Training--A New Perspective

National Insurance Academy (N.I.A.), Pune is an institute of higher learning established especially for training the officers of Life Insurance Corp. (L.I.C.) and General Insurance Corp.of India (G.I.C.). It is situated in village Balewadi on Pune-Bombay highway. Environment here is quite congenial as shady trees and sprawling lush lawns abound. It has gained very good reputation and many officers of insurance industry from developing countries also come here for training.

This academy I visited  in February 1993 for the first time, to participate in Management Development Programme meant for middle level managers. We were six officers deputed by our company      (National Insurance co. Ltd.) for this training. It was a 3-week programme attended by 30 officers from Life Insurance Corp. of India, National Insurance Co. Ltd., New India Assurance Co. Ltd., Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd. and United India Insurance Co. Ltd.

Our course co­ordinator was Sh. Ashok Wadekar, a senior faculty member at N.I.A. The training course was a blend of theory as well as practice. On the first day, the participants introduced themselves with details of their hobbies, talents etc. When I introduced myself, Mr. Wadekar showed keen interest and at the end of the session discussed with me on several topics.

Many of the training programmes consist of a session meant for developing the art of elocution. We also had one such session wherein each participant had to speak for five minutes on a topic of his or her choice. Mr. Wadekar already guessed what I might speak on and advised, “Ranjit, I know you will speak on spirituality but you should speak on something that others may understand easily.”

The topics chosen by the participants were quite interesting. Mr. Rajesh Aggarwal from Bombay spoke  on  accounting methods and vigilance. Miss Monica, the only lady officer from Kolkata, spoke very well on tea-plantation and its insurance. On my turn I spoke on True Identity of the Self.

 Introducing the subject I said, “Friends, spirituality is mainly concerned with the study of the soul, the Supreme Soul and nature as well as their inter-relation but I will restrict myself only to soul. Day in and day out, we use our organs, hands, feet etc., and say - these are “my” hands, “my” eyes etc. The use of the word “my” shows that “I” am different from “my” hands, feet etc. Further, we use pen to write a letter and say this is “my” pen; it means we are not pen but the user of the pen. Likewise we are using various organs and the body to perform various acts, we are not bodies, but soul, which resides in the middle of the forehead and supervises and controls the body through brain. Wrong identification of the self as body leads to various mental vices - greed, attachment, ego, lust, anger etc. and spiritual study aims at liberating the self from vices and weaknesses. Through the practice of Rajayoga we can become soul-conscious which makes us impartial, honest and efficient. This conscient energy called 'soul' manifests itself in three forms — the faculty to think which is known as mind, the faculty to judge, decide or discriminate, which is known as intellect and the faculty to record the action performed by it, known as sanskar. The study of Rajayoga also teaches how to attain mastery over sense organs and forge mental link with God, the Supreme Source of Power.” While speaking I was also using the board to draw diagram for further clarifying the subject.

At the end of the session, some of the participants showed   interest   in meditation. I gave them elementary books  on meditation. In the evening, when we were free, several of us  used  to  sit  in entertainment room and play meditation songs which we also enjoyed singing in chorus.

We also planned to have a cultural programme one evening. It was decided that there would be quiz contest before cultural programme. I was nominated one of three members of the Executive Committee of the programme. We prepared beautiful cards for inviting the staff of the N.I.A. and their family members. Each and every family was personally invited by us. The result was that not a single family    missed    the programme.

Next was my turn to present a devotional song. Introducing the song to the audience I said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the song I am going to present is written by renowned lyricist Pandit Bharat Vyas, for Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya and in this song we are exhorted to recognize our true self-a soul— and remember God.”

The opening lines of the song were: -

(Kindle the Light of your inner self and darkness of ignorance will vanish. Meditate on God Shiva, as a new-pure world is soon going to dawn.)

Then the quiz competition followed. Another batch of 60 officers was undergoing training at N.I.A. those days. Ten teams, each containing three participants, were constituted.    I   also participated and in our team there was one officer named Sh. Unnikrishnan from Cochin. The quizmaster started asking questions. The rule was that if one team were unable to reply a question, it would pass on to the next team. I don’t know whether it was just by chance that several questions remained unanswered by others and ultimately replied by our team. One such question was ‘which state of India has maximum meat consumption’. I replied it. People were amazed ( they had come to know that I was a strict vegetarian) as to how I could answer that question.

In the next question the quizmaster showed an advertisement of a cigarette company in which several persons   were   shown smoking, whereas the name of the cigarette brand had been concealed, which the participants had to identify. Other teams could not answer it; even the audience could not identify it. At last it was passed on to our team and I correctly identified the brand of cigarette. All were amazed even more as I was a non-smoker. Some questions were correctly replied by Sh. Unnikrishnan and when the score was declared, we were first with 25 points whereas the second ranking team got only 8 points and other teams even less. We got phials of perfume as first Prize. I gifted my prize to son of my batchmate Sh. Harikrishnan, who was then posted at N.I.A. for research assignments. It gave the kid immense happiness as he was very fond of perfume.

One day one of the trainees asked me, “Ranjit tell us in simple terms what is meditation.” I replied in short, “When the cells of a battery are discharged, we need to re-charge them. Likewise when the soul exhausts its power, it needs to be re-charged, which can be done by linking the soul with the Supreme Soul. This mental link with God is meditation.”

One part of the training contained Human Resources Development, Breaking Communication Barriers, Self-empowerment etc. This was very much in line with spiritual education. On the day this phase of the training was to start, we entered the conference hall and found that the tables had been removed. Only chairs were there, arranged in a circle. Flower pots with fragrant flowers were adorning the hall while soft music was being played on tape-recorder. When I caught on, I asked Mr. Wadekar whether we could start the session with an inspirational song. He agreed and we sat in silence while the devotional song played on, the opening lines of which are: -

(Let us spare some moments to remember God with love and fill our inner self with peace.)

The   song   had   a charismatic effect on all the participants and it set the proper environment for starting the new session aimed at improving inter­personal relations and breaking the barriers.

At the end of pre-lunch training  session,  the participants hastily would go out. I used to switch off all the fans, lights and other electric gadgets almost daily. Mr. Wadekar commented one day, “Ranjit is man of the Energy Minister.”

At the end of the training programme, Sh. Ashok Wadekar informed that there would be “Asking for a Gift” session. He said that during the course of three weeks we would definitely have observed certain qualities and virtues in our colleagues. Each one of us had to ask for a quality as a gift from the colleague in whom we observed it. “When you ask for a gift (virtue) from the fellow trainee, it will automatically be given to you,” Sh. Wadekar further commented.

It was a nice experience to do so. Each participant asked for gifts from others and in this process the specialities and virtues of the group became apparent to all. In the last Miss Monica stood up and said, “I want a gift from Ranjit. He should tell me how he remains so much active and energetic all the time.”

Perhaps she knew the answer and had already received her gift, as earlier announced by Mr. Wadekar.   

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