not be governed by the mob mentality. Individual thinking, creativity provide spice and flavour in life. Success is guaranteed for those who believe in themselves. While it is essential to learn from others it is wrong to copy mindlessly. In status, fashion, work everything we want to emulate others. This leads to stagnation and ineffectiveness. Life is all about being unique and creative. Emulate others but in your own style and character. 16. The guest who repaid hospitality with devastation and destruction Parable: A guest who had come to visit a poor family’s house observed that the only source of income was an apple tree which stood in their backyard. They earned their livelihood from sale of its apples. The family was completely dependent on this tree for its subsistence. The guest observed that essentially the family were good, intelligent people, but complacent and that is why they were poor. He had an idea. Accordingly he requested the family to permit him to stay over for the night. Before leaving the next day, he got up early morning and cut the apple tree while the family members were still asleep. The poor family members were heartbroken and did not understand how their generosity and hospitality was returned with such a ghastly act. Their only source of income was now cut off. The family members soon regained their composure and had to forcibly look at newer areas of livelihood. They had to struggle, but being intrinsically good and intelligent people, they succeeded and came out of this crises and in fact they became prosperous. Years later they realised that they were unknowingly tied and shackled to the apple tree which was feeding them but actually also impeding their progress! Actually the act of cutting of the tree was not a devastating act but exactly the opposite. The dependence of the family of the tree was actually cut off to facilitate the family to find itself and its true capabilities. Message and Symbolic Relevance: The anecdote emphasises over dependence on anything or anyone and its stagnating effect. Over dependence is different from specialisation where one constantly does research and innovates. Over dependence here refers to complacency and reliance on something indifferently under a false notion that the situation and environment will not change eternally. If we don’t think or have back up plans or a wider vision, it is possible that like this guest above, God who may bring in an axe to cut that dependence, in which case the struggle to re-establish would be greater. Illustration: Many CAs start their practice very well in their initial days. However some of them become dependent on one particular client, or assignment, or assistant, or type of practice just like the family above. In one particular case one CA was doing very well in cases relating to property valuation and Form 37-I matters. He developed a big name for himself in such property related tax clearance matters and reached a position where he could virtually charge any amount to his liking. He developed his office entirely to process 37-I applications. For a few years he did well but one day the provision of filing Form 37-I was removed. The CA was crestfallen and his entire practice crashed! This 37-I was like the apple tree for the CA. The CA faced tough times for a few years and had to undergo a lot of difficulties. However he eventually resurrected himself but with great difficulty. The important thing to remember is that complete dependence on any one thing must be cut as early as possible. This complacency of reliance on be one kind of practice, one client, one assistant, one partner… anything is bound to result into devastation sooner or later. Develop back up plans and the ideal thing in life is to diversify.

| 45 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures 17. A tale of two pots Parable: A man had two pots tied on either side of a stick which placed on his shoulder and which enabled him to carry water from the river to his house. One day, one pot developed a hole and water started leaking from it. As per this story, the pot felt very bad and it told the man that there was no use for it since the water fully leaked out by the time he reached home. The pot appealed to the man to throw it away. However the man didn’t throw it away and continued using it on both sides alternatively each day. The pot just could not understand it. After a few days it again repeated its request saying that it was useless. The man answered that it was not at all useless. He showed the pot the road from the river to his house. It now had a line of pretty flowers on the sides of the road because the leaking pot was now used as a watering pot to feed water to the flowers. Message and Symbolic Relevance: Every professional will always face this aspect in life. Changing times, changing environment, changing technology and the consequent redundancy. Sometimes in life one feels redundant and let down due to problems and failures. When others around seem to be making progress life seems even more dismal and in extreme cases it can drive a person to severe depression, frustration and in rare cases even suicide like the pot above. That is the time when reading a scripture like the Gita gives strength, guidance and a confidence to lead a better existence. No one or nothing is useless in this world. Accept what cannot be changed gracefully and simultaneously work hard to do what can be done within the constraints. The following is one case where an internal auditor had almost given up hope in an unfriendly technological environment. Illustration: There was a senior in-house internal auditor, whose stagnant position in a company for many years had made him unpopular and feel unwanted. His reports were hardly read and given little importance. He himself felt that they were no good. Further he was not computer savvy and was finding it difficult to audit penetratively like other junior auditors who were good in Information Technology. The company installed a new cheque printing machine connected to the software application used for its financial accounts. Nobody bothered to show the internal auditor or explain its functioning. To his dismay he was given the assignment of review of cheque payments and disbursements. The management had no confidence in the senior auditor and they got this assignment simultaneously also done by a junior auditor. The audit was carried out by the junior very promptly and a nice glossy report was issued. The report had a few points which were not serious, and it was largely satisfactory as regards the internal controls. The internal auditor was dejected and depressed. Late one evening he was retrospecting in his office and seriously considering tendering his resignation. He looked at the pile of payment vouchers on his desk which he had taken out for the assignment before it had been handed over to the junior auditor. He took the name of the Lord and went through the vouchers one more time. The Lord was kind on him. The cheque copies were attached to the vouchers and he was examining them and he came up with something serious which the junior had missed. He saw that the cheque printing machine automatically reproduced the amounts in figures and in words from the data in the vouchers. The cheque only had to be signed, else everything was computerized and apparently seemed to be a well-controlled payment system. He was a good conventional auditor with good perceptive skills. He noticed that the cheque printing reproduced amounts in words without considering the grammar – e.g. it reproduced ` 3,00,000 as Rupees Three Lakhs and ` 1,00,000 as Rupees One Lakh(s) in plural consistently. That is the software did

| 46 | Gita for Professionals not distinguish between singular and plural. His sharp eye caught a voucher which did not have this grammatical mistake where ` 1,00,000 was correctly reproduced in words as one lakh. It was therefore obvious that the cheque and the voucher had not been generated by the software application. The computer could not have learnt this grammar as was evident from other subsequent vouchers and therefore this was a bogus inserted payment. When he reported this the ensuing investigation revealed a major disbursement fraud. The management had now found respect for him. This incident gave a new lease of life to the internal auditor and spurred him on to revive his stature in the organization. The internal auditor thanked the Lord. Thus life cannot always be meaningless and the lord is always aware about our difficulties. The Gita says that whoever goes to the Lord will not be disappointed as was the case here too. 18. The rich man who made promises with a wavering mind Parable: A rich man was travelling in his boat when a storm suddenly started and his boat capsized and started sinking. Just then a fisherman was passing by in his small boat. The rich man was desperate and offered all his wealth to the fisherman in return for safe passage in his boat to the shore. The poor fisherman agreed and the rich man came on his boat. The storm now subsided and soon the fisherman’s boat was safely heading toward the destination. Now that things had calmed down, the rich man started having second thoughts about his promise to the fisherman. He thought that he had promised too much so he explained to the fisherman that he had to also provide for his wife and family, so he would be able to part with only half his wealth. The fisherman did not protest. A little while later the rich man again thought and rationalized. Why even give half of his wealth. The fisherman was after all doing what was his bounden duty. He too would have done the same thing. In fact the rich man had given him a chance to do a good deed, so there was no need to reward him even with ½ his wealth. He therefore suggested that he would give the fisherman 1/4th. Once again the fisherman did not say anything. Soon they came to the shore. The rich man thought that the fisherman would not need so much money and after all there had been no inconvenience to him and all that he had done was give him a ride in his boat. Therefore he gave him a small amount of ` 5 and said buy some sweets for yourself and for your kids. Message and Symbolic Relevance: When one feels like doing a good thing, one must do it immediately. The above example illustrates clearly that time and environment can change the thought process. During a crisis the mindset is more amenable but as soon as the crisis goes the mind is hardened and indifferent. Mind is like a monkey and needs to be leashed. As has been stated time and again, the practice of meditation is the best remedy. Illustration: Things like making a will, saving for a rainy day, doing charity, often cross one’s mind but they are put off for some opportune time in the future. That day seldom comes. Even in the CA practice or for that matter in business or corporate houses, very often there is an incident or some feeling that systems need to be reviewed, new operating manuals are to be made, or that research should be done. However this is put off for some reason or the other such as other priorities, insufficient budgets, lack of resources, etc. In one particular company there a whistleblower policy (to encourage employees to make anonymous complaints as regards problems or corrupt practices, etc.) was being considered for quite some time. The management had it on agenda for every Board meeting but it was put off either on account of vested interests or for other reasons and priorities. One day, they had police all over the

| 47 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures place investigating a complaint made by a female officer of harassment by a colleague. After a painful ordeal which went on for over 15 days, the management called the lady and asked her why she did not first speak to them. She said that she too was not interested in going to the police and but she did not have an option her friends had in some other company where a whistle-blower help desk and email facility was available to make a complaint anonymously. The management realised its mistake and immediately implemented the whistleblower policy but the hard way. 19. The truth behind the abduction of Sita by Ravana Parable: In the Ramayana, Ravana is the Rakshas, or a villain, a wrong doer. He is portrayed as a demon king who abducted Sita, to satisfy his lust. He coveted Sita who was Lord Rama’s wife, and since he had abducted her, Rama killed him after a prolonged battle. It is therefore believed and concluded that Ravana paid the price for his sinful act by being killed by Rama. However, there is a school of thought which believes that the reality is quite different from the foregoing. It is doubtful that the act of abduction was really intended to satisfy his lust. Consider other facts available about Ravana. Ravana was known to be a great scholar, a Brahmin who had undertaken severe penances and he was also a disciple of Lord Shiva. He is supposed to have overpowered even Lord Indra. Such a person with unmatched wisdom and also a recipient of divine boons from Lord Shiva himself, could scarcely have been ignorant of the fact that Rama was an avatar of Lord Vishnu himself. Further a person who had undergone severe penances should logically be able to overcome his lust for Sita. If all this does sound reasonable, then what was the real reason for abducting her? The answer given by this school of thought, is that Ravana wanted ‘moksha’ or liberation or salvation. It is commonly believed that if one is killed by God that death is divine and one achieves salvation or self-realisation. Ravana very well knew that Rama was God, being an avatar of Lord Vishnu, and therefore Rama could liberate sinners. He further deduced that if he were to be killed by Rama, even if he was a sinner, he would automatically get moksha or liberation or salvation. But, Rama would kill him only if he gave him sufficient cause to kill him and not otherwise. Therefore he abducted Sita. As he had expected, Rama came to Lanka and killed him. Ravana was liberated. This theory is further substantiated by the fact that Sita was untouched and pure during her period of stay in Lanka. Message and Symbolic Relevance: In many situations, actions speak differently from the actual meaning. The message conveyed could be different from the actual purpose of the action. A parent slapping an erring child may be seen as an act of violence to another child to inflict pain but the underlying reason is to ensure that a lesson is learnt for its well-being. Not providing food to an ailing patient is not to starve the patient but to heed medical advice. What one sees may not always be true. Illustration: The period of articleship is a very good example. One aspiring CA student during his period of articleship was selected by the Principal of his firm to go to a far off place, virtually in a jungle, to carry out an audit assignment of a public sector company. Some of his colleagues got better assignments in good companies where the facilities were excellent. His first experience at the public sector for about 10 days was frightening as the place he had to stay was really bad with little food, facilities and poor lodging and transport, and as stated before, virtually in a forest. When he came back after the first trip he pleaded with his father to get him transferred to a smaller firm. The father was an influential man and he spoke to the Principal. Who assured him that he meant well. Further he explained that

| 48 | Gita for Professionals the experience he would get would be phenomenal and he did not agree to the transfer. The frustration on the CA student compounded when he saw others getting more time to study and assignments in better parts of India. He felt that the Principal was really prejudiced and against him and felt that he was like Ravana or a demon to him. Having no choice, he went through the assignment which needed him to stay for long periods at such far off places and eventually completed his work and gave his examination. He obviously had not got so much time to study as many of his other colleagues had and this rubbed in even deeper. However, the pain that he had gone through while doing the audits at those far off places bore fruit. He got a good rank and some prizes in spite of studying so little and fared much better than all his colleagues. He then realized he got because his answers were practical and based on his experiences in those audits. He actually went and thanked his Principal and admitted that the experience he got was the sole reason for his stellar performance. This was a typical case where an act could seem prejudiced, one of inflicting pain or prejudice but the real purpose could be different. The Principal was indeed not a Ravana, but a Rama. 20. The firefly syndrome Parable: If one were to trap a few fireflies in a box and shut its lid, the fireflies would keep buzzing incessantly within the box trying to think of a way to get out. However they usually have one track minds and do not understand changes in the environment easily. Even if the lid is removed most of them will keep buzzing within the same space inside the box not realizing that they can fly out of the box easily. Only a few of them who think differently escape to freedom. Message and Symbolic relevance: Our minds are one track and closed like these fireflies sometimes. We are frightened of changes or indifferent to them like the fireflies. We continue with conventional and age old ideals and we narrow down our thought processes to run-of-themill solutions not realizing that better solutions are possible with a little reflection and ‘out of the box’ thinking. This is where meditation makes a big difference and can facilitate us to think more effectively, differently and gainfully. Think of ‘out of the box’ solutions once in a while. Charles Darwin has said that in the process of evolution, it is not that species which is the fittest which necessarily survives, nor is it that species which is the most intelligent. It is the species which adapts to the changing environment that survives the longest and adaption is possible only with an open mind and an open mind is possible only if one constantly meditates which facilitates removal of all clutter from our minds. Illustration: Once a young freshly graduated commerce girl, Bhavya (named changed) was being interviewed by a CA, a Financial Controller (FC) of a Mumbai based company. Bhavya had applied for a clerical position in Internal Audit team. Bhavya had a good potential for taking up the CA course considering her extraordinary performance at college levels. However there were some constraints. Bhavya was the second sibling amongst three sisters and since the main earning member, the elder sister, had recently got married, the family’s earnings were meagre. It was therefore imperative for Bhavya to fend for her family and the job was critical. Despite having a bright career before her and keenness to study further, she had decided to take the clerical position. The choice before Bhavya was less by way of meagre stipend as applicable for the CA course or join a company at the clerical post of junior auditor and earn reasonably well (compared to the stipend). She had opted for the clerical post since her immediate priorities were to support her poor parents and take care of younger sister’s

| 49 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures school fees. The family had been also burdened by the recent additional cost of the elder sister’s wedding. Bhavya was new to the Mumbai city as she hailed from the petite village from Saurashtra district, Gujarat. Another dilemma before her was the exorbitant cost of living in Mumbai. As a student she would have qualified for a hostel accommodation and saved some money but that option was blocked due to her choice of not studying further. The Financial Controller (FC) really felt sorry for the young graduate who was sacrificing her promising career to fulfil her immediate family needs. The FC was further under pressure from HR department which had expected him to negotiate her remuneration by 10-20% downwards from her expected numbers. The FC, applied his mind and thought on this matter and he came to a decision. The correct thing was to somehow engage Bhavya into taking up the CA course for a better future for her. However, the FC also had a loyalty to the company to negotiate the terms of appointment and maximize the savings in the cost to the company. Also he knew that beyond a point it would have been futile persuading her to take up further study, because she would have taken a job elsewhere. The FC came up with an out of box solution, which addressed all the constraints. It not only enabled the young aspirant to take up the CA course, but also gave her some more money in hand and at the same time there was also a saving for the company. The solution be so novel so as to converge three divergent notions, that it virtually is like having the cake and eating it too. The FC agreed to pay a certain sum as remuneration which was actually 20-25% lower than Bhavya’s expectation but he suggested that she join an external manpower supply consultant who was also providing services to the company. In that arrangement she would be allowed to pursue the Chartered Accountancy course. Since she would not be on rolls of the company there were net savings to the company in terms of statutory deductions like the provident fund, insurance, etc. Also since she was now a student of CA, she was also eligible for hostel accommodation. Thus net savings to her in real terms aggregated to an actual increase in her take-home pay. She took up the CA course, earned more in the arrangement as above, and the company too benefited by the savings in costs. Bhavya went on to complete the CA course and today is a member of the prestigious Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. 21. The hunter’s trap for greedy monkeys Parable: An interesting system has been used for capturing monkeys in the jungles of Africa. The goal is to take the monkeys alive and unharmed for shipment to zoos of America. In an extremely humane way, the captors use heavy bottles, with long narrow necks, into which they deposit a handful of sweet-smelling nuts. The bottles are dropped on the jungle floor, and the captors return the next morning to find a monkey trapped next to each bottle. How is it accomplished? The monkey, attracted by the aromatic scent of the nuts, comes to investigate the bottle, the nuts, and is trapped. The monkey can’t take its hand out of the bottle as long it’s holding the nuts, but it is unwilling to open its hand and let them go. The bottle is too heavy to carry away, so the monkey is trapped. The simple solution of releasing the nuts exists whereby the monkey could easily remove its hand from the narrow neck of the bottle, but the greed of the monkey prevents it from thinking of this. Message: We hold on to our problems as tenaciously as the monkeys hold to the nuts in the bottle. And so, figuratively we carry our bottle around with us, feeling very sorry for ourselves, and begging for sympathy from others, even from God. Greed, temptation and evil forces always try to invade our basic goodness which is our true nature and if we fall prey to them we are

| 50 | Gita for Professionals stuck as the monkeys above unless we have an antidote to such evil forces. This is where we are different from the monkeys. In its eighteen chapters, the Gita has described several ways, through which we could conquer greed, such as selfless service, devotion, renunciation and knowledge. Among these, as mentioned so many times in this book, selfless service is a very effective method and should be practiced by everyone consistently. The following is one story which illustrates this. Illustration: There was a businessman whose goal in life was to make money. Certainly, there was nothing wrong in that. He had started off as an honest straightforward businessman. He was a cheerful, affectionate and good-natured person. Though he had started his business with lofty and noble ambitions, he fell prey to the corrupt business environment. His greed for money made him cut corners, and indulge in malpractices. He resorted to all the tricks of the trade such as tax evasion, adulteration in products, holding back suppliers payments, and other practices to maximise his business profits. An aura of distrust and lust enveloped his business. He had to keep a close watch on, suppliers, customers and even employees for obvious reasons. Though business volumes and turnover increased, his stress and tension levels mounted exponentially. He had constant complaints from customers; suppliers harassed him for payments; he had problems with tax authorities and he faced his employees’ tacit non co-operation. His health started deteriorating and he became a grouchy and detestable person. He trusted no one and his old sunny affectionate and good-natured self was lost and his family life also was despondent. However, a little shred of goodness, which was still alive somewhere within him, prompted him to go and meet an old friend of his and pour out his woes. The friend was a true friend, as was Lord Krishna to Arjun, and he understood his predicament completely. He asked him not to worry. He suggested to the businessman to have complete trust in him and to follow his instructions. The instructions were simple. Just one day a week on a Sunday, the businessman was supposed to accompany him to an orphanage and read stories to the children. The businessman did not think much of this idea, but he had great trust in his friend and respecting his wishes he started going to the orphanage every Sunday as directed. He went reluctantly the first time and did not much look forward to reading the stories to some unknown children. However, the next few visits over two months changed him completely. He was pleasantly surprised to see that the children looked up to him and were eagerly awaiting his arrival each Sunday and thoroughly enjoyed each story. The children were affectionate and craved for his company. Very soon he actually started missing them during the course of the week. As time flew by he felt the urge to do more for the children and he started donating something to that orphanage every month from his business. Not only did his lust to make more money, gradually reduce, and eventually disappear, his desire to serve the orphanage became even greater. He even influenced other friends, business associates and relatives to do something for the orphanage. The floodgates finally opened on him when, one day all the children in the orphanage together gave him a small painting in which each and every child had drawn or painted some part of the picture. Below that painting was written ‘You are our God’. The businessman wept and saw through himself. He saw what a vulture he had been. He had finally found his true self and he had won his eternal conquest. In the meanwhile because his mind had been preoccupied with the orphanage, his stress level had reduced and his health had been restored to normalcy, and he had become his old good natured self. Astonishingly his business problems diminished while the business did much better with much lesser effort

| 51 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures than he was putting in earlier. This was because his internal purification was evident and it spilled over in his business culture. He had discontinued malpractices in his business and he was calmer, more pleasant and more understanding towards others. Dealing with him was now a pleasure and he was now known to be fair and honest All his employees, business associates and customers started trusting him and he regained their confidence. His family life also blossomed and returned to normalcy. He went back to his friend to express his gratitude. The friend calmly said that he had also been through a similar experience and he had learnt that selfless service is one of the best ways to win the eternal conquests in life. Thus service to the needy and underprivileged is the best antidote and remedy for greed, lust and other temptations of wrongdoing in life, as per Chapter 12 of the Gita. Symbolic Relevance: There are several obvious lessons in this illustration: As in the case of the parable of the monkeys above greed is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to our progress and the root cause of our miseries. We must recognise that in this world, greed, temptations and the lure of easy money and other evil forces are bound to create impediments to our goals along the noble path, but our main goal in life should be to not succumb to these forces and win this conquest. Even if we have strayed from our path of dharma or righteousness, if we apply the message of the Gita, as given in Chapter 9, shloka 30, Chapter 4, shloka 36, and Chapter 18 shloka 66, we will still attain divinity if we use devotion or service. Chapter 9, Shloka 30 DeefHe ®eslmegogje®eejes Yepeles ceecevev³eYeekedÀ ~ meeOegjsJe me cevleJ³eë mec³eiJ³eJeefmelees efn meë ~~30~~ DeefHe – even ®esled – if ogje®eejë – very wicked person Yepeles – worships ceeced – me Devev³eYeekedÀ – with devotion to none else meeOegë – righteous SJe – verily meë – he cevleJ³eë – should be regarded

| 52 | Gita for Professionals mec³ekedÀ – rightly J³eJeefmeleë – resolved efn – indeed meë – he Even if a wicked person should worship me with devotion, he is deemed to be righteous and rightly resolved. Chapter 4, Shloka 36 DeefHe ®esoefme HeeHesY³e meJexY³eë HeeHeke=ÀÊeceë ~ meJe¥ %eeveHueJesvewJe Je=efpeveb mebleefj<³eefme ~~36~~ DeefHe – even ®esled – if Deefme – (you) are HeeHesY³eë – than sinners meJexY³eë – (than) all HeeHeke=ÀÊeced – most sinful meJe&ced – all %eeveHueJesve – by the raft of knowledge SJe – alone Je=efpeveced – sin mebleefj<³eefme – (you) shall cross Even if you were the worst of sinners, this knowledge alone would carry you, like a raft, across all your sins (36) Chapter 18, Shloka 66 meJe&Oecee&vHeefjl³ep³e ceeceskebÀ MejCeb Je´pe ~ Denb lJee meJe&HeeHesY³ees cees#eef³e<³eeefce cee Meg®eë ~~66~~ meJe&Oecee&ved – all duties Heefjl³ep³e – having abandoned

| 53 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures ceeced – to me SkeÀced – alone MejCeced – refuge Je´pe – take Denced – I lJee – you meJe&HeeHesY³eë – from all sins cees#eef³e<³eeefce – will liberate cee – not Meg®eë – grieve Resign all your duties to Me, the all powerful and all supporting Lord, take refuge in Me alone. I shall absolve you of all sins, worry not. (66) Therefore, even if we do succumb, never give up the battle to come back to the path of God. Surrender to God. Keep fighting and turn to a Guru or a friend. Arjun turned to Lord Krishna as a friend amid the battle of Kurukshetra. In a similar manner we need one who can be our Lord Krishna and that is our conscience. Lord Krishna resides within us as our conscience and will always guide us correctly. Of course a good Guru or advice from a true friend is useful in this regard and should be approached, but a confirmation from our conscience is essential. 1. We must completely trust and do what our conscience says, since God speaks to us through it. 2. Chapter 12 of the Gita advocates devotion and service to God as one of the best ways towards God realisation and fending off evil forces. Offering service to others selflessly, particularly those underprivileged, needy or the poor is akin to serving God and also a very effective way of winning this inner conquest. It is said that service of even say helping an old lady to cross a road will bring greater ‘punya’ than a donation of a crore of rupees made for getting a tax benefit. 3. Regular occupation of one’s mind in any service to others will automatically bring in internal purification and strengthen one’s resolve to win the eternal conquest.

| 54 | Gita for Professionals 22. The placement of Arjuna’s chariot by Krishna while giving the Gita discourse before the Kurukshetra battle began. Parable: When Arjuna was given this discourse of the Gita, it is believed that Krishna took his chariot in front and placed it between the two armies of the Pandavas and Kauravas. This was in full view of everyone else and Arjuna could see both the sides clearly. The symbolic meaning is that whenever one is about to enter into a major conflict of any kind, it is advisable to position and equip oneself in a manner that both sides can be observed and understood. One can get a fair view and only then will fair and balanced strategies and solutions emerge. To be able to see, hear and understand both sides is not only a good trait but a necessity which can facilitate corrections, refinements and even changes in the action plan for better results. It is also believed that Yudhistir also addressed both sides before the war, offering one more chance, a fair opportunity, to any one on the battlefield to change sides if he felt that he was supporting the wrong cause. As a result, Yuyusta son of Dhritarashtra changed sides and joined the Pandavas. Message: It is absolutely imperative to be impartial and fair for success in life. Seldom do people who are biased, unfair or prejudiced reach high places. In order to develop this ability to be transparent and objective, it is a good practice to hear, see and examine both sides of any conflict be it a conflict between two external parties or a conflict within one’s mind as regards the right course of action in situations of crisis. Illustration: An audit team had conducted an internal audit assignment where the report had been discussed and finalized and the bill was submitted too. The divisional CFO was holding up the bill for some reason. Thus began the same old story – audit teams’ follow up and e-mail exchanges between the CFO and the audit team leader, eventually precipitating into a major war. There the divisional CFO was raising concerns as regards the quality of the audit, the incompetence of some of the team members, the inadequate amount of work done and

| 55 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures the overall quality of the findings in general. A final long email was written by the divisional CFO to all, including the managing partner, the MD and the global CFO as well as the audit team, accentuating the shortcomings of the audit. The matter had snowballed into a major issue and a top level meeting was convened to discuss this matter. Before the meeting the audit team appraised the managing partner and sought his advice. They explained that the situation had arisen because of the unfair attitude of the divisional CFO. The divisional CFO was always very busy, never gave a clear mandate, did not even provide the bare minimum facilities for audit such as sitting space, access to computers, data, people etc. As against this he would set strong deadlines to complete the work. Inspite of all these constraints, their audit had been penetrative. They reported findings whereby the company was able to recover some double payments, overcharges and incorrect billing from some vendors. In fact, two other divisional CFOs (whose projects also had dealings with the same erring vendors) had requested them to conduct similar audits in their projects. The audit team told the managing partner that all these objections could be forcefully defended and the divisional CFO could be cut down to size. They were all set to lift up their cudgels and stir up a hornets nest at the meeting. The managing partner differed. Like Lord Krishna, he wanted to go to the centre point of this whole cross fire and view both sides points of view clearly. He had an open mind and wanted to be fair. Therefore he asked the team leader to explain in detail each complaint and allegation and what the audit team had to say. The team leader explained all this including what they had done, their findings, reports and clarified their position with regard to the specific concerns. He satisfied himself that their findings had resulted in major recoveries from vendors worth aggregating ` 15 lakhs. Now he decided to view the picture from the other side. He paid a courtesy call to the complaining divisional CFO who reluctantly met him. The few minutes that he spent with the divisional CFO gave him the information he wanted. The CFO was not able to gracefully accept and admit that the report had been useful. He continuously grumbled about the cluttered report presentation, absence of cross referencing, frequent spelling mistakes, wrong grammar, and missing dates in certain appendices, all of which collectively made his life difficult. He grudgingly admitted that the recovery of ` 15 lakhs was done based on the audit findings, but stated that he would have found out and recovered that anyway even if the auditors had not reported this. From the foregoing it was evident that the divisional CFO was nit picking and largely unhappy about technical or insignificant issues, and he did not see any major incompetence of his audit team. He then met the other two CFOs to confirm whether they had really wanted his team to do similar audits based on their findings. They confirmed that they were happy with the team, and like Yuyutsu they were prepared to back him up in the forthcoming meeting. After understanding the situation from both sides, the managing partner was convinced that the audit team was not guilty of lack of effort, nor was the quality of their report wanting in any way. Their only shortcoming was their presentation and report writing skills, for which he decided that he would take the responsibility. The solution thus emerged easily. He realised diplomacy balanced with firmness as regards the competence of work would be a good strategy. He had confidence in himself, his team’s effort and the findings and so was prepared to go by this strategy. He cautioned the entire team against argument or retorting against the CFO or even defending their work in the meeting. He explained to them in kind words, that though their report was good, it lacked appeal and finesse, and they would have to concede that. However he comforted them by assuming his responsibility and accountability for not guiding them. The audit team however was thoroughly demotivated by this strategy, because they had worked hard and got excellent results, which were now under the scanner unfairly.

| 56 | Gita for Professionals The meeting commenced with an ominous silence; the MD and the global CFO were present too. The divisional CFO, as expected, started the meeting with a list of all the issues finding fault with virtually everything that the audit team had done or not done. The global CFO and the MD eventually turned towards the managing partner for his views. The managing partner was fully prepared, and made a short speech which had a conquering impact on the MD. He said, “I thank the divisional CFO for these constructive evaluations of my team and the work done. He has taken the pains to minutely examine, analyze and comment on our presentations and reports, and, we are indeed grateful for this and we will learn and improve from this experience. We also respect his point of view and observations regarding the competence of my team and the quality or our findings, but we beg to differ completely. If all of you agree with him, it is befitting that we should step down as the auditors. We will not charge any fees too for this work. However we will have to disappoint the two other CFOs of your company who have also requested us to carry out this same audit for their projects, which I believe are essential in the company’s interest. I say this because, pursuant to our report, the company was able to recover ` 15 lakhs from certain defaulting vendors and I fear that the amounts recoverable from these other projects may be larger. Their CFOs have been expectantly looking at us for assistance in this regard. We have the company’s interests at heart and therefore we suggest that another external firm be appointed to do this work. Even if they charge a larger fee than us, the exercise must be inevitably carried out. We shall gladly facilitate the company by providing the relevant notes and working papers which in turn will determine the recoverable amounts in those projects. We sincerely regret that we didn’t live up to your expectations, but nevertheless, we wish you all the best”. Amidst a stunned silence, the MD immediately asked him to hold on and the reader would have guessed what happened. The fact of recovery of ` 15 lakhs was not known to the MD earlier it was verified and the other CFOs called. Within minutes the electrified atmosphere against the audit team changed completely and the managing partner was requested to continue, with a ten per cent increase in fee. Symbolic Relevance: Success in life is a function of competence, presentation, soft speech and ability to bear injustice firmly. If we read a few shlokas of the Gita every day we will enhance all the required qualities of competence, soft speech, ability to bear and tolerate, exponentially. 23. Should one resort to lies or half truths? – The example of Dronacharya’s killing in the Kurukshetra war. Parable: In the Kurukshetra war, Dronacharya became the Kaurava army’s commander after the fall of Bhisma, the previous chief commander of the Kauravas. He was their teacher and so very skilled that the Pandavas could not dislodge him or kill him under normal circumstances. Therefore some situation had to be created to make him lose the interest in the war, and lay down his weapons. At a time like this Lord Krishna used an unusual weapon: a half truth or an incomplete truth. Yudhistir announced in the battlefield that Ashwatthama (the name of Dronacharya’s son) had been killed. Actually an elephant named Ashwatthama had been killed but the way the announcement was made Dronacharya did not realise that. He believed that his own son had been killed, particularly since Yudhistir was a truthful person. As expected, he lost all interest in the battle. It was then a matter of time within which he was overpowered and killed by the Pandavas. Message and symbolic reference: While at all times one must pursue and follow truth and path of righteousness, there can be extreme cases where half truths or incomplete truths may

| 57 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures have to be resorted to. Life is complex and unpredictable. Sometimes, it is the end result that is important. If there is any partial truth which helps a noble cause, or improves, or helps someone for betterment than it is better than that truth which can be devastating. For example a blind dying mother on her death bed wants to meet her son, but he cannot come for some reason. In that case a doctor brings in someone else stating that her son had arrived, makes her believe that he has indeed come to see her. She is overjoyed and spends the last few minutes hugging him and blessing him. This person was like her son, but not her son, but his presence brought in great comfort and fulfilment to the dying mother. Such perversions of truth or half truths are sometimes permissible in life. Illustration: An investigation done by a CA used a similar half truth to get the desired evidence in a given case. It was a case of a whistleblower’s complaint regarding the appointment of a senior person in a company. In a nutshell, the complaint stated that the person appointed had furnished a forged and falsified document of the previous employer’s salary and recommendation certificate. This had been obviously done to negotiate a fatter salary. Discreet inquiries confirmed that the previous employer did not exist at all and therefore such a high salary was not due to him at all. However for some reason this letter was missing from the HR file and so it was impossible to prove that the concerned employee had defrauded the company by submitting a false/forged document. On the HR file there were only some handwritten notes about the past employment and notings relating to the false past salary. Therefore the appointed person could not be held guilty. The current HR head was new and he was unaware about the suspect’s interview, papers and credentials. In this situation, it was clear that the company had agreed to a fatter salary based on false information but there was no proof of any falsification. The CA had an idea. He interviewed the suspect on the pretext of an overseas posting where he needed to have all his past information and since this matter was confidential it was advisable not to get the data from the HR file. In fact, while interviewing the suspect, he stated that he had seen his fantastic previous employment details and these would be very useful in finalizing his overseas posting, it was best to prepare a fresh set of documents with all past and present salary details duly supported by certificates. The suspect genuinely believed this and felt that by now the danger of any background check was non-existent and readily furnished all details including the falsified previous employment certificates. Once this document was available, received through email, that was proof enough and the person was proceeded against legally. Thus in certain situations, use of incomplete truths or even pretexts of non-existent situations may be necessary. However these are rare and to be used only as the last resort and under the advice of a teacher or guru or an advisor. 24. The legend of Abhimanyu’s Chakravyuha Parable: In the Kurukshetra war, a ‘Chakravyuha’ was an important and difficult war tactic, a kind of an army formation to trap and vanquish senior leaders of the enemy camp. Only people who knew the secret art of getting into a chakravyuha and getting out would normally attempt it, else all others would flee or stay away from it. The legend says that Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son, had heard about the secret of breaking into this formation while he was still in his mother’s womb one night, when Lord Krishna was narrating the Chakravyuha penetration and escape secret to his sister Subhadra. However he did not hear the secret of the part relating to the escape (getting out of this Chakravyuha formation) because by the time this was being explained, Subhadra had fallen asleep, so Abhimanyu did not get that secret through

| 58 | Gita for Professionals Subhadra’s ears. In short he only knew how to penetrate and enter the Chakravyuha formation, and not how to extract himself from it. However Abhimanyu bravely entered the Chakravyuha in the absence of Arjuna and Krishna because he knew how to penetrate and enter. He did fight courageously but not knowing how to escape, Jayadratha, a Sindhu king from the Kaurava army blocked him, also thereby preventing other Pandavas from entering the formation. Abhimanyu was left all alone in the middle of the enemy formation. He continued to fight valiantly and held back all the best warriors of the Kauravas single-handedly, including Karna, Dronacharya and Duryodhana. Duryodhana and Karna chose to assist in the elimination of Abhimanyu under Dronacharya’s guidance. Karna shot arrows that broke Abhimanyu’s bow and the reins of his chariot, while the Kauravas overwhelmed him. The battle ended in Abhimanyu’s death. Message: Half knowledge can be more fatal and dangerous than no knowledge. Professionals must therefore never be half prepared in whatever they do. They are expected to have expertise and full working knowledge of the service they render and accepting work where they do not have the required skills can only lead to devastation. Illustration: Professionals are expected to provide expertise and in-depth knowledge of the service they render. In an age of specialization one should avoid getting into unknown areas of service in the lure of big money. In case of newly qualified CAs particularly, this is a commonly faced challenge. They are eager to earn fees and usually are willing to do almost any kind of work. There was a young CA who had served his articleship in an audit firm. Hence he had no knowledge of income-tax except what he had studied for his CA examination. He started his own consultation practice after qualifying and was ready to offer virtually every kind of servicetax, consultancy, investment counselling, share-trading, and even book-keeping. Work was not easy to come by. He was getting desperate. At last he got some tax work which he mindlessly accepted. He had no work experience in taxation, but the need for money was so intense that he went ahead. He had read the Income-tax Act during his CA examinations and he felt that that knowledge would be enough for him to be able to handle the assignment. He sincerely read all the relevant sections and provisions and appeared before the Deputy Commissioner (DC). However what he lacked was experience of presenting his case and knowledge of recent case judgments. He was not able to put forth the correct citations and case judgments which would have enabled him to clear all the queries raised by the DC. The effect was disastrous. The assessment went completely against the client and the CA was devastated. No doubt he had knowledge of the section, but in absence of experience of dealing in high level tax matters and awareness of recent relevant judgments, the half knowledge only catapulted him into a situation where failure was more or less certain. Symbolic Relevance: This illustration relates to Abhimanyu’s limited knowledge in his mother’s womb. There is a great symbolic meaning. Though learning begins early, it becomes mature only with experience and time. Professionals and CAs must realise that what they learn during their period before qualification and studying in their examinations is good but incomplete; that knowledge is like Abhimanyu’s half knowledge in his mother’s womb. Unlike Abhimanyu, they should try and complete their knowledge by constant professional education, working with seniors before accepting such assignments on their own. 25. The true significance of five husbands of Draupadi Parable: As per the Mahabharata, Draupadi is married to the five Pandavas. Though Arjun had won her hand in marriage in a contest held at her swayamwyar, the mother Kunti had

| 59 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures unknowingly and inadvertently proclaimed that all the five Pandavas should share equally whatever they had won. Thus she became the wife of all the Pandavas. Message and Symbolic Relevance: The five Pandavas can be compared to one individual having five important qualities. In reality it is a piece of advice given by this great Epic to every young girl to look for these five qualities in a suitor. Further the epic also advises on the priorities of these qualities. The first quality of the husband should be ‘Dharma – or religion compliant’ represented by the eldest Pandava, Yudhisthir, the second quality should be ‘strength’ the second eldest Pandava Bheema. Strength is not only physical strength but spiritual strength is what is being advocated, strength to be a good human being. The third quality to be looked for is ‘excellence and expertise’ in whatever he is doing like Arjuna. The fourth quality is ‘good character’, symbolised by Nakul and the fifth quality is ‘good-looks’ Sahdeo. Thus looks and appearance should be given last preference. Also Karna who is well-known for his generosity and this charitable quality is actually a step-brother of Pandavas. This symbolises that this charitable quality is also important but should not be a part of the first set of five prioritised qualities. Illustration: This analogy could be drawn to a CA or any professional that when he is hired by a Company, the quality or values that he should possess should be in same order. First quality should be symbolised by dharma or his ability to implement righteousness, honesty, and do what is appropriate. The second attribute should be like Bheema, powerful strength to protect, stand up for and where needed even defend the company at all times in all situations. The third quality should be competence, excellence and expertise to do his work skillfully, like Arjun. The fourth quality should be to possess a good character and moral values like Nakul and lastly his appearance, presentability, and being well groomed like Sahdeo. This is a general suggestion, but each company could have its own set of priorities. What is important is that as professionals each of us must have the combined traits of the Pandavas. 26. Real ingredients of friendship – tolerance and sacrifice Parable: Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, he wrote in the sand: Today my best friend slapped me in the face. They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but his friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone: Today my best friend saved my life. The friend, who had slapped and saved his best friend, asked him, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now, you write on a stone, why?” The other friend replied: “When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand, where the winds of forgiveness can erase it away, but when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it. Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your blessings in stone. Message: Ignore the bad traits in a friend and admire and emulate his good points. For example when you are driving a car and another car is coming from the opposite side flashing its headlights, you will look away from the glare to be able to drive without being blinded and yet the illumination of the headlights is useful as it lights up the road. Similarly look away from these glaring faults as they can only blind you.

| 60 | Gita for Professionals Illustration: There were two friends, Anil and Bhushan. They were hardworking and had graduated with a good academic record. Both became qualified accountants and offered professional services and within a short time they were well settled. Unfortunately a short while later, Anil lost his father and inherited family debts which forced him to sell his house. Bhushan, being a good friend did him a good turn by providing moral support and helping him to re-establish himself. Eventually Anil extricated himself from his troubled situation and went on to become very successful. In fact he went far ahead of Bhushan and became famous. Up to this stage, it was a level playing field where both were at par, as far as their qualifications and work were concerned. But a stage had come where Anil became so successful that he started even subcontracting work to Bhushan. Bhushan now started looking at the negative traits of Anil and was expectedly unhappy and jealous with Anil’s progress. One day Anil got a rude shock. One of Anil’s clients (whose work had been subcontracted to Bhushan), suddenly asked Bhushan to do all the work. Bhushan had gotten very close to that client and had done everything to show the client that whatever Anil could do, he could do better. The client clandestinely appointed Bhushan and Anil was wondering why work stopped coming from that client. He asked Bhushan also what he thought about this flow of work stopping, but Bhushan feigned ignorance initially. Bhushan continued to earn money by serving that client but as truth always, so also Bhushan’s deceit was exposed accidentally. One of Bhushan’s staff who had come to deliver something to Anil’s office also had an envelope to deliver to that client, in his hand. When Anil saw this he asked him what was that envelop that was being given to the client who had stopped giving them business. The staff member did not know that he was not supposed to reveal the relationship, and so he told Anil that he had to deliver a report to the client for some audit work done. This hurt Anil immensely, and Anil was seething with anger. But he was regular in his meditation practice. As was his practice he read a few pages of the Gita and miraculously he cooled down thereafter and meditated again. Suddenly he remembered that in his difficult days Bhushan had gone out of the way to be nice to him. He remembered all the good times that he and Bhushan had together and compared this incident with all those times. He now started viewing the incident more objectively. Bhushan was good in his work and therefore, perhaps the client was justified in approaching directly. He got the inner strength to admit that perhaps, Bhushan was even better than Anil in his work. He also focused on the fact that he had a far greater share in successes in his profession than Bhushan and understood how Bhushan must have felt when he was left behind. His heart was filled with anger, gratitude, and sympathy for Bhushan, a rare and unusual mixture of emotions. Anil’s meditative practice eventually prevailed over his hurt and anger; they were eventually erased by his gratitude for Bhushan’s past good deeds. Later when he was much more composed and self-controlled, Anil asked Bhushan about this and Bhushan feebly explained that he got carried away and did not know how this happened. After an unpleasant discussion but a fruitful one, Bhushan assured Anil that he would not deal with the client directly. Bhushan kept his word and accordingly refused to directly work for that client. Though eventually Bhushan did the right thing, and the matter was resolved, it was only addressed externally. Some hurt was still there in Anil’s mind. Occasional negative thoughts and emotions of anger did creep up once in a while and he knew that if something was not done to eliminate them completely they would grow and snowball into a major problem. However he remembered what a spiritual advisor had told him. The power of persistence and perseverance: It is a very effective and interesting experiment to say something nice about someone you don’t like, every day for say a month. If you do this,

| 61 | Chapter 3 – Anecdotal Case Studies and Parables from the Gita and other scriptures your hatred will be gradually erased and at some point, disappear completely. Anil did this meticulously. This experiment had a diluting effect on that anger Anil had attempted this with respect to Bhushan and met with success. The friendship thrived after that. Symbolic Relevance: The central point is that within the ups and downs of life, true friendship never wavers. Karna and Duryodhana is an example of friendship of a very high order. For all his greatness, and knowing fully well that he would be punished by God eventually, Karna agreed to stand by and support all of wrongdoings of Duryodhana, even that of the attempt to disrobe Draupadi, only for the sake of friendship. While this book and the author do not advocate these acts in any way, the point to be emphasized is the depth of friendship which should stand by in times of difficulties and crisis situations. Krishna and Sudama, Arjuna and Krishna are also examples of thick friendship each symbolizing a different dimension of friendship. When you avoid looking at the faults and look away from them your self-control improves significantly. Tyaag (Sacrifice) Titiksha (tolerance, ability to bear mental hurt and anguish) are divine traits which when cultivated are the best techniques of reaching out to God and divinity. Anger is much easier controlled and the ability to take the right decisions, cultivation of softer speech, understanding and overall balance in our body is enhanced. The end result is always good. As regards friendship the following shloka from the Gita is relevant which says that one should view friends and foes alike. This will bring stability and objectivity in our thinking and lend strength to our friendship. Chapter 6, shloka 9 is relevant in this context megËeqvce$ee³eg&oemeerveceO³emLeÜs<³eyevOeg<eg ~ meeOeg<JeefHe ®e HeeHes<eg meceyegef×efJe&efMe<³eles ~~9~~ He who looks upon well-wishers and neutrals as well as mediators, friends and foes, relatives and inimicals, the virtuous and the sinful with equanimity, stands supreme. (9) General Note on certain important aspects of the Mahabharata and the Gita Just as Arjuna is fighting his own family members in the war of Kurukshetra, many times a CA (as auditor or finance controller) is in a dilemma; whether to oppose his own Management in some odd circumstances or whether to fall in line with them. In that situation, he should draw courage from the Gita, which advises us that we should keep the individual qualities of the Pandavas in mind. The first aspect is usage of righteousness or Dharma symbolised by Yudhistir. This includes being principled in deciding what is the correct or incorrect. Once that is established, the next thing that the CA should demonstrate is his strength of power (symbolised by Bheema) to show that he has ability to defend his stand. If opposed and where needed he will fight (like Arjuna) his own battle irrespective of the fact that those in command may be his friends, extended family members or people who may have hired him or for whom he may have deep respect. There could be someone amongst them who could be his mentor like Dronacharya who may have a lion’s share in shaping such CA. The teaching clearly states as does Gita that when it comes to any person on wrong the side of dharma or righteousness, howsoever good or respected, needs to be dealt with as a foe. Sympathetic blindness of Gandhari and others: Some people are born blind, some acquire blindness which could stem from sympathy, helplessness, or indifference, or as in

| 62 | Gita for Professionals Karna’s case even jealousy. This blindness is symbolic even in the day-to-day life of CAs and professionals. Shortcuts in work such as audits and tax is a common sight. Cutting down extent of checks, completing assignments to break even with the fees received, not putting proper qualified or experienced staff are all obvious ingredients of a time bomb ticking away. The blindness of Dhritarashtra is genuine. That signifies that we are aware about our limitations of resources and capabilities but the sympathetic blindness develops when we still take up work that we cannot do or deliver. The sufferers are not only ourselves but the Society too. Take Satyam saga for example and the fraud of over ` 7,000 crores. The accountants, auditors and others in corporate governance may or may not be guilty of fraud. Be that as it may, the question still arises – were they ‘sympathetically’ blind? The dimensions, scale and magnitude of the fraud were too great to be easily carried out without being noticed by any accountant or auditor or manager for years together. Take any corporate failure; chances are that the auditors are among the last to come to know. In the Satyam case one wonders whether investors would still be clamouring for investment in Satyam had Ramalingam Raju not voluntarily confessed. Therefore one must wake up to the fact that we are given respect and status by Society as the preservers of its resources; we must keep our eyes open and not follow in the footsteps of Dhritarashtra. Symbolic meaning of Kurukshetra: In the battle of Kurukshetra, there is enormous importance on role of the chariots. The Lord himself had decided to take the driver’s place as ‘sarathi’ of Arjun’s chariot. The chariots deployed in the battlefield comprised of a cart with two wheels and pulled by horses. Some were hauled by one horse and some by multiple stallions. The two wheels of the chariot can be compared to the Account-keeper (Accounting team) and Account-checker (the Auditing team). The horses that pull these wheels are actually the multiple-transactions, without which neither of the wheels will move. It is essential that these wheels move in tandem, in same direction and at same pace. Any damage to one paralyses the other and hence it is crucial that there is co-ordination within them. The horses signify the business that drives the entity. Thus, the more the horses the faster will the cart move and as in business where pressures increase on the accountants and checkers, there is more pressures on the wheels of the chariot. For the business to be successful in the long run, it needs someone of the calibre of the Lord himself to steer the symbolic horses and control them elegantly. Again these horses need to run in same direction, at constant pace and orchestrated to harmonize with the overall chariot. Even one giving up the pace or changing directions can harm the others. Therefore there is need to maintain the blinkers, side-strappings, the leash, etc., all these symbolise the internal controls and processes. All controls need to be monitored and have to work in accord to be able to be effective. Karna was extremely competent, perhaps more skilful than Arjun, and was the only one in the battlefield who could have defeated Arjun. Being a person who believed in fairplay, he did not kill Arjuna when the occasion first came. At the crucial time in the final battle, one side of Karna’s chariot wheel got stuck in the soil which spelt doom for him as Arjuna killed him. Therefore it is imperative for the organization to ensure that the chariot is maintained well and free from abuse (curse) and both the wheels (the account-keepers and checkers) are greased and lubricated well. The business-horses also need maintenance and as animals they need human control supported by the internal-controls that upholds them and prevents them from slipping away.

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| 65 | Chapter 4 – Thirteen lessons to make this world a better place to live in Chapter 4 THIRTEEN LESSONS TO MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN The central message Thirteen lessons from our scriptures for professionals to make this world a better place to live in Our life is for others. Living our lives with minimal expectations and using it to serve others helps achieve eternal happiness. However this is easier said than accomplished. There are certain lessons that we should be mindful of, and which if followed regularly in our lives, will help make this beautiful world a better place to live in. While there are an infinite number of lessons one can learn from and apply in our day to day lives, the author has selected the following, that professionals or for that matter, any person follow in their daily life. 1. Tact, diplomacy and habitual use of soft words 2. The joy of giving and sharing 3. Spirit of brotherhood 4. The power of sacrifice 5. Goal Setting 6. Creating value addition 7. Discipline and Cleanliness 8. Forgiveness and forbearance 9. Congruence of thoughts, words and action 10. Service to Guru 11. Humility – absence of self-glorification 12. Non-violence and Compassion 13. Lessons from Vidur Neeti 1. Tact, diplomacy and habitual use of soft words How the art of diplomacy can be used to make everyone happy is well illustrated in this Puranic tale of Laxmi, Vishnu and Shani; a story set in a situation where Lord Vishnu’s art of diplomacy was beautifully applied to keep both Laxmi and Shani happy. The story goes as follows — once Laxmi and Shani had an argument. Their debate was who was better looking of the two and thus was Lord Vishnu approached to decide. Lord Vishnu was placed in a dilemma. If he said Shani was better looking, he would obviously displease his consort Laxmi, which he certainly did not want to do; if he declared that Laxmi was better looking, then, he would incur the wrath of Shani. It is well known that getting cursed by Shani can have devastating results.

| 66 | Gita for Professionals No one ever dared to displease Shani. So what was Lord Vishnu to do? He thought about it and then came up with an elegant solution which enabled him to provide them both with a satisfactory answer, and at the same time brought peace between the quarreling parties. He pointed out to a distant tree and asked them both to walk across to it, touch it and return. They both walked towards the tree, quickly touched it and returned, while Lord Vishnu watched them. When they came back, he was once again asked the same question: who was better looking? This time Lord Vishnu was prepared with his answer. He declared that Laxmiji appeared better looking when she was approaching him while Shaniji was better looking when he was walking away. Since both were declared to be better looking in some context, both were happy. Thus Lord Vishnu, with his diplomacy, won both of them over. He also managed to convey an important message. This was that Shani should walk away from people for them to appreciate him while Laxmi should come towards people to gain their appreciation. One of the ways to make this world a more peaceful place to live in is to use words in such a way that they benefit all and sundry. While doing so, one must of course keep in mind that one is not deflecting too far from the truth. Just as in the story, where Lord Vishnu’s answer made peace between two warring parties, we should try to search for an answer which is true but which does not hurt another. A little effort and a lot of diplomacy may be needed, but that attempt might result in a win-win situation where discord is averted. Life is all about experimenting with the truth and presenting it appropriately to satisfy everyone as far as possible, but without perverting or distorting it. Professionals like CAs, Doctors, and Lawyers or for that matter any individual, could face situations where a dispute may have arisen. The dispute could be about any matter such as inheritance, property matters, business matters etc. The reason for the dispute could be anything. Some-times the reason is so frivolous that it is not worth investing either the time or the effort in solving it. But in order to bring about peace and harmony such situations can be handled with tact and diplomacy. The primary objective should be to bring a smile on the faces of all the concerned parties. A CA was once asked by his client to advise him about his business problem. He had two sons who were both keen to be inducted into his business. He was in a dilemma since he did not know what role and responsibility he should give them. Both of them were qualified MBAs but they were extremely competitive. Therefore allocating responsibility was difficult because each son was expected to be jealous of the privilege given to the other. The client approached the CA with this problem. The CA knew the family very well and understood the predicament of his client. Both the sons could have managed the business equally well and so it was a very difficult decision to make. He tried to tackle the problem keeping Lord Vishnu’s approach in mind. Each son was given the entire business to run for three months at a time, independently. They would be guided by their father whenever they needed advice. This was done over a period of two years. This gave each of them a chance to run the business in every month of the year. At the end of the two year period the operating results were analyzed by the CA. Since the client himself was available to guide them the operating results were not influenced much by either of the two sons. But this test was more of a tool used by the CA, to help him declare his fair and non biased judgement to the two sons. He very tactfully highlighted two issues arising from the operating results. He complimented the first son by pointing out to him that his ability to manage funds was excellent. He had been able to collect some old outstanding dues and the overall collections had increased. He would therefore recommend that all treasury operations, fund management, expense budgeting and finance related functions be given to him for his

| 67 | Chapter 4 – Thirteen lessons to make this world a better place to live in expertise. He complimented the other son by telling him that business had grown very well during the periods when he had run the company. His ability to get along with customers and suppliers was amazing and worth encouraging. To him, he recommended the marketing, sales and purchase related functions. The other functions of HR, etc., were not so critical and could be decided later. Both sons were delighted with the CA’s praise and eagerly accepted the suggested posts. The client was also relieved. In this way, using tact and diplomacy the CA brought about a solution to his client’s problem. Everyone concerned had a smile on their faces. It is said that ‘Vani’ (speech or the spoken word) and ‘pani’ (water) both have to be used discreetly. Both should be soothing and cooling. Harsh and unkind words, cruel and wicked taunts are all wound inflicting instruments. A wound caused by an arrow can be completely cured over time but the wound caused by a bad word can seldom be cured. We human beings are the only species capable of loving and affectionate speech. We must make use of tact and diplomacy in our speech to convey even the harshest of messages so that they do not hurt the recipient. For professionals it is specifically more important to use diplomacy in meetings with clients, presentations, reports for better growth and clientele. From a wider perspective, having an urbane approach will make our world a very pleasant, friendly and warm place. Words of advice will be more meaningfully received, words of caution will be well heeded, and words of praise will bring in wonderful results. 2. The joy of giving and sharing As human beings we always expect something or the other in our lives. We expect things from our friends, employers, employees and from all around us. The Bhagawad Gita asks us to do exactly the opposite. ‘No expectations’ in life is what it teaches us. Our lives are full of sorrow and misery primarily because of our limit less expectations. The solution provided is simple; ‘Give and Share’ If we learn how to give we will experience a new kind of joy, which will far outweigh the joy we experience upon receiving. There is a very nice story called ‘The gift of the Magi’ by O Henry, (William Sydney Porter) which beautifully illustrates the depth of a true gift. There was a very poor married couple. The wife was beautiful and she had exceptionally long and beautiful hair. Her husband had a beautiful gold watch which was his sole prized possession. The couple had nothing else of any value. On Christmas day, the wife wanted to gift her husband a nice matching gold chain for his watch, but did not have the money. So she went and sold her only asset, her beautiful hair, and with the money she bought her husband a gold watch chain. When she came home she was surprised to find her husband home early. When he saw her without her beautiful hair he was dumbfounded. In a daze, he offered her his Christmas present, a set of the most expensive hair accessories. She always had dreamt of having but had never been able to afford it. He realized that the gift was now useless to her. However, his wife hugged him and expressed her delight at his gift. Her own disappointment was washed away by the excitement of the gift that she was about to give him. She asked for his watch so that she could latch the chain on to it. Now it was her turn to get dismayed when he told her that he had to sell his watch to get the Christmas present for her and now the chain would be of no use to him. It was a poignant moment filled with the intensity of love that they had for each other. Though they had lost their prized possessions, their love for each other had become stronger and eternal, and their new gifts became even more precious because of the love they carried. This was true love in every sense of the word. The joy of giving has to be experienced to be understood.

| 68 | Gita for Professionals This story illustrates the power of spreading love by giving away a prized possession. It is all about giving a gift from the heart. As professionals, our duty is to give service. However our job does not just end there. It would be wonderful if we could give some of our time for noble causes. For example doctors could spend a couple of hours on holidays or Sundays at medical camps, trusts, orphanages, or places where many poor or underprivileged patients go. These patients who would otherwise be unable to afford their fees, would be benefitted. There are CAs, lawyers and other professionals and businessmen who keep aside a part (even if it is a very small part) for noble or charitable causes. This act of giving could also be inculcated in their assistants and staff who should be encouraged to participate in such noble causes. If each of us takes this up seriously, and in whatever small or big way, we firmly decide to give something, or even some time for the outside world, our world will quickly become a better place. Most of the good noble causes such as giving gifts, donations, are already well known to all. However, the following are some of the other suggested simple activities where minimum or even no funds are required, but which do a whole lot of good to the world we live in. - Reading and telling stories to the blind and visually impaired. - Fondly wishing staff, including the subordinate staff, on their birthdays and if possible giving small gifts and refreshments to them. Saying a few nice words about them in front of all other staff would lift up their spirits and motivate them. - Getting some simple eatables for security staff of the building or office once in a while makes them feel wanted and respected. - Going to servants’ or staffs’ residences on their festive occasions with some sweets so that even their children and family members feel happy. The amount of goodwill and cheer that this can generate is phenomenal. - Offering simple things like prasad or tea or refreshments/ de-cent meals to workers, labourers. A glass of water to people like postmen, courier boys also goes a long way in spreading a warmth. - Offering a chocolate or a sweet to a liftman occasionally This kind of a list can go on endlessly; it is up to each of us to consciously decide what we can do to make this world a better place to live in. 3. Spirit of brotherhood The spirit of brotherhood amongst all of us needs to be encouraged and fostered, even more so in professionals. Swami Vivekananda in his 1897 lecture in Chennai said, ‘The first Gods we have to worship are our countrymen. We have to worship them instead of being jealous and fighting with them’. There is generally a deep sense of competition and sometimes even distrust amongst colleagues and between fellow professionals. Poaching clients or patients, undercutting, and other unethical practices do happen quite frequently inspite of applicable codes of conduct and professional ethics in most professions. This stems from the lure of easy money,

| 69 | Chapter 4 – Thirteen lessons to make this world a better place to live in insecurity and distrust. Patients or Clients sometimes are able to pressurize professionals into accepting low fees or even compromising their standards by threatening to go to someone else. They are able to get away with this because of simple human weaknesses stemming from the attraction of money. For professionals to contribute towards the betterment of this world, they must have the good grace to accept other professionals as ‘brothers’ and wish them well, even if they have committed an unethical act. There was a case where a client who was consulting this CA for years together came to him one day. He requested him to permit him to consult another CA. This came as a shock since there was no problem of any sort and the work had been going on quite well. The client too said that there was no grievance with him, but he had no choice but to discontinue. He explained that he had started a joint venture with another person and they had agreed that the tax and audit of the new business should be handled by the other partner’s CA. Of course it was not a pleasant situation for the retiring CA as for him the income had been significant. However, inspite of it being a difficult decision, he gracefully accepted it. In his heart he bore no malice. The following year the client ran into some financial problem and approached his bank for a loan. His banker asked him to get his accounts examined by a CA who was empanelled by the bank. The bank referred him to the same CA whom the client had replaced. Ironically the client had to pay much bigger fees than he would have otherwise paid directly when his accounts were being audited by him. Justice did not end there, as some years later even that CA who had replaced him needed some help for which he had to come to the previous CA. Friends, in life too, debit equals credit. And nobody can challenge destiny. In fact there is a proverb in Gujarati that says, ‘Loko tamahara hath ma-thi Juthvi lai shake chhe, pan tamhara naseeb ma thi koi nahi lai shake’- meaning that ‘People may steal or grab something from your hand but they cannot steal or grab anything from your destiny’. 4. The power of Sacrifice Any kind of action, for ethical reasons or for the common good which leads to deprivation of some benefit for oneself is a sacrifice. For example, professionals who have the courage to say ‘no thank you’ to assignments which are immoral or involve compromise are sacrificing their opportunity to earn professional fees. This kind of courage is rare to find. Even if a client walks away because a professional is unwilling to compromise on issues of independence and integrity, he will realize that he is a true professional and that he is not willing to compromise on his principles. That sacrifice is never in vain and actually enhances his reputation and earns respect. The power that professional wields much greater than others. Even today in tax departments there are CAs who are well respected as straightforward and honest CAs. When they appear before tribunals, or any authorities, their words are respected and well received. Their words have amazing power which comes from years of sacrifice, hard work and up-right approach. Good actions are never wasted. A sacrifice can be also called an advanced form of gifting. The difference between the two is that in a gift or a donation, one may give from what one has in abundance but he does not deprive himself. In a sacrifice one gives by actually depriving himself of what he has or is entitled to. For example, two applicants are awaiting a job interview at a professional law firm. They are chatting with each other and one of the applicants, say Anil, realizes that the other, Bhushan, has come from a far off place in Assam to Mumbai for the job. This job was his only hope of survival and subsistence. Anil feels sorry for Bhushan and takes a decision to sacrifice this job on the spot. During the interview he deliberately rejects the offer given

| 70 | Gita for Professionals to him, on the ground that the compensation offered was not acceptable. The job, as he had expected, went to Bhushan, the needy applicant by default. Anil who rejected the job was also unemployed, but he felt that Bhushan needed the job more than he did and he made this sacrifice. He went on to become a multi-millionaire eventually. There was a rich businessman. He had a son who was a complete spendthrift and a good for nothing. He had some friends who were leading him astray and he had inculcated in himself all the bad habits possible. Essentially he was a good person but he was a victim of his circumstances. The rich man was very worried. His health deteriorated and soon he became seriously ill. His kidneys stopped functioning completely. His world fell apart. His son was deeply distressed as he loved his father deeply. He prayed to God. His prayers were answered. The Almighty has his own unique ways of bringing His true devotees onto the right track. The doc-tors told the son that his father would survive if someone from the family would donate a kidney. The son immediately offered his kidney. However the doctors told him that he would have to undertake a certain diet and medication and give up drinking for a month. The son knew that in the past all his efforts to rectify had failed, but his love for his father overcame his weaknesses and he agreed to do what the doctors said. He went to a hospital in Singapore where the surgery was to be conducted, got all his tests done and started on the diet prescribed for a month. His friends were absent as well. They could not influence him. Once again the Almighty worked a miracle. His father’s renal failure got reversed with some new medication and his kidney started functioning again. Very soon his health also improved and the doctors stated that a replacement was not necessary and lifelong medication would solve the problem. By this time the son was able to over-come his drinking and gambling habits as well. Just one strong act of sacrifice, that too an intended sacrifice brought amazing power to the son which restored his father’s health. This, is the power of true sacrifice. If we try to minimize our requirements, life truly becomes a pleasure. 5. Goal Setting Setting a goal or moving in the right direction with a clear idea of what we want to do in life will smoothen and expedite the process of making this world better for us. One of the goals that each of us has in life is making money. The author does not challenge this but certainly wishes to provide a different mindset. Can the ‘money earning’ goal be made the secondary or incidental objective and providing satisfactory service to the world a primary objective? This can be explained with the example of an accounting professional’s life. Most practicing CAs would define their goals in terms of earning huge fees and setting up a big practice or getting high level jobs with fat salary packages. There is a flaw in this basically. A good professional is characterized not by a large number of clients, large fees nor a large salary in a company. A good professional is one who has a large number of satisfied clients or for a professional in industry, one who is clean, useful and needed in the organization. Such good professionals treat fees or salary as a by-product of the profession. Money by itself is not the objective. In this context, there is a nice story about the Laxmiji’s Swayamvar. When Laxmiji’s Swayamar was held, there were many suitors. However Laxmiji chose Lord Vishnu only because he did not want her desperately. Laxmiji is symbolic of money, fees or any kind of income. As long as a professional is perseverant, hardworking, competent and capable the

| 71 | Chapter 4 – Thirteen lessons to make this world a better place to live in rewards will follow automatically. Sometimes, his patience may be put to the test but that will only be a temporary setback. Consider a CA in a metro city who had a breathtakingly plush office, raking in huge fees. His annual income was in crores of rupees. He was a specialist consultant for tax raid cases and though he was knowledgeable, his clients came to him, not because of his competence, but out of compulsion. Most of them came to him because they were helpless and had no choice and paid whatever he asked for. One does not have to explain the nature of his service but it was something similar to a ransom demanded by kidnappers. His clients even detested him but meekly complied with whatever he wanted. He had a roaring practice and his clientele was massive. But in all sincerity, was this a good practice? The answer is obvious. Let us analyze what went wrong with this professional’s method. Like all CAs, he too started in good earnest and had passed his CA with a rank. Initially he started doing small time tax work and he did have some clients who were happy and satisfied with him. However financial pressures from the home front increased and his own ambition and the lure of quick money got the better of him. He started using his intelligence to get bigger fees by unethical means. His ambitions made him avaricious and he soon made deals with officials to extract money from clients. One day he got into an arrangement with the tax raid staff and senior officers whereby all raid cases were to be redirected to him and he could charge astronomical amounts which would be shared between the staff, officers and him. This was how he established his practice. He started making an extraordinary amount of money but along with it came the fear of being caught. Stress led to severe ill health. There came a time when all his ill-gotten wealth was used only for his own medical expenses and survival. Where had he erred? His goal was to have a large number of clients and earn big fees. But the quality of service that he would provide legality and ethics were completely ignored. That was the mistake. In this story the CA would have done very well had he been a little patient and persevered. The road to success when it is governed by law and ethics is very challenging for a painstaking professional, but eventually he would have been successful and that success would have given him fulfillment, goodwill and happiness and sound sleep at all times. The Gita says, “Do your duty and leave the rest to the Lord. He will most certainly take care of you.” Have confidence. I say this from experience. Have patience and good times are certain to come. Till such time hold out. 6. Create value addition This lesson is an extension or enhancement of the goal setting lesson discussed above. Once the correct goal is established whereby providing good quality service becomes the goal, it should be extended to provide value addition. In simple words, an attempt is made to rise from getting merely passing marks to achieving distinction marks by giving the world more than what is expected from you. It is said: “give world the best and the best will come to you.” This is what professionals must strive to do to. For any professional to be successful, he should always look around for ways and means to be of service to society. If a client is not in a position to pay his fees, even then, by providing a value addition service, a professional will still reap benefits sooner or later through the ‘Word of Mouth’ (WOM) principle. The WOM principle is nothing but the spread of praise and good words through a satisfied client or customer. In the Gita, Shri Krishna says, “Do your karma, and leave the fruits to Me”. The law of physics works beautifully in the Theory of Karma in that “every action has equal and opposite reaction”.

| 72 | Gita for Professionals The question then is: How can it be done? It can be achieved by infusing fresh thinking, innovation and going a step beyond what the client expects. For example, when a CA is offering a tax filing service, if he can also advise the client about his investments and other beneficial advice, the client will have something to be grateful for and respect him for the same. There was a case where a CA was in practice for years. He had a fair number of clients and he was earning well. But his work was not exciting. All his clients would come in a few weeks before the tax due dates and listlessly give him details which would be ‘mechanically’ compiled and transcripted into a return. The clients would pay him a small fee and that was all. During other times of the year the CA would be relatively idle. One day, his son joined him after passing his CA and he brought with himself some fresh new ideas. The son painstakingly made a dossier for each client containing a family plan, recommended investments, life insurance, and many other recommendations for the future such as preparation of a will, mediclaim, etc. The dossier also had a calendar with due dates, things to be done, etc. which made it very easy for the client to prepare himself well in advance for all tax payments and to plan his finances. The son also sent regular updates on new legal provisions, budgets with suggestions customized to suit each client’s individual profile and business, in simple words. He also organized client gathering meetings once a year to meet all of them and understand their needs, in order to offer better services in future. This new approach worked wonders and his practice became a good well-known clean practice which was a good example for other firms. His existing clients were impressed and delighted with the expansion of the service for the same fee and genuinely appreciated this effort. Some even offered an increase in fees on their own. However the greatest benefit was the effusive praise through the WOM principle. Soon, many new clients were referred to him. Many clients even asked him to do more work such as managing their investments, insurance plan and even prepare their wills. The image of the firm changed and the earnings and the clientele of the firm doubled in a year’s time. My readers will agree that this practice was a ‘successful’ practice not because of the number of clients and increased fees, but because of the increase in the number of satisfied clients and further raising the level of his quality service by giving value addition. This is what a true professional is expected to be. This will certainly help the professional make the world a better place to live in. 7. Discipline & Cleanliness Discipline is the foremost in any given list of values and is a precondition for success. A disciplined man always accomplishes what he wants and is respected and admired. Bhishma in the epic Mahabharat is the best example of self-control and discipline. He decided not to get married and to remain a celibate, practice ‘brahmacharya’ for his father’s happiness. This is a rare combination of sacrifice and discipline and he got a blessing that he could decide to get death at a moment of his choice. In this context, all the great men like Gandhiji, Nehru, Sardar Patel were all disciplined and controlled in their thinking. Where there is self-control and discipline, success is certain. For us as professionals, small things like being punctual, responding to calls and requests, being well groomed at all times, may appear to be small things but they go a big way in how others assess us. Being punctual is the hall mark of all great professionals. Cleanliness – both mental and physical is another important virtue which must be implemented. Good and clean thoughts make a person beautiful. Good clean thinking not only

| 73 | Chapter 4 – Thirteen lessons to make this world a better place to live in increases love for fellow beings but also increases the efficiency of the mind and the body. A person who thinks of the well-being of everyone around him is loveable and cheerful himself. He generally has good health and is able to manage his work and also survives any ailments and diseases much better. The famous Hindi film ‘Anand’ illustrates this very well where the hero who has cancer is a person who is bright, cheerful and friendly, has a lovely life even in his last days. On the other hand gloomy, dismal and unclean people are more prone to ill health, sicknesses. Laughter therapy is well known for its healing powers. Clean habits contribute to clean living. Clean living fosters clean thinking. Clean thinking also fosters good health. Good health fosters good relationships. Love and affection fosters clean thinking and clean habits. This cycle continues and creates a beautiful world. 8. Forgiveness, forbearance and tolerance Mahatma Gandhi has said that it is only the strong who can forgive and not the weak. Forgiving somebody for whatever he has done requires strength and that is the sign of a pure mind. A very good example is that of Kaikeyi, who was instrumental in sending Lord Rama away on his exile. Lord Rama genuinely forgave her and did not bear her any grudge. The greatest dharma is forgiveness. There was a CA who had a chauffeur. One morning when he had an urgent meeting to attend, the chauffeur came late. The CA was obviously annoyed, but he controlled himself and did not say anything. He telephoned his client to inform him that he was held up and requested him to postpone the meeting to the next day. The next morning unfortunately his chauffeur was late once again. The CA was understand-ably upset, but he had been reading the Gita every day and had been making an effort to control his temper. Once again he called up his client to make the same request and shift the meeting to the next day. This time the client did not take kindly to this change of plan and he told the CA so in no uncertain terms. The meeting was postponed by a week. The chauffeur, who overheard the conversation, realized that due to his tardiness that his employer was put in an awkward position. He apologized. The CA, under normal circumstances would have fired him. However, regular reading of the Gita had helped him overcome his anger. He calmly asked his chauffeur the reason for his tardiness. The man explained that his son was seriously ill and he had taken him for a blood test where he had got delayed. The CA accepted his reason and understood the problem. He told the man that he had done the right thing by looking after his son. He also understood that his client was justified in being upset. Eventually when the CA’s meeting with that client took place, he was introduced to the client’s brother who had come from the United States. The client’s brother turned out be the CA’s old school mate and he had come to India to look for an advisor for his new business. Though the client had called the CA for his personal work, this delay in the two meetings enabled the CA to bag a huge new assignment and led to the revival of an old friendship. This would not have happened if he had not been delayed twice. The act of forgiveness brings about it’s own rewards. 9. Congruence of thoughts, words and action Mahatma Gandhi was a person who practiced what he preached and preached what he thought was correct. Our roles as professionals must necessarily follow this value system. This is easier said than done. If we cannot practice what we advise, we should not advise. If a CA tells his articled clerk to raise attention to any defects or anomalies in accounts, but goes and ignores them when his client pressurizes him to sign the balance sheet, then that is very wrong. What will be the value of the training given to the articled clerk? It is better to educate

| 74 | Gita for Professionals the articled clerk about the practicality of a situation and a method to resolve problems while complying with the law and at the same time, achieve results that are the least harmful to everyone concerned. Professionals who make promises and do not deliver them are never respected. Solutions to situations are difficult and sometimes not possible, but the effort must be made. Your thoughts, words and deeds must be in sync. Sometimes promises are made knowing fully well that they are not going to be kept. That is what damages the reputations of a professional. A good professional is better respected if he makes fewer promises but keeps them. 10. Service to Guru Though the word relates to a teacher or Acharya, the import and applicability is towards each and everyone from whom we have learnt something in life. Our parents, teachers, lecturers, employers, seniors in our profession, elders and even colleagues could all have shared with us something of value. We should always remember and be grateful to those from whom we have learnt something. This is especially essential if in life, we have gone past their status and standing. 11. Humility Apart from not having vanity and pride one should look at this virtue from a wider perspective. For example one should always avoid selfish credit or self-glorification of any kind. This is exemplified in the Ramayana by Anjaneya of the Vanara Sena who helped Lord Rama fight the battle against Ravana. Anjaneya is a classic example of humility and consideration for his fellow beings. We all know how desperate Rama was to find out where Sita was abducted to, and he would gladly have given a reward of any value to the person who gave him some information. Anjaneya found out that Sita was in Lanka, and when he reported this to Rama he did not take the credit solely for himself but said that all the other vanaras who were with him in the search also deserved the credit. He had all the right to take the credit for himself because it was he who had found out where she was, but he had the humility to share the credit. This is a trait that we as professionals could leverage to improve our image in society. Particularly for those of our younger professionals, this may be an important value to define right in the early stages of their careers One should curb emotions like jealousy, pride and selfishness to become better human beings. One-upmanship yields no results. 12. Non-violence In the context of good values, ahimsa is much more than the Gandhian concept of Satyagraha and non-violence. It means physical and emotional non-violence towards a fellow being a good professional will never speak ill of or hurt another but will agree to differ while keeping his dignity intact. Thus in day-to-day meetings, communications, consultations if one can get accustomed to thinking and behaving calmly using non-violent language which does not hurt a fellow being the results will be miraculous. The entire family and office culture would change for the better and there will be increased productivity and this would eventually contribute towards making the world a better place.

| 75 | Chapter 4 – Thirteen lessons to make this world a better place to live in 13. Lessons from Vidur Neeti In the epic Mahabharat, Vidur was an advisor, minister and half-brother of the Kaurava king Dhritarashtra. Dhritarashtra, often and especially during moments of stress sought Vidur’s advice. Vidur in turn always gave sound advice accompanied by correct reasoning. This advice was later called ‘Vidur Neeti’. This Vidur Neeti (VN) is useful not only for a king, but also in normal life situations, for management personnel and even more so for professionals. In fact, it is especially relevant and appropriate to the accounting profession since Vidur’s role as an advisor and minister to the king is parallel to a CA’s, to a Consultant’s, to a CFO’s to the management and to business owners. VN advice Dhritarashtra about the right conduct and ‘dharma’, in a unique way: by illustrating reasons for insomnia, or troubled sleep. He gave this advice because Dhritarashtra was frequently troubled and spent sleepless nights due to Duryodhana’s wrongdoings. Vidur Neeti identified the problem and offered a solution which targeted the specific problem. This is the first lesson that CAs in the accounting profession must keep in mind. They need to give good advice, but it must hit the nail on the head. The advice must be given in a manner, language and time which is appropriate, understandable and best suited to the receiver. There cannot be a standard advice for each and every client. Even if the advice is the same for several clients, it has to be given in a manner easily understood by the client to whom it is being given. Thus, VN guides a person towards being not just a ‘Solution Provider’ but a ‘Spot on Solution Provider’. In today’s corporate scenario, where there is all around degradation of moral values, the Vidur Neeti provides excellent rules of conduct to address ethical dilemmas. Amongst a vast treasure trove of knowledge in the Vidur Neeti, the author recommends these two important values which a professional can meaningfully use and apply to make this world a better place. a) Values in correct conduct and advises one against doing anything which results in insomnia b) VN talks of a value system which permits one to do only those things which will allow him to sleep soundly at night. Thus, if we in the accounting profession do only what is right and as per our conscience, we will certainly sleep well. VN has given various examples of all the wrong actions which lead to insomnia. A thief cannot sleep, a man who has lost all his wealth cannot sleep, a person afflicted with avarice, greed and jealousy cannot sleep, or an unsuccessful man cannot sleep. There are many other examples too but the one which strikes me as the most relevant is ‘a man who thinks all his wealth will be lost also cannot sleep’. Thus a man can lose his sleep if he has a phobia of losing money or wealth. This advice applies in two ways. One is that we ourselves should not become like Dhritarashtra. We should do only those things which our conscience permits us to do. On the other hand when worried clients and businessmen come to CAs for advice on taxation, business strategies and finance, etc., the CAs assume an identical position to Vidura as advisors and we need to provide them sound advice and correct diagnosis for their worry and provide the most relevant advice under the circumstances. c) VN defines four types of consultants who are shunned or avoided. VN suggests that a powerful king should never consult four kinds of men: a) men of small sense (foolish persons), b) men who procrastinate or are slow in action, c)

| 76 | Gita for Professionals men who are recklessly enthusiastic but thoughtless and without substance, d) men who are flatterers or ‘yes’ men. In modern times too, good management would not like to consult us if we fall into any of these four categories. Therefore as accounting professionals we should strive to be knowledgeable and competent, prompt, balanced and structured in advising and have the courage to differ in views and strategies and not be mere ‘yes’ men to achieve short-term objectives. On higher platforms of the world if we are careful and stay away from or discouraging, foolish, lazy or reckless people and also those who indulge in shallow flattering we will have a world of more constructive people. Karma or work or deeds also hold a prominent place in Sri Guru Granth Sahib’s teachings. The three important teachings of Sri Guru Granth Sahib are: • Kirt Karo (hard work and honest living) • Naam Japo (contemplating God’s name) • Vand Chhako (sharing with others) Guru Nanak Devji says after creating living beings God has placed the power of action in their hands, they reap the fruits according to their deeds. Action is necessary to earn a living and for our daily routines. Our actions should therefore be directed towards doing good deeds as only good deeds can lead to salvation. A few lines from Hymns of Sri Guru Granth Sahib illustrates the importance of good deeds in one’s life: 1. Karni upar hove saar Everyone of us is to do good work and God takes His decisions on the basis of our deeds. 2. Karmi karmi hoye vichaar By their deeds and their actions, they shall be judged. 3. Man haalee kirsaanee karnee saram paanee tan khet. naam beej santokh suhaagaa rakh gareebee ves haa-o karam kar jammsee say ghar bhaagath dekh Let mind be the farmer, good deeds the farm, modesty the water, and your body the field. Let the Lord’s Name be the seed, contentment the plough, and your humility the fence Doing deeds of love, the seed shall sprout, and you shall see your home flourish. The Bhagawad Gita and Taittraya Upanishad provide a list of various eternal values which have been defined and summarized below. Summarized list of Eternal Values given in the Bhagwad Gita These values provide a lot of insights as regards outlook, behavior, service, discipline and attitude to reach the highest level of professionalism. In Bhagawad Gita Chapter 13, shlokas

| 77 | Chapter 4 – Thirteen lessons to make this world a better place to live in 8 to 12 list out 20 values advised by Lord Krishna to Arjuna and the Taittreya Upanishad also provides certain values in the Siksha Valli, which may be useful to professionals. To conclude, towards the end this chapter, all the 20 eternal values given by Lord Krishna have been listed out below: The words and meanings have been researched from various sources and are open to correction. 1. Amanitwam: Humility and concern for others. 2. Adambhitvam: Absence of self glorification, inculcating modesty and humility. 3. Ahimsa: Non-violence. 4. Kshanti: Forgiveness, forbearance, endurance. 5. Arjavam: Congruence of thoughts, words and action. Mahatma Gandhi was one such person who practiced what he preached and preached what he thought was correct. 6. Acharyopasanam: Service to teachers, elders, and wise. Though the word relates to Acharya the applicability is towards all from whom we have learnt something. 7. Shaucham: Cleanliness-physical and mental. Good and clean thoughts make a person beautiful. Good clean thinking not only in-creases love for fellow beings but also increases the efficiency of the mind and the body. 8. Sthairyam: Steadfastness and upright. To remain firm about one’s point of view particularly amidst strong opposition or in front of a crowd is not easy but that is what life is all about. Vikarna the kaurava prince is the best example of this trait. Amidst the insane attempt to disrobe Draupadi in presence of the King and all the officials where no one had the courage to protest, Vikarna, objected and when his protests were not heeded, walked away. That is a situation so often faced by us accountants. High pressure situations, forced compromises, corrupt environment are all common challenges faced by each and everyone of us. This value is perhaps the most important and significant one that we must implement. 9 & 10. Atmanavinigraha and Indriyarthesu Vairagyam: Self Control and denial of sensual pleasures. Discipline is the foremost in any given list of values and is a precondition for success. A disciplined man always accomplishes what he wants and is respected and admired. Bishma is the best example of self control and discipline. 11. Anahankara: Egolessness or absence of self pride. 12. Janma-mrutyu-jara-vyadhi-dukha-dosha-anudarshanam: Conscious-ness or awareness of the repeated cycle of birth and death 13. Asakti: Detachment to material things. 14. Anabhivasvangah putradaragrhadisu: Intense attachment persons or possessions such as son, wife, house etc. 15. Nityam Samachittvam istanistopapattisu: Remaining unfazed in good or bad situation. Lord Rama is again an excellent example because he was unaffected by the order of his exile and was not outraged at all as were his brothers Laxman and Bharat