Spirituality and the Role of Ego: Insights for Management

Abstract

Spirituality has been explained in numerous ways since ages. In this paper the ego has been related to 'I Consciousness' and in this context the role of ego in spirituality has been discussed. It is strongly emphasized that it is the ego process which is the biggest barrier to spirituality and the spiritual state is basically the state where one gets rid of ego and achieves an orderly state of mind thereby showing morality naturally and not in the forced manner. Ego in the human consciousness can do lot of damage and there has been lot of historical evidences where this ego process has led to unwanted results in the long term to the organizations and individuals. This paper aims at explaining the spirituality from the ego perspective and then connecting it with the management for better understanding of role of ego in the human behaviour and decision making. It needs to be mentioned that this paper is influenced by the thoughts of Prof. P.Krishna expressed during the conference on 'Spirituality and Ethics in Management' held at School of Management Sciences, Varanasi
in October, 2010.