Corporate Vs Spiritual Life: A Deep Dive Into Stress, Success And Fulfilment

I recently read an article about two IIT graduates who chose very different paths after graduation. One pursued corporate life and eventually became the CEO of a multinational company, while the other became a monk. When they met years later, the corporate executive was surprised at how young the monk looked and attributed it to his stress-free life.

That may be true, but it's not because a monk or sannyasi heading a trust or institution faces fewer challenges than a corporate executive. In fact, the challenges may be even greater, though different in nature.

In the corporate world, you raise funds through marketing and selling tangible products or services. In a spiritual setup, you must raise funds through voluntary donations for something highly valuable but intangible. Only those who truly value what you offer will donate, making fundraising more challenging.

There are no fees charged for spiritual classes, yet we need to raise funds to sustain our operations. Similarly, outreach differs significantly. Corporations can invest in advertising and marketing campaigns. Monks conduct public programmes to reach people, which again requires fundraising without guarantees.

Managing people presents another contrast. In corporate settings, employees are paid and can be held accountable through performance reviews, bonuses, or disciplinary actions. In a spiritual organisation, people offer their services voluntarily as ‘seva’.

If someone delays the work or underperforms, there's no conventional way to address it. You cannot simply "pull them up" or use financial incentives. Instead, you must provide positive motivation without the ‘stick’ of punitive measures—making management more difficult.

I could continue listing differences that make a monk's life just as stressful as a corporate executive's. So, what accounts for the difference? The difference lies in how each person, a corporate executive or a monk, responds to their situations.

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Stress does not lie in the situation. Stress is a physiological and psychological response to circumstances, and that response is always within our control. Like the monk, anyone can learn to respond in a calm, peaceful way without creating internal stress, irrespective of the situation—that makes all the difference.

The writer is the founder of Aarsha Vidya Foundation. You can write to him at aarshavidyaf@gmail.com