Upanishads And Transformational Leadership

Knowing who you really are; inspiring others in family, organization, and society; leading them towards oneness with all

What you'll learn

Grasp the essence of the Upanishads, the most ennobling text, that can totally transform you.

Understand who you really are, and thereby increase your personal effectiveness, and enrich your life by making it more multi-faceted and less stressful.

Comprehend that you are not merely a sheep that you were imagining yourself to be, but that you are in reality a lion, and work wonders in every walk of life.

Develop your transformational leadership, which involves taking others to a better place and showing them something higher than what they were seeing before.

Enhance the quality of your relationships with others, make them more stimulating, and elevate others to higher levels of human conduct and ethical aspiration.

Be able to easily judge whether some action is right or wrong, enhance your moral reasoning capabilities, and become skilled in resolving dilemmas in your life.

Requirements

This is a graduate-level course and is reading-intensive. A pre-read needs to be completed before every lecture.

Motivation and capacity to read and understand graduate-level course materials are prerequisites for taking this course.

This is a modified version of an offline course that was taught to full-time MBA students for 15 years.

No prior knowledge of the course content is needed.

Description

This course will help you better understand who you really are, and what your life goals should truly be. Understanding your real nature will not only enrich your life by making it multi-faceted, more meaningful, and less stressful, it will also enhance your personal effectiveness. Comprehending that you are not merely a sheep that you were imagining yourself to be, but that you are in reality a lion, will enable you to work wonders in every walk of life. Self-fulfilling prophecy results in the most miraculous outcomes in the domain of human behavior. This course will also help you to enrich your relationship with others in your family, organization, and society. It will help you to develop your transformational relationship with others, instead of a mere transactional relationship. You can address their real needs, instead of merely fulfilling their stated wants and appeasing them. You can inspire them to achieve higher ideals and lift themselves into their better selves. "Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth" (Burns, 1978, "Leadership," page 2). The lack of understanding about leadership is possibly because of confusing it with power. Many people who claim to be leaders are actually power-holders only. Power is a relationship that treats others as objects or things, while leadership does not. This course will help you clearly distinguish between the two, and choose the more effective option of leadership."To see the ubiquity and pervasiveness of power and leadership in the relationships of mother and daughter, teacher and schoolchildren, coach and athlete, master and apprentice, minister and congregation, sergeant and rifleman, party chieftain and card-carrying member, propagandist and believer, is to see power wielders, leaders, and followers in continuous interaction in virtually every sphere of human society" (Burns, 1978, "Leadership," pages 52-53). This course will help parents to raise their children as good citizens of society. It will help them address their children's real needs instead of pampering them by giving them whatever they want. It is possibly the lack of parents' transformational leadership that creates undesirable citizens in society.Leadership is a dynamic and reciprocal relationship between two human beings. The one who initiates the relationship is the leader, and the one who follows that initiative is the follower. Hierarchy in family, organization, and society may not have much to do with leadership. Subordinates may initiate the relationship with their supervisors, and hence become the leaders. Parents may follow the initiatives taken by their children, and hence become their followers.Knowledge consists of two parts. Studying the world as an object is the first half of knowledge called materialism, which is sufficient for power. Delving into the human being as the subject, as the knower, is the second half of knowledge called spirituality, which is necessary for leadership. This requires seeing oneself and others as not just the body-mind complex, but as the atman, the real self of all beings. It is not possible to understand leadership without an inquiry into the atman. Treating others as objects, as the body-mind complex, is power and not leadership. The Upanishads are the original texts that explain the atman, the innermost essence of each individual. This course provides a wonderful opportunity to understand the Upanishads. These are unparalleled texts. There is nothing else that can be compared with Upanishads. Everyone who studies the Upanishads will be enthralled by them. Upanishads take us to a very high plane of thinking. The most common dilemma human beings face is knowing whether some action is right or wrong. By incorrectly imagining some course of action to be wrong, we not only lose the opportunity to get our things done but also fail in our duty toward others. In addition, transformational leadership involves taking others to a better place and showing them something higher than what they were seeing before. To know what is better and higher and to understand what is right and wrong use of power, one has to necessarily study philosophy. Philosophy is as much a prerequisite for leadership as physiology is for medicine.Only a universal and not a sectarian philosophy can help lift different followers to a common higher level. Upanishads provide such a universal system of thought. A study of the Upanishads would help identify the near-universal values that could form the foundation of authentic transformational leadership. A sense of solidarity or oneness with all beings is an immediate outcome of an inquiry into the atman, which provides a basis for moral leadership. Just as gold appears as the various ornaments like bracelet, the one atman appears as the various beings in the world. Moral leadership requires enabling others to see oneness among the diverse beings in this universe, just as intelligent people will first see gold in all the gold ornaments. Enabling others to realize that they are not just the body-mind complex, but that they are the atman takes them closer to the state of oneness with everyone. Taking others closer to the state of oneness enables them to lift themselves into their better self. This is authentic transformational leadership. "That people can be lifted into their better selves is the secret of transforming leadership" (Burns, 1978, "Leadership," page 462). Studying the Upanishads will provide an experiential learning of transformational leadership.LEARNING PROCESSThis is designed as a 30 weeks (7 months) course, and is best done by completing one session per week. This is a reading-intensive course. The downloadable resource materials (4 pdf files comprising 30 pre-reads) include the most readable translation of the 10 major Upanishads (Upanishads.pdf), 18 lectures of Swami Vivekananda (Vivekananda.pdf) providing the best explanation of the Upanishads, and two introductory chapters (Introduction.pdf & Leadership.pdf).Students are expected to first complete the pre-read for a session, then watch my brief lecture video, and finally take a quiz on the pre-read, before going to the next session. The course will be graded like any standard graduate course. The grade will be based solely on the total number of correct answers in all the 30 quizzes (containing a total of 50 questions). The grading schedule is:A = 45-50; B = 40-44; C = 35-39%; D = 30-34; F = 0-29.

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Introduction [pre-read Introduction.pdf]

Lecture 2 Leadership [pre-read Leadership.pdf]

Lecture 3 The necessity of religion [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 2-11]

Lecture 4 Maya and illusion [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 25-38]

Lecture 5 God in everything [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 68-77]

Section 2: Upanishads

Lecture 6 Preface, Introduction, & Isha Upanishad [pre-read Upanishads.pdf pages 3-19]

Lecture 7 The absolute and manifestation [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 57-68]

Lecture 8 Kena Upanishad [pre-read Upanishads.pdf pages 20-25]

Lecture 9 Realisation [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 77-92]

Lecture 10 Unity in diversity [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 92-102]

Lecture 11 Katha Upanishad [pre-read Upanishads.pdf pages 26-42]

Lecture 12 The freedom of the soul [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 102-113]

Lecture 13 Practical Vedanta: Part 1 [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 179-192]

Lecture 14 Practical Vedanta: Part 2 [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 192-207]

Lecture 15 Practical Vedanta: Part 3 [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 207-217]

Lecture 16 Chandogya Upanishad [pre-read Upanishads.pdf pages 43-64]

Lecture 17 The cosmos: the macrocosm [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 113-120]

Lecture 18 The cosmos: the microcosm [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 120-131

Lecture 19 Prasna Upanishad [pre-read Upanishads.pdf pages 65-75]

Lecture 20 Immortality [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 131-140]

Lecture 21 Mundaka Upanishad [pre-read Upanishads.pdf pages 76-85]

Lecture 22 The Atman [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 140-153]

Lecture 23 Mandukya Upanishad [pre-read Upanishads.pdf pages 86-89]

Lecture 24 The Atman: Its bondage and freedom [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 153-159]

Lecture 25 Taittiriya Upanishad [pre-read Upanishads.pdf pages 90-100]

Lecture 26 The real and the apparent man [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 159-178]

Lecture 27 Aitareya Upanishad [pre-read Upanishads.pdf pages 101-104]

Lecture 28 Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 274-279]

Lecture 29 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad [pre-read Upanishads.pdf pages 105-143]

Section 3: Conclusion

Lecture 30 The real nature of man [pre-read Vivekananda.pdf pages 11-25]

Those who wish to understand the Upanishads, the most uplifting material available.,Those interested in self-development, and in becoming better human beings tomorrow than what they are today.,Those who want to influence others in family, organization, and society, in a positive and enduring manner.,Those aspiring to be true leaders and not mere power-holders.,Those who are keen on becoming transformational leaders, and in lifting others into their higher self.,Those who desire to increase their moral reasoning capabilities.