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The Basics of Business I by Jamie Andreas
The phenomenon of “business” is one of the most fundamental activities that human beings engage in, and it embraces all aspects of how human beings relate to one another. It is a subject that is crying for illumination as to its true nature, and also for an understanding of what “business” can be in its highest form of practice.
Indeed, the very word “business” or “businessman” has a shadowy and negative connotation, and rightly so! I remember the first time I was struck by the use of the word. I was a young adult, and was telling a new landlord that I was expecting my security payment back from my old landlord, because I was entitled to it. My new landlord seemed doubtful that I would get this money from my old landlord, who was well known for a successful local business, and said to me, “he is a businessman, isn’t he?”.
That was the first time I realized that there was a particular type of person, called a “businessman” who was to be regarded as having certain characteristics; characteristics which seemed to somehow suggest this “he will do what is best for him, not what is best for you. What is right, or what is fair, will not enter into the equation”.
The Basis of All Human Relationships: The Mutual Satisfaction of Needs
People are always wondering “what is the secret of successful relationships?”. Whether it is personal relationships, or business relationships, it is really very simple, and perhaps, will sound rather cold and clinical to the more romantic minded, but it is an absolute truth nonetheless.
The secret of a successful relationship is the successful satisfaction of mutual needs.
Any relationship you can observe will involve the presentation of needs from one party to the other. If those needs are met, the relationship will continue, if not, it will weaken and dissolve.
Also, the nature and quality of the relationship depends not just on the degree to which needs are met, but also on the nature and quality of the needs themselves. It is important to understand that there are two kinds of needs, legitimate, appropriate needs, and inappropriate or “illegal” needs. Let’s call these “wrong needs”.
Wrong needs, and behavior based on them, are what I call “violations”.
Let’s look at the most sacrosanct of human relationships, a mother to her child. The child is just one bundle of highly concentrated needs, and they are all legitimate and appropriate. Every infant is absolutely 100% “right” in every one of its needs. It can’t have a wrong one, it can’t perform a violation. (And they better enjoy it, because it is the last time in their lives they are going to be able to lay claim to that condition!) The infants most powerful and primal needs are to be loved and served.
The mother, on the other hand, is called upon to have needs only of the highest order. A mother is required to have the need to love and to serve. Nothing less will do. She better not be looking to be loved or to be served! If she is, that will guarantee the degradation of her relationship to her child. Her rewards will come of their own accord through her own right action based on right needs.
Even so, when wrong needs are a part of a relationship (as they unfortunately are more often than not in human affairs), if they are met on either side, that relationship can still continue to “dysfunction”, it can go along in a diseased fashion, just as an unhealthy person can go along day by day in some relatively sick condition. But it is not what it could or should be, it is not fulfilling its highest purpose.
A relationship will fulfill its highest purpose when the right needs are presented, and met. Discovering, presenting, and accepting those right needs, is a work of wisdom in itself.
Business and War
In any period of history, and any civilization that you care to examine, you will find two modes of relationship between humans on a group level. One is called war, and the other is called business.
War probably came first. Actually, war was the first business, the business of killing other people and taking their stuff. As civilization developed, ancient races realized that their neighbors were good for something other than being killed for the sake of their land and possessions, and trade began and grew. They figured out that the people over the hill made cool stuff that they wanted, and they could trade some of their cool stuff for it. Some of the smarter folks figured out that this had certain advantages over mere warfare, one very important one was that everybody got to stay alive and enjoy all the cool stuff (I often wish there were more smart people in the world today figuring that one out).
Yes, war and business are very similar, and the similarity has not been missed by the business community, as is evidenced by such books as “Victory Secrets of Attila the Hun: The Book Every Business Manager Should Own” (Dell Books).
The reason is that both of these forms of human interaction are demonstrations of power. Both involve the use of power by one group toward another for the purpose of control. To achieve the ends of business or war, the skillful and optimum use of resources must be mobilized to achieve the intended result. War is a matter of life and death, so it is in the study of war and its strategies that we find mankind using its greatest powers of will and intention to achieve victory. This is why we find business leaders studying the ways of the great military minds of history, and adapting them to the supposedly more civilized world of business.
Indeed, war often looks like business, and business often looks like war. Often, from the viewpoint of a nation and its security and survival, business is just as much a matter of life and death as war. This is why wars have been started, as well as avoided or ended, for reasons of “business”.
However, it is my contention that business is an evolutionary outgrowth of war, and is intended to one day, (if we are lucky, very lucky, and smart too) supplant war on this planet. Whether this takes place or not will depend on whether mankind manages to “spiritualize” business.
What Does “Spiritual” Mean?
And what do I mean by “spiritual business”? I mean the same thing I would mean by “spiritual” anything, whether it is “spiritual playing the guitar”, or “spiritual friendship”, etc.: it is activity that is outwardly manifesting the highest purpose and potential of a relationship.
It may be the relationship between mother and child, musician and guitar, teacher and student, friend and friend, or business and customer. Whatever it is, if it is “spiritualized”, you are going to see a manifestation of the highest expression of an inner potential, an inner potential that in fact (I believe) has called that relationship into being in the first place. Because this “highest expression of an inner potential” has brought the relationship into being, it “wants” to manifest. We co-operate with “it” by conducting that relationship in a spiritual manner, and so allowing that highest expression to manifest.
When this highest expression of an inner, and integral, potential is manifested by those in a relationship, it has a peculiar effect, one that is peculiarly human: it appears beautiful. To see a master player play the guitar, and express in sound and movement the highest and purest relationship to the guitar and to music, is beautiful. To see two real friends (or be one of them) is beautiful, and so on, mother and child, teacher and student.
There is another common element of supreme importance that will be evident in every relationship and activity that has been spiritualized (that is fulfilling its highest purpose). It is the quality of “sacrifice”.
“Sacrifice” has a negative connotation to many people, they think it means “giving something up”. We are often taught that if we sacrifice, it shows we are good people, and so the logic becomes “if you want to be a good person, you have to do things you don’t really want to do, like give up stuff you don’t really want to give up”. No wonder there is a shortage of good people!
Sacrifice means “to make sacred”, and “to make sacred” means to act in relationship toward something so that the highest purpose and potential of the relationship is manifested. True, “giving up” something is a part of it, but nothing is given up just for the sake of giving something up; certainly not for the purpose of making us look good or feel like good people. Something is given up, willingly, because that giving up is seen as an inevitable part of the process of growth and development toward the manifestation of highest purpose and potential in a relationship. We give up the “lower” because we want something even more: the “higher”.
If the commitment to that highest potential is present, “right needs” will be recognized. And, when right needs are recognized, the sacrifice, the making sacred, can take place. If that commitment is not present, right needs will not be recognized, and the required sacrifice cannot and will not take place.
The musician who sits down to practice, and in the back of their mind, and the bottom of their heart, is motivated by the desire to be famous and admired, rather than be the best musician they can be, for themselves and for others, is not recognizing “right needs”, their own, or other people’s (people need good musicians, not “famous people”). They are not making the proper sacrifice, they are not making their practice “sacred”, and so, their relationship to music has not been “spiritualized”. They will not achieve their highest purpose or potential as musicians, and the world will not receive the benefit it otherwise would.
Any relationship, any activity between those in relationship, such as parent to child, student to teacher, citizen to country, or business to customer, can be seen in this way, and evaluated according to the criteria of whether right needs are being recognized and met. And when they are, you will see the quality of sacrifice, of making sacred. You will see the willing giving up of the lower so that the higher can manifest. The musician who realizes that holding on to “ego”, the idea of himself or herself as something special because of their musical accomplishments, will hinder their growth as true artists, will begin to let ego go, if they love music more than they love themselves (really, their idea of themselves).
There is one other understanding that must be added to the concept of “sacrifice as the means to higher manifestation”. It is this: what is sacrificed is always seen as a form of power, but is sacrificed nonetheless, for the sake of attaining an even greater power. That greater power, will always be in the direction of what we call the “spiritual”, which simply means it will be from the all inclusive “transcendental” viewpoint, one that includes all beings and all relationships between beings, and not merely from the limited viewpoint of self, “me and mine”.
And so, the “spiritual” musician gives up the feeling of self glorification because, even though it appears to be a form of power in this world (being rich, famous, and admired CAN go a long way!) it is seen to be an obstacle to an even greater power (the ability to continuously deepen the artistic self, and the artistic experience that can be given to self and others).
It is wisdom, of the head or the heart that makes this possible, this sacrifice of power. It is wisdom to regard what we have been given, our talents and what we make of them, as gifts given to us to be given to others. Ultimately, it is those who will give away everything who will be given everything, just so that it can be given away. As we look at the lives of the great figures of history, those people who stand out because of the great contribution they have made to their fellow creatures, this becomes clear.
And just as this process of the recognition of right needs, and the sacrifice of the lower for the higher will always appear beautiful, the opposite will always appear ugly. It will be characterized by the opposite of sacrifice, by selfishness, the inability to be aware of or respond to what is outside the “self”. Selfishness is the refusal to recognize or meet the “right needs” of each party in a relationship, and the attempt to have only one’s “wrong needs” met, at the expense, not the benefit, of the other party.
No one likes selfish people, not even selfish people (but, at least they understand them!). Take any act of “evil” or ugliness you can find, it will always be founded upon the refusal to acknowledge our basic condition of “oneness” with everything, the relatedness of our selves to everything else.
All of this is true for individual people and their actions, and it is true for groups of individuals, and the “entities” they create, countries, companies, governments, and religions. As we look around the world, we see a wide variety of such groups, some showing a leaning one way, and some another. Some are acting from principles of brotherhood and dignity for all people, and some from “what’s in it for me and mine”.
Whether we run a country, or a business, or raise kids, or play and teach the guitar, we all get to choose how we want to play the game. We can do it from the spiritual viewpoint, or the selfish one. Whether it becomes beautiful or ugly, creates happiness or misery, will simply be an outgrowth of that choice.
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