How our Cultural Heritage Gives Us Nourishment to Grow into our Highest Self?

If you cut the roots of a tree, the tree will die not only because it will have no foundation to stand on but also because it no longer will receive any nourishment. Similarly, we human beings will die emotionally, intellectually / mentally, spiritually and as a result of that physically (much before we were meant to) if we deny our cultural heritage because it is the foundation, the roots of the tree of our very existence.

Cultural Heritage is an expression of the ways of living developed by a community and passed on from generation to generation, including customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expressions, language, literature, values, scriptures and wisdom in all different forms.

If I don't accept, love and revere who I am as a human being, I will not have the understanding and wisdom to accept, love and revere the cultural heritage I am born into. If I don't accept, love and revere my own heritage that I am born into, I will not have the understanding and wisdom to accept, love and revere other communities and their heritage. How can there be love, peace and joy in such a world? 

Macro does not create the micro. Micro creates the macro. Who I am and who you are, what I do and what you do, is all that is needed to start a quiet revolution in the world to transform a business, a nation and, ultimately, what it means to be a human being; leading humanity to its next level of evolution and consciousness. Try complaining about and fighting with the macro instead of working on the micro (the person you see in the mirror), all you will get is frustration, angst and a lot of wasted time & effort because you will find that nothing much has changed. 

Wait, the malaise doesn't end here. If I don't accept, love and revere who I am as a human being and the culture I am born into; it also impacts my self-esteem and as an outcome of that, my productivity, efficiency, creativity and innovation. I get stuck in the monotony of Life with no access to unleash my inner greatness to make that big impact in the world for joyous fulfilling success and prosperity. 

You want to lead your business from good to great and make a huge difference in the world? The first, unfortunately invisible, step is to embrace who you are and that includes your cultural heritage and identity. In your owning yourself fully and coming home to yourself, you free your people to own themselves and come home to themselves. As you and your people stand tall in the joy of who each one of you is, your customers will find the freedom to own themselves and come home to themselves. In that way, you not only create greater profitability because of increased productivity and innovation because of the courage found only in truly owning who you are, you start a ripple effect to make a difference to your people, your country and the world.

You may say, there are religious and national fanatics who are causing destruction. They seem to have pride in their cultural heritage and use that as an excuse to create a havoc. The equation doesn't seem to fit in with the above logic. Let us dig deeper. The dictionary defines a fanatic as a person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal, especially for an extreme religious or political cause. I would add the following to this definition - "without excessive and single-minded zeal for one's own physical, emotional, intellectual / mental and spiritual growth". As long as the focus is changing the macro (the world outside) without transforming the micro (self); all we will get are fanatics and the mess that only the fanatics can cause. 

You may ask - Does that mean I need to follow all the customs, rituals and traditions that don't make sense to me? I will say understand the underlying science and if it doesn't connect with you, please don't do it because that spreads inauthenticity in the world. In the end, if what you are doing doesn't have you experience love, gratitude and reverence for yourself and for all beings, it is something that needs to be challenged. Not in others, but in your own self. Growth is an outcome of transforming who I am and not forcing others to change to fit into my world-view. 

Isaac Newton said that - If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulder of giants. Each generation progresses by standing on the achievements of the previous generation. How can India progress if we born in India don't own and embrace the achievements of Rabindranath Tagore, JRD Tata, Sri Aurobindo, Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Guru Nanak, Buddha, C V Raman, Homi J Bhabha, Ramanujan, Salim Ali, Deepak Chopra, Kiran Mazumdar, Sarojini Naidu, Amrita Sher-Gil, Kalpana Chawla, Robin Sharma, Deepak Parekh, Premchand and million others who have transformed our lives, in small or big measure? And, so it is for every other country in the world.

In a country where there is love, gratitude and reverence for its cultural heritage instead of starry-eyed admiration for the glitter in other countries (without that for one's own), let my people awake. In a planet where there is love, gratitude and reverence for oneself and for all living beings, let my fellow beings awake.

May you and I awaken to the inner Light that each one of us is born with to live the purpose of our journey this Lifetime through the businesses we run; families, communities and countries that we are a part of.

Love, Jyoti.