Susan, a telephone service representative for a large health insurance company, once taught us an extremely important lesson about "work as a spiritual practice."

She was known as one of the best at her job. Whenever she received a call from an angry person complaining that a huge bill had not yet been paid, she silently kept a spiritual mantra going in her head as she listened to the caller. It helped her maintain a peaceful mind and reminded her that the caller was a spiritual being in his or her own right. She kept connecting with the caller, heart to heart, in every word she said and patiently demonstrated her accurate listening. Soon, angry callers became calm, and began to trust that she would really do her best to help them.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

You may know people who are "devoted to their work" - meaning that they are dedicated to their careers and their jobs. If this comes from the ego, it means that they experience self-gratification from what they do. The reasons could be many: perhaps the power they enjoy, perhaps the use of their talents, perhaps the difference they make through their work. There's nothing wrong with this type of devotion and certainly it has contributed to the betterment of our world in many ways.

However, if our devotion to our work only remains at this self-gratifying level, we are missing a huge opportunity for spiritual growth. So come with us as we explore this path of devotion as a spiritual practice at work.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

In high school and college, Debra excelled in accounting and William in mathematics. So, from time to time we love to represent new ideas using numbers or equations. As we were looking at the components that make up our view of spiritual character, we realised there was a great equation we could use:

Spiritual Character = Spiritual Context + Spiritual Purpose + Spiritual Values

______________________________________ Ego Desires

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

"Spirituality at work." Seeing or hearing these words, some people feel sceptical about whether spirituality can mix with work. Others feel cautious that some religious pressure will be put on them at work. Still others feel enthused at the possibility of expressing a more meaningful part of themselves through their jobs.

How about you? What comes to mind when you think about spirituality at work? People often ask us, "Can I really be spiritual at work? Can work really be a part of my spiritual path?" For us, the answer is unequivocally "Yes." With confidence, we invite you to join us in the weeks to come in exploring how you can indeed put your spirituality to work in practical and fulfilling ways.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

"Sacrifice" is a word that has many unpleasant connotations for people, especially in the workplace. When a manager says, "We have to make some sacrifices around here," it usually means giving something up, or doing without something, either of which would make things more difficult.

But there's an entirely different way to look at sacrifice, from a spiritual point of view. From its Latin roots, the word sacrifice actually means "to make sacred." Following the chain of original meanings, sacred means "holy," holy means "whole," and whole means "healthy." Thus, sacrifice is anything that takes a situation and makes it sacred, holy, whole and healthy.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

In the mid-1980's, while William was consulting on corporate creativity, he began to recognise a similarity in the language that people used to describe their moments of creative insight and their experience of spiritual inspiration. It dawned on him that the similarities were not by accident; but rather, it's because our spiritual nature literally means we are co-creators with the Divine...as Martin Buber, a 20 th century Jewish philosopher, reminds us:

"Destiny is not where we wait for God to push us. We take part in creation, meet the Creator, reach out to Him, helpers and companions."

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

A financial consultant once spent many hours working to secure prospective clients, but was unable to close the sales. His manager told him that either he would need to improve his numbers or the company might ask him to go. The consultant began to view both his manager and his prospects as adversaries. He became skeptical whether his work would ever pay off and despaired about his career.

At this point, we invited him to see his work from a spiritual view. He realised that his spiritual view involved the notion of deep, inner trust. He discovered that when he saw his work situations through the spiritual lens of "trust," he could release his negative judgments and feel in

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

Have you ever known someone at work who always focused on "me, me, me" - preoccupied with enhancing their reputation or career, even at the expense of other people? You might have thought, "This person has such a big ego." The desires that spring from such an ego greatly diminish spiritual character.

What exactly are "ego desires"? The word "ego" is the Latin language word for "I" and means "the self, especially as contrasted with another self or the world." An ego desire originates from a feeling of separateness; its motivation is to satisfy individual wants and needs for our own self-centred, even selfish, benefit.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

Have you ever faced a challenge at work and felt stuck in finding a solution? Or, felt alone in your work with no one to support you in your efforts? These are examples of when it's important to step back and see our work from a broader perspective. Einstein explained this well when he said that we cannot solve our problems at the same level that we created them.

We've found that this ability to see our work from a broader perspective requires an internal shift in our vision that we like to describe as "seeing the eternal in the temporal". This is the wisdom that Krishna taught Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita:

When one sees Eternity in things that pass away and Infinity in finite things, then one has pure knowledge . (18:20)

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

In all major religions, the path of spiritual wisdom ( jnana yoga) is the awakening of consciousness to see the inherent Divinity in all beings - which literally means to be aware of the "substance behind the form." As the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart once wrote:

Whoever has God truly as a companion is with Him in all places... When a person keeps their gaze fixed upon God, all things become God for him or her.

Imagine the difference it could make in the quality of your work, and in the satisfaction you derive from your work, if you were steeped in this unitive consciousness that Divinity resides in all of creation.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

In our previous article about the "Creative Journey", we described four stages to creatively respond to the challenges we face at work. At this point you may be wondering, "Isn't creativity a spontaneous experience? Won't it suppress creativity to follow some prescribed process?"

To the contrary. In his 20 years in the field of innovation and creativity, William has observed that, ironically, discipline enables our creativity . For example, highly artistic dancers or musicians spend years in training to be able to express their creativity in ways that few people can even dream of.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

In our 1st article on spiritual character ("The Power of Spiritual Character"), we shared with you the following equation that we use to define and develop spiritual character:

Spiritual Character = Spiritual Context + Spiritual Purpose + Spiritual Values

______________________________________ Ego Desires

The first element of this equation, your spiritual context, represents your spiritual view of life. The dictionary defines context as: the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs: an environment . So your spiritual context is the spiritual 'container' or 'frame of reference' within which you experience all of life, including your work.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

"If only other people would be honest and respectful, then my company would be a better place to work." At work, it's very tempting to think this way - to focus on changing others rather than changing ourselves. But as the Greek philosopher Socrates (470-399 B.C.) once said:

Let him who would move the world, first move himself.

Or, as one executive told us:

First put yourself in order. After that, everything will follow.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

In recent articles, we've spoken of three different pathways that people commonly choose for growing spiritually through their work: the paths of action, devotion, and wisdom. The path of wisdom leads us to work with the awareness that Divinity is in everyone and everything.

As the Sikh's book Adi Granth says:

God dwells in everything, God shines in every heart. Wherever I look, there is God; no one else is seen.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

"May all beings be happy" is a beautiful blessing that SN Goenka, a great teacher of the Buddhist Vipassana meditation, expresses throughout his teachings. This prayer was originally sung by the ancient spiritual masters of India and is still sung around the world even today.

In the moments of singing or saying these words in a spiritual context, they seem so full of meaning for us, and our hearts truly wish for happiness for all beings. But then, as we engage in the everyday world of work, it's not so easy to maintain the spirit of this blessing for all people. It's all too easy to become agitated and impatient, and to have negative rather than positive thoughts towards others.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

In the past few articles, we've focused on various aspects of developing spiritual character, as found in our equation:

Spiritual Character = Spiritual Context + Spiritual Purpose + Spiritual Values

            Ego Desires

Here we focus on how to embody spiritual values. The word "value" comes from the Latin verb " valere ," which means "to be worth" and "to be strong." Spiritual values reflect what is important to us from a spiritual perspective. They are also natural, spiritual strengths that we can draw upon in our life and work. We like to say that they're built into our DNA - "Divine Natural Attributes" - as they are the basis of a happy, healthy, and whole human being.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

Our spiritual teacher often reminds us to be thankful for our challenges and difficulties, and to consider them as good for us. We initially resisted this wise guidance, since our natural tendency is to shy away from those things that we don't have a ready answer for, especially if the outcome seems risky.

And yet, over the years we have found that it's often the plunge from confidence to darkness that grabs our attention the most, and requires us to search our souls for creative ideas and solutions.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

In our last two articles, we discussed how to use the Creative Journey to turn work challenges into creative opportunities. We asked you to recall a creative journey that you've experienced in the past, and described how USA astronaut Edgar Mitchell creatively handled the challenges he faced in his flight to and from the moon.

Each stage of the Creative Journey has two distinct steps, each with its own unique question. The story of Mary Nelson, President of Bethel New Life in West Side Chicago, USA, illustrates how she followed these steps to create a new future out of a definite challenge: to rejuvenate housing in run-down urban communities:

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

As we discussed in our previous articles, the first step in developing spiritual character is to identify your spiritual context, which is your spiritual view of life. The second step is to identify and live your spiritual purpose.

William once attended a dialogue between a Christian monk and a Jewish rabbi on the similarities of their spiritual purpose. Brother David Steinelrast and Rabbi Dinn spoke eloquently of their common belief in One God and their similarity of spiritual values. Finally, during question-and-answer, a woman in the audience said, "I'm thrilled to hear what you've said, but let's face it: Brother David, you're a celibate monk, and Rabbi Dinn, you have a family with 12 kids. What's so similar about that?"

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

When your source of motivation comes from your spiritual basis, you will naturally experience an equanimous detachment, while at the same time being fully dedicated to and acting toward your goal.

The chairman of a large corporation once told us:

If you worry about the fruits, then you have your attention on the scoreboard and not the ball. If you concentrate on the ball, the scoreboard will happen automatically. If you are looking at the scoreboard, you will lose the ball. If you do good work, you will get the returns, so do not worry about them.

The Bhagavad Gita further explains:

Do your worldly duty, but do it without any attachment to it or desire for its fruits. Keep your mind always on the Divine.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)