By Parveen Chopra, IANS
New York : Swami A. Parthasarathy, a known exponent of Vedanta and a pioneer of its application in business management, is on a visit to the US to give talks at corporates, including Merrill Lynch, Tata Consultancy Services as well as the New York and Cleveland chapters of Young Presidents’ Organisation.
Founder of the Vedanta Academy in Lonavala, Maharashtra, Parthasarathy is also scheduled to give public talks in New York Sep 26, at Detroit (Oct 2) and Cleveland (Oct 5). In Detroit he will address the TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) conference titled “Ancient Wisdom in Modern Business”.
Author of the classic Vedanta Treatise, he will also release his new book, “The Fall of the Human Intellect”, in New York. The book blames people’s emaciated intellect for many of the world’s problems and makes a case for restoring human intellect.
Talking about how Vedanta can transform management, Parthasarathy told IANS: “All contemporary business management strategies rest on incentives. Vedanta promotes initiative in a person to work in a spirit of service.
“When work is undertaken by incentives, you find huge corporations winding up — as seen in corporate America. But where there is an initiative to work, there will be harmony and productivity.”
His discourses on the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads and seminars on Vedanta in management have brought him acclaim.
Pathasarathy has addressed the World Economic Forum, NASA, Harvard and Wharton, Microsoft, Lehman Brothers, Ford and Chanel.
A keen cricket player, he has also spoken to the Indian cricket team on the keys to consistent and peak performance.
BusinessWeek called him the pioneer of ‘Karma Capitalism’ and the New York Post ‘Go Getter’s Guru’.
Despite earning multiple degrees including one in international law from London University, Pathasarathy renounced a lucrative career in the family shipping business. The 80-year-old guru has devoted the last four decades of his life to the propagation of Vedanta and its application to life.
Vedanta is one of the six systems of Indian philosophy as well as its epitome.