Theos-Talk Archives (February 1997 Message tl00183)

Hi
I ran across a very interesting writeup on the subject. Here is an excerpt.
Hope some of you will enjoy reading it.

MKR

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THEOSOPHY IN BUSINESS by CJ

        There is an idea largely prevalent in the world among religious
people that business activities are incompatible with a truly religious
life. This has been due to the peculiar conception of life which certain
exponents of religion have given to their followers. We know how to-day
people think of " religious" interest and " secular" interests, and there is
a tacit recognition that they must be opposed, or, if not actually in
opposition, at least mutually exclusive. This conception arises from an
exaggeration in religions of the thought of the Transcendence of God; the
Creator, having once created His world, is thought of as living in some
sphere removed in space from that world, and as merely supervising it. In
this religious conception, man, as the creature of God, has only the duty of
pleasing his Maker so as to make secure his own salvation. I well remember a
sermon which I heard once in a Christian Church on the duty of man to God;
this duty was described as composed of the three virtues of humility,
gratitude and obedience. The preacher insisted upon the subservience of the
soul of man to God as a pre-requisite to a religious life. It was evident
that according to him the ordinary activities of life in the home, in
business, and in amusements, counted for very little with God, and that man
was judged according to certain theological virtues which he had or had not
acquired. This extreme Christian conception of the old problems of man's
everyday life is very vividly summed up in the verse of a hymn which was
sung by the congregation on this particular day of the sermon; the verse is
this:

     I am going home in the good old way,
	I have served the world with its worthless pay,
     For its hopes are vain and its gains are loss,
        And I glory now in the blood-stained Cross.

	Here we have very clearly the thought that the multifarious activities of
the world have no special use in the spiritual growth of man, and that what
we gain of capacity and growth outside the strictly religious sphere is but
" worthless pay ". Wherever in a religion we have the idea of renunciation
and asceticism, there usually develops this idea of the uselessness of life
in the world.

	The natural consequence of the division of life into secular and religious
is the creation of two moralities which have often little relation to each
other; the religious man will consider that it is perfectly legitimate to be
selfish, savage and unspiritual in his business dealings with a fellow man,
whom he will try to love as a " neighbour " in his religious relation
towards him; a deeply religious man, both tender-hearted and kind in one
part of his nature, yet will possess another part of savagery and
resentment, and will see no reason why this latter phase of himself should
be modified at the cost of business gain. A fraudulent but pious milkman,
who will water his milk on weekdays with perfect nonchalance, will do it on
Sunday too, with his pious Sunday face, and then go to church and revel in
his religion!

	Now Theosophy abolishes these two moralities in the world of business, by
showing that the business world is as much a part of God's world as temples
and churches. It is One Life which is manifesting through all the activities
of men, and all the activities which have been developed in civilization are
necessary in the Divine Plan. God's plan for the salvation of humanity works
not only through individual men, but also through men as groups. Men's
natures must be grown emotionally, mentally and spiritually, and one cause
of this growth is their collective activity in various organizations. In the
collective life of humanity, various types of divine agents are required to
carry out His purpose; the ruler and the lawgiver, the fighter, the teacher,
the priest, the healer, the artist, are all required to play their roles as
actors in the Divine Drama of life; but not less of a divine actor is the
business man.

	Now the man to whom business is one of his principal obligations comes as a
soul into life with as much a spiritual purpose as the man who is the
priest; that purpose is to equip himself as a soul for activities everywhere
and in all time. He does not come to gain wealth or ease, but capacity; his
soul is put into a business life, rather than into one of religion or art,
because he can learn such soul qualities as he next requires for his growth
more swiftly in the business world than any other sphere. The sterling
virtues which are learned in business are fundamentally spiritual; no man
can be a successful business man unless he is one-pointed, unless he is
quick to respond to opportunities, unit less he grows in imagination. These
are not " secular " virtues because they are developed in what we hold to be
secular activities; they are capacities which are built into the life of the
soul. Certainly we find that a large number of business men, highly endowed
with these qualities, are selfish, cruel and hard, but this does not mean
that the virtues are useless, because the possessors of them lack other
virtues. When we remember that a mark lives many lives, and that once he
acquires a capacity he never loses it, we shall then understand how, after a
business man has developed these virtues in one life (even though it has
meant the development at the same time of selfishness), in a future life,
when his vision is cleared and he begins to be altruistic, he will still
have this marked ability when he turns to his work in altruism.

	In the evolution of humanity the faculties of all men, good and bad, are
used; " blindly the wicked work the righteous will of heaven ". The world's
lands are habitable to-day only because a few pioneers originally went out
into the deserts and forests and made them habitable; they may have gone out
purely for selfish purposes, but nevertheless they were used as the agents
of a Divine Plan. Men may go out as pioneers into new lands to gain wealth
for themselves; but we know that such a life requires heroism, sacrifice,
doggedness, strength, and these virtues become permanent acquisitions of the
soul. In the same way, to-day, in the " trust magnates " and " beef barons "
of America and elsewhere, we have manifestly great capacity together with
much selfishness and lust for power; but they are building up more efficient
ideas of business, and so are helping in the Divine Plan. As for their
selfishness, that will be purified out of them through suffering in future
lives; and when after that purification they gain a true perspective of
life, they will have with them the strong virtues which they developed
through their greed and selfishness, and they will then be far more
efficient on the side of good than many another who may have been good and
pious but had acquired little capacity.

	The practical message of Theosophy to the business man is that he should
identify himself with the higher possibilities and motives in business, and
not with the lower. What the former are, we can see if we look at the
various stages of development in business capacity which men show. In the
earliest stage of commercial life, we have mere greed, and the man is all
the time thinking of his private interests and gloating over them as his
particular possessions. In the second stage, the element of greed is
mastered by the mental element of business routine, and the individual
becomes practically the slave of business, busying himself continually with
all kinds of activities in business, not always because of the profits
involved, but largely because these activities give him the sense of
vitality and reality. In the third stage of growth, the business man is
conscious of himself as the great master of capacity, and is far more
conscious of this power as he exercises it than of the gain it brings; he is
often most unselfish about individuals and most ascetic in his private life,
though of course he will manifest the acme of selfishness in his utter
one-pointedness in the exercise of this power. But then will inevitably come
the last stage, when, in the exercise of his master-capacity, he sees what
are the honourable lines of activity for him as a guardian of divine energies.

	The Theosophical business man should always aim at idealism in his
profession; and this is quite compatible, even to-day, in spite of all the
obstacles in his way. The first characteristic of this idealism should be
the holding of a high conception of his business as a noble contribution to
human welfare, and with this a keen desire to bring it to a high state of
perfection. He will, therefore, be thoroughly efficient not only in his own
line, but he will try to join with others in associations, so as to uphold
the ideal. Much has yet to be done in bringing business men together into
organizations, not merely for private interests, as in Trusts, but to
discuss the fundamentally' efficient principles involved in business. Into
the hands of business men the Divine Plan entrusts the development of one
aspect -of the world's work, and it is their duty to see that their work is
done with as little waste of time and energy as possible. Something has been
done so far in standardizing tools and machinery; much more needs to be done
along this line, so that there may be throughout the world facilities for
the mutual development of inventions and processes. It is from the business
men of the world to-day that we expect the practical carrying out of the
great ideals of Internationalism; while religious teachers may expound
Universal Brotherhood, the practical foundations for it must be laid by the
business men of the world.

	The Theosophical business man must always remember that the world's
development is part of a, great Plan, and " big men " in all departments of
life are employed to carry out the Divine work. For instance, just now there
are great changes place in the business world in bringing about great
combinations; we known how ruthless such Trusts are and how they push to the
wall the small merchant. Yet we see at the same time the slow transformation
of material development from the work of a few for their own gain to the
work of a great national department for the welfare of all. It is because of
the plans of business development laid, down by such combinations that one
day, when spirituality and not greed controls such Trusts, we shall be able
utterly to abolish poverty. Every invention that has made life easier for
men is a realization of the thought of God, and an inventor is not less a
God's priest than is a priest of religion.

	All men are channels of one great Divine Force and as it runs through them
they retain it for themselves, some more and some less; and most do not
understand the duty they have of transmuting that Force into the least
little activity of life. If the business man were to recognize this
principle, he would then realize how much of a builder he is in the divine
edifice of human life. Did not Christ say: "I must be about my Father's
business ? " The great Father lives mysteriously in our world - as ruler and
lawgiver, healer and priest; but He lives, too, strange as it may seen, as
the " business man ". This is the high aspect of business which Theosophy
shows, and the man or woman, whose Dharma or Duty is business, can bring a
high spirituality to all work in shop and in office, in factory and in
counting-house, doing all as a part of " my Father's business ".