It was about thirty-eight years ago today. I was a student of Mechanical Engineering in Jadavpur University. Beyond the corridors of structured academic curriculum, I had spread my wings of interest and passion spanning across Literature, Films, Theatre and Philosophy. During that time, one day I came across a pearl of wisdom from an illumined mind. It said that a planned life is closed. It can be endured but it cannot be lived (Emphasis added).

All along my life had been flowing earlier as if according to a plan. Beginning with those sunny days in St. Lawrence High School, Kolkata it went ahead through Engineering studies set in the sprawling campus of Jadavpur University, a brief stint with the corporate, then back to academics at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta as a student and again back to the corporate world. The going was good and smooth by and large. And then something happened.

Life is not merely a written account or record. It also offers some unwritten suggestions and insights. An analysis of those suggestions reveals that when one feels despondent, in the abyss of despair and hopelessness, from a space that can at best be called ethereal, consciousness flashes across our mind. This happened to me in the early nineties of the last century when I was feeling thoroughly disenchanted with the daily chores of a rather lucrative corporate job that was draining my vitality and spirit every day. I was, as if, ‘Waiting for Godot’, the calling from within. Then one day it came.

All plans of linear progress in career went for a toss in 1992 when I started feeling a surge of energy and inspiration within myself that propelled me to take a plunge into the quest for ‘the Other and Beyond’ that had been haunting me since youth. During my evening walks with friends along the long stretches of the sprawling Southern Avenue (where I grew up spending thirty-five years of my life) in South Kolkata and refreshing myself in the cool breeze of Dhakuria lake, I would often contemplate on doing something worthwhile for humanity at large.

In April 1993 I joined the Management Centre for Human Values (MCHV) at IIM Calcutta to engage in teaching and research on Indian Ethos and Human Values in Management with Prof. Debashis Chatterjee, the present Director of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode and an author of global repute, as my esteemed colleague. However, the seeds were sown during my days as a student at the Indian Institute of Management IIM Calcutta in 1987-1988 when I was increasingly becoming uneasy with the dominant thrust on careerism and consumerism as implicitly advocated by mainstream management in education and otherwise. Moreover, the principles and practices of management that we were learning were primarily borrowed from the West and grafted in the Indian context often creating cultural dissonance and anomalies. It was at that time I had the opportunity to attend an Elective course ‘Management by Human Values: Indian Ethos’ offered by the renowned Professor S K Chakraborty of IIM Calcutta who would come to take the classes in an Indian attire. The course offered us deep insights into Human Values in Management based on classical wisdom literature of India (mainly Yoga-Vedanta Philosophy, Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita) as well as life and works of great modern Indian seer-leaders and institution builders like Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo. Since then, I had started feeling the winds of change blowing within me.

Blessed I was to receive abundant love and care, knowledge and inspiration from my parents Paramesh Chandra Mookherjee and Nani Mukherjee, and my eldest maternal aunt Mani Chowdhury at home. My mother, a pioneer of child education and the joint Founder of Hiran Bala Shishu Bhawan, a highly renowned school for children in South Kolkata that was named after her mother, was always an inspiration to me. Fortunate was I that I did my schooling in St. Lawrence High School in South Kolkata under the tutelage of affectionate and dedicated reverend fathers and illumined yet friendly teachers, and a wonderful group of loving friends with diverse interests and enquiring minds. Later, during my graduation years (1980-1984), the culture and ambience of Jadavpur University opened my unexplored terrains of potential by expanding my mind-space to the arena of Arts, Culture, Literature, Films and Theatre. At IIM Calcutta, during my post-graduation in Management (1987-1989), we were lucky to get some of the most erudite and illustrious Professors that time. And of course, among them, Professor S K Chakraborty who had the courage to venture out ‘Against the Tide’ (title of one of his later books) remained an inspiring model of academic excellence and a wise mentor to me.

Yet I was looking and waiting for that spark that would kindle the fire in my heart and being. And then

At about the same time I came in touch with a person with an illumined mind and elevated consciousness – Manoranjan Basu (1920-1992) – a philosopher, an authority on the Tantras, a highly evolved spiritual being and above all, a great humanist. For nearly four years I was blessed with his love and affection that ignited the first spark in me to embark upon a quest for the ‘other’ and ‘beyond’. At a time when I had almost decided to quit the corporate world, on one evening in February 1992, while lying in his death bed suffering from terminal cancer, he had assured me in very clear terms that my mission and work was waiting for me in my Institute (IIM). I did not understand what he meant but I shall never forget his blissful smile that moment despite all his pain and suffering. He left for his eternal abode on March 24 that year. It was much later in the same year the Centre (MCHV) would become a reality. His words were ever a source of inspiration: “Man never dies! This is India! Don’t forget it.”  And then he would proclaim: “If one is to live one is to live dangerously.” The message and the calling got transmitted in my bloodstream, in my heart, my mind and my soul. Life was not going to be the same anymore.

1992 happened to be a defining and turnaround year of my life. It was sometime in the middle of that year I met a spiritual genius who was a living dynamo of spiritual energy – Guru Maharaj Swami Paramananda, the fountainhead of inspiration behind Paramananda Mission in the heart of rural West Bengal in the village of Banagram, in the district of Brardhaman. I was introduced to him by Joydeep, my good old friend from my days of Jadavpur University and group theatre. On one occasion he told us - “There are three paths to inner awakening – Dhyan (Meditation), Gyan (Knowledge) and Prem (Love).” Then he turned to me and smiled, “For you is the path of Prem (Love).” “What does it mean for me? I asked. “Perform your actions as offering to the Divine for His delight, not for your own sense gratification.” His words still resonate in my being and will ever remain with me as guiding light. Guru Maharaj left the mortal world suddenly on November 27, 1999 when he was only 45. My friend evolved later to emerge as Joydeep Maharaj, an unconventional yet powerful spiritual leader, who created his ashram (spiritual conclave) Maramia Spiritual Society close to the bank of the river Bhagirathi in the rural milieu of Azimgunj in the district of Murshidabad, West Bengal.

It was on December 5, 1992 in IIM Calcutta that I met Shrimat Saumyendranath Brahmachary (1946-2012), Acharya (Spiritual Head), Dev Sangha, Deoghar Jharkhand. He was staying in the apartment of one of his disciples in our campus. In response to a call from Prof. S K Chakraborty I happened to be in the campus that day to attend the Foundation Stone laying ceremony of the Centre (MCHV) on December 6, 1992. Brahmacharyji was also invited to attend the event by our then Director Dr. Subir Chowdury. Dr. Chowdhury who played an exemplary leadership role in support of Prof. Chakraborty’s pioneering work and mission, also happened to be the boss of the Acharya during his corporate career at ICI, a reputable multinational company of those days. I found the Acharys unassuming and friendly, jovial and witty, loving yet commanding. He was the most elusive yet powerful spiritual master I have ever met in my life. A brilliant technocrat, he was a B C Roy Gold medalist (Best all-rounder of his batch of 1968) from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur and also the topper of Mechanical Engineering department. He left a highly promising and successful corporate career in a ICI to venture into spiritual life and pursuit under the instruction and guidance of his Gurudev (spiritual master) Shrimat Narendranath Brahmachary (1904-1976), the founder of Dev Sangha ashram, Deoghar. I always cherish with wonder and delight the one hour walk with him in the IIM Calcutta campus and engaging in lively friendly discussion on a wide and diverse range of topics and issues. It was the beginning of a long and special relationship that was later to culminate into myself and my wife Kaberi getting spiritual initiation from him during Durga Puja in 2000 in his Deoghar ashram. The light of wisdom and the magic touch of love unbound that I received from him till his passing away on June 23, 2012 left deep impact my being, shaped my thoughts, illumined my mind and inspired my life all throughout notwithstanding all my deviations and blemishes. The contents of this book bear testimony to his eternal presence beyond space and time.

I had gone to meet him on the morning I joined MCHV. After blessing me he shared a precious nugget of his wisdom that was to remain with me for life not just as a message but as a mandate, a divine ordain: “Before you communicate values you must feel the love for humanity from within the core of your heart.”

I knew that very day that I was not destined to be a conventional academic in pursuit of dry knowledge in an arid desert of dreary logic. It was to be a tryst with love and light, joy and freedom.

I had always nurtured the conviction that those who can look deepest into the past can also see farthest into the future. That marked the beginning of my new voyage – an adventure into the realm of the unconventional wisdom for management and leadership in the last decade of the past millennium.

The evolution of the discipline of Management has taken place along with constant nourishment from the global cultural mosaic and philosophical systems. Max Weber found the connection between the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of Capitalism. Oriental management principles and practices in Japan and China largely owe their roots in Confucianism and Shintoism. The question that naturally used to haunt me was – What can be the contribution of the millennia old Indian philosophy and culture to the domain of modern management?

The formal creation of MCHV became a reality in August 1992 through a Resolution passed by the Board of Governors of IIM Calcutta that entrusted upon the Centre the mandate to engage in research and teaching on Indian Ethos and Human Values in Management. It had its foundation in the pioneering work and mission of Dr. S. K. Chakraborty since the 80’s decade in the last century. After joining the Centre as a Research Fellow, I began an academic sojourn through Values, Ethics and Indian Ethos in Management. For me it was the beginning of a lifelong movement and exploration. Amidst dilemmas and darkness, confusions and criticisms, sometime the glimmer of hope and light would come like a flash from the pages of the Upanishads. As if we have found the answer to a gripping question. Then again, another unsettling question would rise to challenge our capacity to respond to the new realities. But it made the journey even more interesting for me on a personal level. It helped me change my attitude ‘from a researcher to a seeker’. This also resulted in a change of my approach – ‘from a pathfinder to a fellow traveller’. I came to realize that the ego of the teacher must dissolve in the ocean of knowledge to find access to this higher learning.

Within my own limitations, I tried to carry this wisdom with me when I joined IIM Shillong in 2009, an Institute that gave the faculty the mandate to lay the foundation of its pursuit of academic excellence on the Sustainability, Values and Ethics, thanks to the futuristic vision of our Founder Director Professor Ashok K Dutta. I found my space in the cloud campus located in the hills of Shillong, Scotland of the East teaching and doing research on Human Values and Indian Ethos in Management, Business Ethics, Spirituality and Wisdom Leadership, Alternative Learning, CSR and Sustainability. I feel honoured and delighted to have tried to play a significant role in the Sustainability movement of IIM Shillong till today.