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RIDING THE WAVES OF CHANGE
THINKING ALLOWED Conversations On The Leading Edge Of Knowledge and Discovery With Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove COPYRIGHT (C) 1998 THINKING ALLOWED PRODUCTIONS Reprinted with permission from Thinking Allowed Productions MISHLOVE: And we tend to focus on you need to be a specialist. We're all taught that this is the age of specialization, and you and many other writers have pointed out that specialists today are the ones who are becoming obsolete. POTTER: Exactly. You can be so vulnerable as a specialist.
What if all of a sudden your specialty becomes computerized? You know --
what happened to all those operators who used to operate that thing where
they put -- you know? Gone!
POTTER: Right, switchboard operators; I can't even remember what they're called anymore. So you're just tremendously vulnerable. Not only that, if you're a specialist you're only developing a small sliver of yourself. People are not willing to tolerate that kind of workplace anymore, either. We have a tremendously educated work force now. If we think about when we left the agrarian and went to industrialism, what we had were people on a farm, and we brought those people from the farm, they were labor, and we put them into the factories. Look what was accomplished. Now we have all these educated people who are creative and have incredible skills. What if we could mobilize all of these people, all moving under their own self-management somehow in the same direction, what could be accomplished? It's really overwhelming when you think of what's happening at work. It's a very big, exciting place all of a sudden. MISHLOVE: Well, clearly, our greatest resource are the human beings that we have, and it would seem to me that if one looks at the technologies available for developing and fulfilling the potential of a human being, one cannot really ignore the esoteric traditions, because they're very powerful in this regard. You've been in the forefront of introducing these esoteric teachings into the workplace. POTTER: That's right, and I think it's vitally important,
because first of all you have to deal with change that's extremely stressful
and disruptive and frightening, those kinds of things -- just dealing with
it, and being able, like you were talking about mindfulness, being able
to bring yourself down, center. Where does a person who's inventing their
work get these creative ideas? Where is this reservoir that they have to
reach into? And how do they know what direction to move into which is right
for them? All of this is what you're describing, the esoteric traditions,
bringing these into work. Work is not a separate thing. That's one of my
problems with the sixties. It was like, well, you go off to work, you put
in your time over there, and then in the evening and on the weekend you
go to your T group or you meditate or you expand or something. No -- you
do it at work. And it's at work where you have the challenges, or the difficulties,
to apply these kinds of -- Let me tell you a little story that I sometimes
tell people. It's a Nasrudin story.
MISHLOVE: It seems to imply -- my first take on that is it's like work is a rat race. Somebody's chasing somebody, and somebody's running, and not one of them really knows why they're doing it. POTTER: Right, exactly. To me, I always use it to exemplify a knee-jerk response to things -- you go to work, somebody across the hall does something you don't like and you're irritated, so what do you do? Jump on your own donkey, chase on after them. Do you stop and say, "Well, wait a minute," like the warrior would, "what is the excellent action? What is the right action, the right response at the right time? What is going on? What is my optimal response to this person, whatever it is?" No; jump on that donkey and just tear on after them. And so that's an opportunity every day. Of course we keep forgetting, I keep forgetting; I jump on my old donkey too, you know. So that's a challenge, just that one thing alone. MISHLOVE: But the traditions that we're speaking of -- the art of the ronin, of the samurai, of the shaman warrior, of the Sufi master -- all of these seem to be geared to enable us to override some kind of automatic behavior function and act with consciousness. POTTER: Yes, that's right. And that is basically what being a warrior is all about. For example, there are enemies of the warrior. Don Juan talks about enemies of the warrior. MISHLOVE: Don Juan is the Yaqui Indian teacher of Carlos
Castaneda.
MISHLOVE: Now that you've overcome fear -- POTTER: Oh yeah, I'm on top, I don't have to prepare. MISHLOVE: Sort of a pendulum effect. Once you've conquered one you're going to swing over to the opposite side. POTTER: Exactly. And so that becomes the challenge, of
being self-confident but not cocky, or -- I don't know what it would be.
But this becomes a whole challenge, of dealing with that. We all know people
at work or in other places that are stuck in that swaggering thing. And
so when you get over that --
POTTER: Yes. So when you get over that, then you have to face power. And I think a lot of people now, the hippies who became yuppies, who are now taking over power, they're taking over the institutions, are stepping into power, and that is going to be a tremendous challenge, for them not to become, whatever -- power mongers. MISHLOVE: Seduced by power. POTTER: Seduced by it, or somehow knocked off the path
of this, not using it in a negative way.
Please join us next month for a continuation of this
discussion.
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