Life is not fair always. It’s the way that we all feel. Is it true, we never try to understand the nuances of that. Let’s consider this that life is not fair. Let’s take an example of Kerala floods. Who did, what wrong to lose his/her life. 20-Year-old Lijo studying in Adi Shankara Institute of Engineering Technology went missing during that time, and a day after the news of him being found dead came out. He didn’t do anything so bad that God punished him with death, so as to say based on the philosophy of KARMA. We are taught from childhood about this firm belief in deeds, the KARMA. You do good and good will come to you. Hindu Mythology and religious books like The Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana, Upanishads all have always advocated the KARMA philosophy. Does this really apply when we enter into a corporate life?

KARMA = INTENTIONS + BEHAVIOUR

For a person who strongly believes in the ideology of KARMA and will always do the right thing no matter what, he/she will find it extremely difficult to work in a corporate world. It is true because until we complete our college, the money value is less, we live in a less business-oriented world. The moment we wear our Job shoes, we realise it’s not the same world. The world has changed upside down. It’s not a perfect world, it’s a competitive world. The one who has an edge over the other is a winner. Everything you do in your real life is going to be competitive and the level of competitiveness will increase based on the nature and level of the result it has. Every action we do will have two things, one is our intention behind doing that and the other is our behaviour. People behave very rudely to us sometimes. Maybe our friends, relatives, mentors, superiors’ etc and we say that the way they behaved is bad. We never try to understand the intentions of them of doing that. In the above case, we cannot say that the KARMA is not good. The intentions of doing an act are the key determinant in this.

CORPORATE WORLD & SMART WORK

People always believe that the world is materialistic and old school values of kindness, humbleness, empathy and all have no place, especially in corporate life. What is important is how efficiently your job is being done and well you are able to utilise the success of the task to your own advantage. The task assigned is definitely being done by a set of people called a TEAM, but most of the time the benefit of the success of the task is being exploited by only a few. This, in sophisticated terms, is called “SMART WORK”. Now people who follow the KARMA philosophy will find it difficult to digest. Purely because this is completely against the philosophy of karma. The Karma philosophy will advocate that each member should be benefitted by the success in the proportion of the contribution he/she has done. But in corporate life that does not happen. Why? Not everyone can be benefitted because everyone wants the largest of the cake but only the smartest can have it. So, does KARMA exist?

HOW TO GET WORK DONE?

As we say ‘Sam Daam Dand Bheed’ which means if you want a job to be done you first use “Sam” which means cajole them, try to impress them if it does not work out ,you go for “Daam” which means you pay him and then if that also does not work you go for “Dand” that tells that he/she will get punished and the end resort is “Bheed” to threaten to harm. This philosophy was described by Chanakya in Arthashastra about a how a person active in politics should be or rather what should be followed. Well, in the corporate world also the same applies. People who entered into the corporate world could easily relate to this. Initially, it will be all good but slowly they understand how things actually work and then the culture becomes a habit and is followed by all. Successful people in a corporate world are those who understand this the earliest and works accordingly.

MILLENIAL FORM OF KARMA

One thing we should understand is that when we do something good to somebody, the intentions matter. Sometimes actions might look bad but if the intentions are good then it always what we say as SADKARMA or good deed. In most of the cases, it is difficult to understand or differentiate between the two. In the modern world, millennials use the word KARMA in a different scenario as well. I lost a book which my friend has asked me a day before. I told her about that and her instant reply was “See!! KARMA!” The whole ideology has been changed to a negative aspect. The millennials see Karma as a negative form with a paraphrase ‘What goes around comes around’. My only suggestion to all the millennials out there is that Life is fair to you. If it was not fair, you will not be sitting in an AC room and earning 30K. When we see children begging in the street for earning Rs 30 and getting bread for two times a day just to survive, the thought of life being unfair will definitely vanish.

KARMA EXISTS

KARMA is a strong philosophy. It has a great psychological impact on the human mind. The biggest question which still ponders in my mind is does KARMA EXIST? Even though the literal translation (Sanskrit) of KARMA is Action but as Buddha says KARMA is the intention of doing something. I believe in the strong philosophy of KARMA, you do good you will get good. But the world is not fair, it’s competitive. One must understand the difference and it is this difference that people never understand. They don’t understand the thin margin of difference that is present between behavior and intentions. KARMA never comes the same way as it went, it follows a different path and different form. It’s just that it is not visible to human eye. We never worry when everything goes well, we worry only when something goes bad.