We’re dealing with a lot of change here at the moment.

In his classic book “Future Shock” author Alvin Toffler explains that human beings have a limited biological capacity for change. When they experience a level of change that exceeds that biological capacity they go into “Future Shock”.

He gives examples: if you change your job, and then move house, and go through a divorce or get married, all at the same time, you will probably experience Future Shock as your ability to assimilate all the changes is overwhelmed. You will face psychological destabilization, depression, irritability, reduce immunity, and even physical sickness.

Change is the only constant, it seems. When the army is on the move, the scenery keeps changing.

In my son Prahlad’s horoscope it said that his childhood would be characterized by a lot of instability. That’s definitely the case. We try to keep some things constant for him, as practically everything around him changes.

Right now we’ve gone from 14 people in the ashram to 7. Living with 7 people the place feels empty. All the schedules are disrupted. All the rosters are invalid. We have to renegotiate our living arrangement and work out new ways to do things. It requires a lot of energy, and is unsettling.

The irregular schedule at my job doesn’t help me. This week I’m doing 12 pm - 9 pm. That’s good for my morning yoga teacher training classes, but not good for the evening ones. This week I’ve swapped shifts for my two evening class nights. Next week I’ll have to see what my schedule is and work around that.

Here are a few observations on change:

1. There is a natural resistance to change. Change is scary - it’s risky. “We may not have the best situation now, but at least we have something, and we know what it is,” we rationalize. Many times we consciously or even unconsciously resist or undermine change. We’re happy when things return to the status quo.

Because the soul is eternal and unchanging the experience of change in the material world is unsettling. The more exclusively your perceptual orientation and sense of self is externally focused, the more unsettling it will be. Spiritual practice alleviates this. Some things may change, but getting up in the morning and chanting the Hare Krishna mantra has remained a constant for me in nine countries with different languages, climates, and cultures. My experience has been that this puts me in touch with something eternal. When change and the associated anxiety threaten to overwhelm me I take shelter of this practice.

2. At a certain point an organization tries to settle into a stable state. If you’ve ever tried to turn an organization around then you’ll know how difficult it is. Every single person in the organization, while they profess their desire for improvement, wants things to remain the way they are - at least for them. The aggregate effect of this is an unwieldy behemoth as each person’s individual resistance to transformation translates into organizational change resistance.

3. The only time change stops is when you die. If you succeed in your resistance to change, you just issued a death sentence. If we try to hold to things, keep them the way they are - we will lose everything. The only time a ball stops moving when it’s in the air is at the peak of its climb. This lasts for a momentary fragment of a second when its movement is arrested. The next moment, by the force of nature, it plummets back to Earth.

In this world things are either increasing or decreasing - growing or diminishing. Let go of yesterday, and seize hold of tomorrow.

My observation is that this mission does in a way resemble one writer’s description of war - “prolonged periods of extreme boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror” - in the sense that as we advance the mission we are continually breaking and reforming our instruments and arrangements (those are the moments of sheer terror). As soon as this stops, forward movement has stopped. Once your forward movement stops you lose momentum, and then the natural forces of this world just start to grind you down. Your team starts to succumb to inevitable attrition, dwindling around you until only the hardcore are left. Unfortunately, many times these are the people who are most comfortable with stasis and the most unsettled by change - the idea of leaving is too much of a change for them, so they stay while others who may have a lower organizational committment than they, but are more open to change, leave.

4. We have to live courageously - all of us. We have to accept that going forward means leaving something behind. Things are not going to stay the same. Yesterday finished last night, and the successes of last year are historical tales that can inspire us, but fade more with each passing day.

General Patton’s speech to the 3rd Army in England before the invasion of Normandy contains an inspiring example of the kind of conceptual orientation that is needed to sustain momentum:

I don’t want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We’re not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we’re not interested in holding onto anything — except the enemy.

Vince Lombardi in another famous speech says that “we must be committed to excellence and to ultimate victory, even though ultimate victory can never be won, and even if it is won, can never last”.

5. Change processes should be managed carefully to reduce the effects on the people. By clearly and repeated restating the vision people will find it easier to fix their vision on the guiding star that remains burning brightly ahead as the scenery changes. Efforts should be made to keep some stability in place - shared meals at regular times, regular programs and meetings. Some things should be kept the same for the sake of keeping something the same, while everything else is changed around it. Those things can then be changed once people have become comfortable in the new situation, if they need to be changed.

Too much change will overwhelm people. The more externally focused their consciousness, the less change they will be able to handle. Encouraging people to go deep into spiritual practice will increase their ability to cope with change.

So more attentive chanting is the answer. I personally find change useful in helping me to retain an internal attitude of helplessness. Over the last 10 years since I first took a leap of faith I’ve found myself in constant freefall, with no sign of a landing yet…

A friend writes:

As I was reflecting on how easy it is to become in a “victim” mentality I thought how your “lead, follow, or step aside” is also relevant there in a similar way. You can either lead your life, follow your life as it drags you around, or you can step aside. Goodness-passion-ignorance.

You generate maximum effectiveness when you synchronize your “circle of influence” and your “circle of concern”, to use, I believe, the language of Stephen Covey (I heard it via Tirtharaj prabhu).

Basically it means that you should be interested in what you are responsible for. If you can be primarily interested in that you’ll be more effective. If you can be exclusively interested in that, you’ll be very effective (although many people who are interested in things that they are not responsible for will spend their time calling you a fanatic, among other epithets - <<que ladren Sancho!>>).

This universal principle is explained by Krishna in conversation with Arjuna:

“Those who are on this path are resolute in purpose, and their aim is one. O beloved child of the Kurus, the intelligence of those who are irresolute is many-branched.” - Bhagavad-gita 2.41

As Stephen Covey explains, your circle of influence is what you are responsible for. Responsible means response-able, or in other words, where you are actually able to make a difference.

One witty scientist said: “Give me a place to stand and a long enough lever, and I will move the world”. In situations where we have no leverage we are unable to make a difference, no matter how much energy we apply. Learning to recognise where we have leverage, or influence, and where we do not, allows us to understand better where our circle of influence lies.

The author of the Serenity prayer prays: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

As we narrow the focus, as we eliminate interest, expenditure of time and mental energy, in things that lie outside our circle of influence, we are able to concentrate more energy in the arena in which we are able to make a difference. This leads to greater effectiveness.

It’s a simple principle, but it took some time for me to grasp it explicitly. Most recently, Tirtharaj Prabhu took some time to explain it to me using the terms that I introduced this post with. Before that time I couldn’t put it into words, but now that I look back I see that my success has come when I’ve applied that principle, and I’ve been thwarted when I didn’t apply it. The more I apply it, the more effective I become. There are many people who spend their time railing against real or imagined injustices. The impression that I get from them is that they feel disempowered and frustrated. We start to make a difference, to effect real positive change, when we synchronise our interest and our responsibility, when we synchronise our circle of concern with our circle of influence. And when we start to do that, we feel good about ourselves, because we are making a difference.

There is no contradiction between understanding this principle and understanding the self as non-doer and Krishna as the Supreme Controller. We shouldn’t say something like: “What has Stephen Covey got to teach us?” When someone speaks the truth, we should listen, and hopefully, you’d think, we’ll be able to recognise it. Krishna Himself explains this principle in the Bhagavad-gita, and the Srimad Bhagavatam:

“It is firmly declared that the steady adherence of transcendentalists to their respective spiritual positions constitutes real piety” Srimad Bhagavatam 11.20.26

So when you understand it and apply it, you are understanding something that Krishna has explained, and ultimately established. It’s called reality my friends.