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PDF Version << Syllabus Home Page2 Page3 Page4 Page5 Page6 Page7 Last >> Creativity and Personal Mastery Course Outline Prof. Srikumar S. Rao
Outrageous and impossible demands: The funny thing about life is that it always encroaches. The more you let it encroach, the more it accommodates you. You WILL run into conflicts when you take this course. 'Important' term projects in other courses; personal situations that eat up time; peers, professors and family members who make demands; long decided travel and vacation plans; etc.
The king was celebrating his sixtieth birthday and so joyous was he that he made an unusual proclamation. Each of his subjects could enter the royal palace and take any single item of his choosing. The seamstress entered the anteroom and stood in awe of the furniture and the magnificent tapestries. She saw a bolt of the finest silk waiting to be made into a curtain and grasped it eagerly. It became hers. The cabinetmaker wandered the rooms marveling at the strange objects and the luxury of appointments. He espied a pile of ivory tusks and another of mother of pearl and promptly gathered them unto him. "What beautiful cabinets I can now make," he thought as he hurried out congratulating himself for making off with two items instead of one. The jeweler scoured the palace, examined and ignored the various treasure rooms and ornaments in the queens' quarters. At last he found what he was looking for. In the middle of the royal diadem was the most magnificent jewel in the entire land. He grabbed it with feverish fingers and rushed out thinking, "When I sell this I will be wealthy beyond belief. My children's children will live a life of ease because of my cleverness today." The wise man too searched high and low and finally approached the king. "What! Still empty-handed?" exclaimed the king jovially. "Come with me. Here is a magnificent diamond. It is even better than the one the jeweler made off with. It would have rested on my diadem, but you can have it." But the wise man would not take it. "What, then, do you want?" asked the king puzzled and alarmed. A deep suspicion was growing in him. "Give me the philosopher's stone that I know you possess," said the wise man. "Give me that which will give me freedom from want and liberate me forever." The king's face fell. "It was the one item I did not wish to lose," he lamented. "I was so sure that no one would ask for it." But he was true to his word and the wise man made his obeisance and left with it. And the king, to his great joy, discovered that the wisdom conferred by the stone did not require its presence. He prayed that the wise man would, in turn, bequeath it to a deserving other and he to another and so on. This did, indeed, happen and no country ever had more wise men to counsel it in good times and bad. What are YOU going to be as you enter the palace? That, more than anything else, will determine what you will bring out. The exercises, assignments and ideas in this course can truly, and completely, turn your life around. They can impact every aspect of your existence - your career, your relationships, your financial well-being, your health, your spiritual development. This is not an egotistical claim. I freely admit that none of the ideas are my creation. They have been articulated and refined by persons of infinite wisdom, giants who strode this earth in different times and who belong to different traditions. My modest contribution is that I have presented them in clothing acceptable to persons steeped in modern education. If your effort is sincere, the changes will happen. Change cannot but happen. The cynical, or the astute, or the cynical and astute among you will spot that I have just given myself an out. Thoughts like the following may already have arisen, "What a neat racket! The guy promises the moon and when he does not deliver it becomes my fault. Cool! I must remember to use this one myself." If such trains of thought persistently arise in you, it is a good indication that you should not take this course. That is just the way it is. You put in the best effort you are capable of, and the results will appear as inexorably as the wheel of the cart follows the ox. The onus is on both of us but more so on you. Workload: This is the toughest course you will ever take. This is the easiest course you will ever take. (I always did admire the way Dickens got rolling in Tale of Two Cities!) If you are looking for an "easy" course, which will require minimal time commitment, this is not it. Leave at once. There are innumerable assignments, many of which will require significant chunks of time. You will also be required to keep an ongoing journal, which may run to several hundred pages before the course is over. As will become clearer when you read the next section of this outline, the exercises spill over into other activities and, indeed, into every waking moment. On the other hand, you may never have such fun as when you are participating in the exercises and doing the required assignments. You will be dealing with gut issues and I hope that you find your discoveries breathtakingly relevant and worthwhile. I am not quite sure if Confucius said "He who greatly enjoys what he is doing never works a day in his life" but am positive he would have heartily endorsed the sentiment. Exercises: You will be assigned a series of total immersion exercises that I call asifs, a term derived from "as if". Each lasts for about a week and it may sometimes be possible for you to work on two simultaneously. One asif, for example, may require you to treat every single person you meet as if it was his or her last day on earth. This means everybody from your instructor through your team-mates on projects for other courses to the vendor who sells you your newspaper and candy. Carefully observe your behavior and feelings and note how they differ from what they would otherwise have been. Do you feel that the other person's behavior is different also? How? Record your observations. I guarantee that you will be amazed at how difficult it is to do justice to an asif and at how many times you "forget". To help things along I suggest you get an alarm device that beeps at half-hour intervals to remind you to get back into the asif. Other asifs might require you to perform every activity as if it was perfectly enjoyable or observe yourself non-judgmentally as if you were an invisible entity suspended a foot above your head. Though simple to describe, asifs are very difficult to follow and can lead to profound changes. I hope that you will repeatedly experience a "paradigm shift", a startling insight that results from viewing the same situation from a different perspective. With practice you can make such an insight a permanent part of your being rather than a transitory flash. To illustrate the power of a paradigm shift consider this ancient parable: The abbot of a once famous Buddhist monastery that had fallen into decline was deeply troubled. Monks were lax in their practice, novices were leaving and lay supporters deserting to other centers. He traveled far to a sage and recounted his tale of woe, of how much he desired to transform his monastery to the flourishing haven it had been in days of yore. The sage looked him in the eye and said, "The reason your monastery has languished is that the Buddha is living among you in disguise, and you have not honored Him." The abbot hurried back, his mind in turmoil. The Selfless One was at his monastery! Who could He be? Brother Hua?...No, he was full of sloth. Brother Po?...No, he was too dull. But then the Tathagata was in disguise. What better disguise than sloth or dull-wittedness? He called his monks to him and revealed the sage's words. They, too, were taken aback and looked at each other with suspicion and awe. Which one of them was the Chosen One? The disguise was perfect. Not knowing who He was they took to treating everyone with the respect due to a Buddha. Their faces started shining with an inner radiance that attracted novices and then lay supporters. In no time at all the monastery far surpassed its previous glory. You will also learn breathing exercises, visualizations and meditation and discuss case studies of their application by the United States Special Forces, medical researchers, sports trainers and, I almost forgot, business consultants. Written assignments: There are numerous written assignments, some of which spring from the asifs. Some will run twenty or more typewritten pages. Quite a few will require intense soul-searching before you put pen to paper or, in these modern times, fingers on keyboard. Count on endless hours of individual effort. Many have reported that while the days are long the rewards are disproportionately handsome and that a sense of exhilaration accompanies the process of grinding out the papers. Recognize that while this can be a phenomenally rewarding course, it will require an inordinate time commitment on your part. In fact, the course is rewarding because you have to put so much into it. Here are examples of some typical assignments: 1) Examine your life in minute detail - quarter by quarter for the last few years, then year by year right back to kindergarten or even earlier. Note down everything that gave you a sense of accomplishment. Reflect on why. (Later you will analyze this list searching for patterns and a deeper understanding of what is important to you.) 2) Write a description of your ideal job - excruciating detail needed. What do you do? Where is it? What types of co-workers do you have? How much do you travel? How does it fit into your "purpose in life"? What is satisfying about it and what is not? .............. 3) Isolate some of your deeply held beliefs about this is the "way the world works". Why do you feel this way? How do you deal with data that contradicts your beliefs? There are many more but these should give you a general idea. In each case you will be given some structure and much more direction when the assignments are made. As you grapple with difficult issues you will find that the discipline of writing flushes out contradictions and forces you to recognize and deal with them. Don't worry too much if some of what you are putting down seems more like creative fiction than an expression of your being. What matters is the sincerity of your effort and your honest intent. Privacy issues: You will derive the greatest benefit from this course if you are scrupulously honest in all your assignments. However, you will also be dealing with personal issues, many of them sensitive and quite possibly painful. It goes without saying that every submission will be treated as highly confidential. Nothing that you write or say in confidence will ever be attributed to you in public. If you are sure that you would like to take the course but are still troubled about privacy matters, speak to me personally and we will work to resolve your concern. Please note that some of your assignments will be distributed to others. You will always be explicitly told about such distribution in advance. Lectures: The term lecture is a misnomer for this course. Each session is highly interactive and you are expected to participate with vim and vigor. Your experiences, and those of your colleagues, as you wrestle with your asifs will be discussed. Topics will sometimes be assigned in advance but, more frequently, will arise spontaneously from the group. Guest speakers may occasionally share their insights with you. Be prepared to wrestle with Zen koans and quantum physical maps of reality as you struggle to understand what all this has to do with business or your personal situation. You will eventually find the relevance. Trust me on this one. We will spend much time examining perceptions and how they affect and are affected by our belief systems. The mental models we carry around with us - often without even realizing that they are models - define and create the "reality" we experience. Remember that we only observe what we have been trained to observe. Little Tommy came home from his first pool party and he was being quizzed by his father. "How many kids were there?" asked his father. "About a dozen," said Tommy who couldn't count any higher. "And how many were girls?" "How would I know? Nobody was wearing any clothes," replied Tommy. Remember also that what we observe reveals more about us than about reality. Patrick was penniless when he came to America. He joined a sweatshop and learnt tailoring. He worked hard and soon opened his own shop. He was ambitious and he put in long hours and in a few years his chain of upscale men's clothing stores made him a multimillionaire. He finally took a vacation to Europe and held court to admiring relatives when he came back. "And when we went to Rome I had a private audience with the Pope," he announced grandly. There was a collective sigh as the audience tried to assimilate this momentous news. "Yep," Patrick continued, savoring the situation, "There was just the two of us in this huge office." There was more silence. Finally an aunt ventured, "Well Patrick, how was he?" "Size 38 long," said Patrick promptly, "But he's tough to outfit because his trousers are size 42." The slump in the middle: It is not uncommon for students to feel that they have hit a brick wall somewhere around the halfway mark. The initial rapture, the feeling of incredible self-discovery, the walking on air, all dissipate. Old habits re-surface and counterattack vigorously. You feel as if you are trying to run through chest deep molasses. The tendency is strong to give up at this stage. To simply go through the motions and just ride the course out to the end. Big mistake. Stick it out and redouble your efforts. Redouble them again. You will get your second wind and soon you will be traveling so far and so fast that your starting point is barely visible. Do not slack off on assignments. Do not stop interacting with class members. Do not turn off by diverting your attention to other pressing matters. There will always be other pressing matters. Deal with them but do not let them overwhelm you to the detriment of this course. Your determination and ability to persist through this slump is the best single indicator of whether you will have a life changing experience or merely a good course. Grading: There will be no examinations. There will be numerous written assignments as described above. There will be in class and out of class exercises and reports on them. There will be discussion on an electronic bulletin board set up for the class. Attendance and class participation are both very important and thoughtful contribution will count for more than frequency or volume. There is always a subjective element in grading and this is heightened in a course such as this one where the much of the learning and value is also subjective. The syllabus is very detailed to give you a fair idea of what you are letting yourself into. Here is how grading works. First there is the obvious: Do you attend classes regularly? Are absences explained - preferably before, but certainly after, the fact? Do you complete all assignments and hand them in on time? If there are reasons why you must delay on particular occasions, I will work with you, but it is your responsibility to keep me informed. Do you "do" the readings and spend time thinking about the implications? Do your assignments, and participation, show evidence that you understand the ramifications of the readings and the possible practical applications - in your life and in the situations you are facing? Then there is performance: There are two avenues for shaping your ideas and testing your concepts - class discussion and the bulletin board. Do you participate? What is the nature of your participation? Do you offer original insights, raise honest doubts, help clear other members' honest doubts, clarify points that are causing difficulty, push a discussion further - even to uncharted territory in terms of its logical implications, share your views and opinions, try to understand your fellow members and help them understand you? I am NOT looking for "agreement" with views expressed in readings or class. Some of the more astute among you will quickly note that there are some contradictions there. I am emphatically NOT looking for comments designed to showcase your coruscating brilliance or your excellence in debate. You will get enough opportunities for these in your other courses. I AM looking for solid evidence that you are doing more than merely going through the motions - attending class, handing in bare-minimum descriptive essays, and making a few desultory comments. I AM looking for signs that you are pondering the readings and discussions and that, as a result, you are changing your worldview, attempting to change your worldview or becoming more convinced that your existing worldview is the correct one for you. Here is a contradiction for you to ponder: Great effort is needed to produce personal change. Fundamental personal change, when it occurs, is effortless. It is my sincere hope that you are so overwhelmingly drawn to the material that considerations like grades don't even enter the picture (assume that you will get the lowest passing grade for the course). If this is not the case and, in addition, grades are very important to you then do not take this course. I will try unusual grading methods in this course. For example, you may be asked to grade yourself and to justify that grade. I will, however, retain instructor prerogative to assign grades. As you will have gathered from the above I hate haggling over grades. However, I have been approached by concerned students who 'need' a particular grade or higher for various reasons ranging from securing a rank to receiving tuition reimbursement from employers. If you fall into such a category, speak to me after about the sixth session and explain your situation. I am prepared to give you an extra credit assignment that will require at least 30 hours of work. This assignment may help you boost your grade if you do an excellent job, but there are no guarantees. Networking: Contacts are important. Every upwardly mobile professional knows this. Politicians know it better than anyone else. Experienced stockbrokers get signing bonuses because they can bring a book of business. Lawyers and lobbyists get hired because of the thickness of their rolodexes. There are books, courses and seminars on how to network better. I have always had a problem with the notion that you should cultivate a person based on his - or her - position and the help that you might potentially receive some time in the future. Apart from the ethical and personal honesty issues involved, consider the enormous amount of time expended in the pursuit of such contacts - the after hours socializing, the parties and formal affairs, the joining of business, civic and community organizations to meet the "right" people, and so on. PDF Version << Syllabus Home Page2 Page3 Page4 Page5 Page6 Page7 Last >> |
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