Gurudev

Afraid of Workplace Politics? Learn How You Can Confidently Deal with Office Politics through Acceptance

By Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar┃Posted: October 10, 2018

"Water is never scared of mud. If something is muddy, assume you are water – and you can wash it all off. Just remember this!”

1. Wherever there are people, politics is bound to be there. Don’t shy away from it and don’t worry about it – you be rock solid. What appears to be politics will find its own way out. Have faith that only the best will happen to you and you’ll be able to do only the best! Keep these aphorisms with you like treasure.

2. When you resist politics, you get deeper into politics. Your perception becomes political and you get paranoid about it. All those paranoid about politics get deeper into it. You should not mind and it’ll never bother you.

What is politics?

Different people have different mindsets, and they air their opinions. For a while, these opinions remain, and then everything changes. Some people praise you and the same people will make nasty remarks about you – all this is very common. You should take this for granted or you’ll become uptight. And when you’re uptight, you’re not aware of your behavior.

It’s better to stay on a higher pedestal – smiling, laughing, accommodating, and accepting politics. Let politics be there, so what? You have to create confidence that you’ll move through it.

How to rise above politics

Our trouble is that we expect everyone to be Mr. or Ms. Perfect! We expect everyone’s behavior and dealings to be perfect. We expect everyone to be saints, but they’re not. This expectation is the trouble. And when anybody does anything different, we say, "Oh, there’s politics!"

People’s actions are nothing but politics – it doesn’t have to be dirty all the time, though sometimes it is. So let it be! It takes quite a bit to rise above and keep your mind on the infinite, and that’s enlightenment! You rise above it all.

Water is never scared of mud. So, if something is muddy, assume you are water – and you can wash it all off! Just remember this, politics is mud and I’m water, I’ll run over it.

There is a beautiful poem in Kannada, “If someone builds a home in the forest and is afraid of animals, what can I tell them? If someone has built a home on the seashore and is scared of the waves, what can I tell them? And if someone has built a home in the middle of a marketplace and is complaining about the noise, what can I tell them?”

Similarly, when you live on this planet, people will give you compliments and people will give you derogatory remarks – they’ll create politics. How can you be afraid of politics when you’re on this planet? Never complain about people playing politics – that’s what they’ve been doing and will continue to do.

Lord Krishna never complained to anyone about the politics families played. He didn’t say, “Don’t play politics, I won’t come to you.” No! He was right there! Even during the time of Jesus and Buddha, there was politics.

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