Syllabus - Creativity and Pesonal Mastery

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Creativity and Personal Mastery

Course Outline

Prof. Srikumar S. Rao

Description: This is a course on "creativity", about the human mind and its immense potential and how you can harness it to achieve your own ends and whether those ends are worth achieving. To reach any major goal you will probably need the help of others, so we will study leadership and the qualities of a leader. Most of all, this course is designed to help you discover your unique purpose for existence. At the very least it will get you started on this quest. The exercises prescribed are drawn from varied disciplines and many have their roots in different ancient traditions. These exercises produce results and have been used and refined by such eminently hard-nosed bodies as the United States Armed Forces and trainers of Olympic athletes. The course also deals explicitly with issues such as developing personal values, ethics, integrity and achieving mastery. A particular focus is the understanding and resolving of conflicts between personal values and workplace actions.

Objectives: The course has four principal objectives:

1) To expose you to a wide variety of techniques and exercises that have been found to be helpful in sparking the creative process; to help you select those that best fit your personality and apply them to many different business and personal situations.

2) To help you discover your "purpose in life", the grand design that gives meaning to all of your activities; to help you find that to which you can enthusiastically devote the rest of your life. When you are moved by deep inner conviction is when you have the greatest opportunity to sway others, in short to become a "leader".

3) To show you how you can mobilize resources to reach your goals most efficiently. There is a non-linear relationship between "work" and "results". Immense exertion can produce little outcome and, at other times, a little effort can yield a huge payoff. If you have an open mind you can learn to create serendipitous opportunities.

4) To enable you to find and achieve the balance in life that is right for you. Stress levels are rising in our society across all ages and occupations. It little profits you to achieve any goal if you are a nervous wreck during or after. There are always tradeoffs between accomplishments and price paid but they are not necessarily obvious. It is important to learn how to strive mightily while remaining serene.

Though they seem to be disparate, these objectives are really strongly related. There is a substantial body of evidence indicating that people tend to be more creative when working on projects that interest them, and most creative when passionately immersed in their endeavors. It would be naive of you to expect that all these objectives will be met during a one-semester course. Creativity research encompasses a vast and growing field. Your purpose in life tends to change as you grow and evolve. It is frequently a mystery and many, perhaps the vast majority, never find out. This course will serve to start - or spur - you on a journey of discovery that will take many years. You will, of necessity, be alone on this adventure. Please note that I said alone, not lonely. Creating serendipitous opportunities, when you have learned the technique, will give you a powerful tool that can help you in myriad ways. To use it you will have to alter your belief structure about "how things work". Odds are that you do have this capacity already. If not, you would not have registered for this course. Your notion of balance keeps changing along with your life situation, as well as your evolving views on what your purpose in life is.

The first objective will be largely met. You will work indefinitely on the second. The analytical and intuitive exercises that you learn and practice will give you many "aha!" experiences that should provide both direction and encouragement. The third is unpredictable. Some of you will be able to accomplish it immediately; others will have to work on it for a long time before it suddenly falls into place. You will certainly make some headway with the fourth objective. This will be relatively easy if the quote that follows makes sense to you, somewhat more difficult if it does not.

"Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue...as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself."

Viktor Frankl

More on the objectives of this course: I expect this course to have a profound impact on your life - in school and decades beyond. If it does not, then we will both have failed. I am not speaking egotistically as the instructor of the course. What I am saying is that we will discuss fearsomely important "meaning of life" issues from the point of view of immediate personal relevance. Such discussions can greatly clarify your thinking and help you align your values and belief-systems with what you do on a day-by-day basis. In fact, this is what the course is designed to do. It is also designed to get you started on custom building your ideal life. Consider this vision:

You wake up in the morning suffused with an ineffable feeling of joy, a deep sense of well being. You go to work, to a job you love so much that you would pay for the privilege of doing it. You labor intently but are so focused that time flies by unnoticed. At the end of the day you are invigorated, brimming with more energy than when you started. You have a penetrating awareness of the course you are charting, a clear knowledge of your place in the scheme of the universe. Your work feeds this, is congruent with it and brings great contentment and peace.

You face obstacles, big ones and small ones, perhaps more than your fair share of them. You understand very clearly that their purpose is to test your mettle, to bring out the best in you even as the abrasive whetting stone serves to finely hone the knife. So you plow on indomitably, sure of what you want to achieve and yet unconcerned about results. At times it seems as if you are riding on the crest of a powerful tidal wave, as if the universe itself is helping you, working with you and through you. Locked doors open mysteriously. Incredibly fortuitous coincidences occur. You accomplish prodigious feats, feats you would never have imagined yourself capable of. Yet it would have been perfectly okay if you had not accomplished them. You accept accolades gracefully but are not swayed by them because you march to the beat of your own drummer.

Your personal life is intensely fulfilling. You are active in a variety of civic, charitable and political causes and successful in all of them. Your spouse is perfectly compatible with you, a true helpmate in every sense of the word. You beget progeny and your offspring bring great satisfaction. You have a sense of trusteeship towards them and intuit what Gibran articulated:

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you, not from you. And though they are with you, they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but strive not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and he bends you with his might that the arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves the bow that is stable."

So it goes on year after year, each day more perfect than the one before. Your gratitude is so intense that at times it is like a physical ache. Your heart bursts as you thank the universe. What have you done to deserve such good fortune? And when the time comes for you to depart, you do so joyfully and in peace, achieving identification with the Cosmic Principle, that incredible merging which has been called many things by many peoples but is ultimately indescribable, far beyond the feeble capabilities of language.

A life such as described above is your birthright. You have to reach out and claim it. Will you succeed? I do not know. I do know that the first step towards getting there is recognizing that you want to get there. It is very important that you desperately want to reach the goal. It is equally important that you not particularly care whether you do or not. If this sounds like a paradox to you, you are correct. It is. Remember that all paradoxes are resolved as you reach higher levels of understanding, even the ultimate paradox of all - that which we call life.

He was a desperate seeker and he banged on the door of the master. "I want to be enlightened," he gasped, "If I stay as your disciple, how long will it take?"

The master surveyed the young man. He had a strong physique and the inner restlessness that drove him was almost palpable. A good candidate. "Ten years," said the master.

The youth wilted as if struck with an ax. For a few minutes he stood with head bowed, then he looked up. "If I work night and day," he asked fiercely, "If I do without sleep and do twice what your other disciples do, then how long will it take for me to become enlightened?"

"Twenty years," said the master calmly. So perplexed was the youth and so earnest his demeanor that the sage relented and explained, "When you have one eye so firmly fixed on the goal, you have but one eye left to find the way."

Your life is a creation. It is a work of art no less than the paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or the giant statue of Gomateshwara at Sravanabelgola. You are the artist. All works of art first come into being in the mind of the craftsman. This course is an invitation to you to explore and define what you want to create.

The social context: There is little question that we are living in a time of acute change. As always, in such cusps of evolution, the world around us seems to have gone crazy. Government has all but broken down in many parts of the globe and its institutions are not held in high regard here. There is breakdown of social order, growing inequality of wealth and opportunity, a seemingly permanent and increasingly disliked underclass and a degradation of standards in fields ranging from education to popular entertainment. There is anxiety about the future, seeds of generation conflict, widespread environmental despoliation and growing polarization of society. Technology has, in many instances, accelerated and exacerbated these trends. On the flip side, there is still a thriving global economy, an increased ability to meet the basic needs of most of humanity, a dynamic international business community and a growing realization that radical surgery needs to be performed on the existing order of things. Shifts of consciousness can occur with startling rapidity in these days of electronic communication.

I take it for granted that you would like to do your bit, and perhaps a little extra, to leave the world a better place than when you entered it. If you do not, you would be well advised to drop this course and register for another. Change will have to happen at three levels before the "new era", whatever it is, arrives:

i) Individual attitudinal change: We will have to recognize that we do not function in isolation, that we have an impact on society and are, in turn, impacted by it. Personal aggrandizement at the expense of everyone else is counterproductive. Boesky is not the ideal. Chief Seattle articulated this in a letter to President Franklin Pierce in 1855. There is now controversy about authorship and date but the ideas are very much germane.

"Humankind has not woven the web of life...we are but a part of it. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves. All things are bound together...all things connect. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls also the children of the earth."

Chief Seattle

ii) Organizational structural change: The world has altered greatly in the last few decades but our institutions - business, government, religious and societal - have remained antiquated. The old command-and-control hierarchies are totally unsuited to the present era of instant multi-level communication with employees seeking personal growth and autonomy. Re-engineering and similar strategies are but bandaids incapable of coping with severed arteries. Many smaller firms are experimenting with radically different ways of internal organization and, out of the existing chaos, the butterfly will emerge. The form and color are, as yet, unknown.

iii) Societal value change: As long as material accumulation remains the index of success, we will have excess. Consumption will continue as the measure of well being and investment bankers will ingeniously devise ever more convoluted instruments, which may or may not help the organizations on which they are foisted but will certainly ensure them very comfortable early retirement. Too many of our athletes, politicians and business leaders are poor role models but we have spawned them as a society. Better leaders will only emerge when we change what we honor. When, for example, a teacher who builds a championship chess team from given-up-for-lost ghetto kids is celebrated more than a drug-ingesting pugilist. There are indeed signs that a backlash has begun, but they are inchoate and diffuse.

This course is designed to get you thinking about all three types of changes. # 1 is, to some extent, under your control and will probably start happening as you move through the course, complete the exercises and interact with your colleagues. Some day, you will likely reach a position of authority and can then experiment with #2. The experiment is more likely to be beneficial if you start refining your ideas now. If you reach a station of great prominence, and I hope you do, you might well make a contribution to #3, which will also be affected collectively by the actions of all of the persons you influence. Think of it as the spreading ripples from a stone tossed in a pond, with the ripples growing stronger instead of attenuating.

Who should take the course: You should take this course if: you sometimes wonder what you would like to do with your life or whether the educational path you are taking is right for you; you are troubled by ethical conflicts in the workplace and in personal life; you have a nagging sense that there is a great deal that you have to accomplish and that, somehow, you are not living up to even a fraction of your potential; you have a curious mind and enjoy being challenged by radical ideas and have even come up with a few of your own or would like to; you are comfortable with ambiguity and are willing to make the effort required to "know thyself".

This course outline is replete with quotations and parables. If you feel intuitively drawn towards most of them, you will probably benefit from taking this course. Expect that this will be the most meaningful course you will ever take or, at the very least, be open to the possibility.

Who should NOT take this course: You should not take this course if: you cannot tolerate ambiguity and live in a black and white world with few shades of gray; you become upset if your beliefs are challenged and you are called upon to justify them; you are uncomfortable examining values and cultural systems different from your own; you are unshakably confident that you know exactly what you want to be and how to get there. If you cannot maintain an open mind when confronted with seemingly strange ideas, you are unlikely to benefit much from this course.

Read this outline carefully, especially the quotes, parables and descriptions of exercises. If you are not intuitively drawn towards most of them, do not take this course. It could be an enormous waste of time for you. Also, see the section on grading. If you are not so drawn to the material in the course that grades are of small consideration, then don't take the course.

Student Attitude: One of the strengths of modern education is that it instills the habit of questioning everything. This has led to great scientific advancement and to the breakdown of many pillars of 'knowledge' from the notion of a flat earth to Newtonian concepts of time and space. But such attitudes can also lead to the rejection of valid concepts that are ambiguous.

You will be exposed some quite radical ideas in this class. DO NOT attempt to 'prove' them false by searching vigorously for counter examples. Accept them with an open mind and see if they work for you. If they do not, discard them. If they do, continue working with them and refining them so they have maximum useful impact on you and your personal situation. Judging them before trying them is a waste of your energy and could deprive you of tools that are extremely valuable. Leave your preconceptions at home. If you are unable to do this, then you should probably not take this course.

This course is a passion and a calling for me. I will pull out all stops to make sure that you can begin finding answers to the questions that are of import to you. I need your help. Your unreserved help. This is not my course. This is our course. A course that is different each time it is offered, because the persons who take it are different. I need you to take responsibility for ensuring that it is maximally useful. If something is not working, let me know immediately. If something is especially powerful, do likewise. If you have thoughts on what could make it better, express them. I may not be able to implement all suggestions and will use instructor prerogative in some cases, but welcome such involvement. In my view you have an obligation to yourself as well as to others who are taking the course with you. If there is anything that you can do to make it better for someone else, do so. If it is something I need to do, let me know. If you wish your contribution to be confidential, that's fine. Just let me know.

Here is a powerful quote that summarizes my approach to this course:

"The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

Albert Einstein

This course is an exercise to collectively raise the level of our thinking.

Learning outcomes and more on who should and should not take the course: Numerous, numerous students have said that this is the most valuable course they have taken in their entire lives. They have reported incredible self-discovery, learnt techniques that have immensely improved their efficiency and ability to handle mood swings, gained deep self-confidence and the facility to progressively alter their external environments in the direction they would like. Quite a few have embarked on career paths that they would not even have considered before taking this course. They have learnt to listen to, and trust, their intuition.

Others have been left cold and perplexed. They have been unable to fathom why the students mentioned in the first paragraph have been so moved, excited and exhilarated. "Much Ado About Nothing" they mutter as they give up trying to understand and eventually tune out. From their perspective, they learnt about a few tools that are helpful and were glad they took the course but would probably have taken the one on "How to Use Derivatives to Totally Eliminate Tax Liability" if they could go back and do it all over again.

Why this stark disparity?

They all wanted to improve their tennis game and were thrilled to be accepted into the exclusive tennis camp. They were excited and nervous as they milled around, speculating about what lay in store for them. They knew about students who had made spectacular progress. Some had even turned professional within the year. They chattered about possibilities, about what they wanted and about what they would do.

The camp, when it began, was disconcerting to some. There were many exercises prescribed but none enforced. There were mild suggestions made - many of them. There were resources pointed out. There was a blizzard of possibilities, a veritable fog of opportunity, but no explicitly laid out road map.

Many students seized the uncertainty and explored avidly. They viewed the recommended video and it told them to get on the court at 6.00 a.m. and serve two hundred balls and how to twist their body as they did so. They set their alarms and got on the court and twisted and served. Some added 40 mph to their serves and others cricked their necks. The latter went to the coach and he recommended another video and this one told them to get on the court at midnight and serve two hundred balls and twist their body in a different manner. So they drank coffee to keep awake and got on the court on time and twisted and served. Some added 40 mph to their serves and others merely felt sleep deprived. The latter went to the coach and..

Soon the dynamics changed. Members got together in small groups and compared notes on what worked for them and what did not. They ran observant eyes over the methods of those who were floundering and pointed out subtle problems. They recommended small changes that greatly improved results. Nobody could possibly follow-up on all of the coach's ideas, so they organized themselves into teams and explored different paths and reported back to each other. They tried many things, keeping some and discarding others. Sometimes the coach told one to stick with something that seemed fruitless and she did and found out that it did work after all.

The ideas were so strange that they took much time to sink in. They spent impossible hours grappling with the notions and talking to one another and helping each other. Many who despaired were held up and encouraged by those who could visibly track their own progress and soon they, too, ignited the rockets that started propelling them forward.

They discovered there was method in the coach's madness. Techniques that worked for one left another cold and disheartened. Minor modifications produced immense improvement. They came with different physical attributes and different proclivities for strokes, grips and playing style and each one found a set of exercises and mental training methods that worked marvelously. Soon the services zinged and the passing shots grazed the lines and the drops barely cleared the net as they sank with soft plops.

It was invigorating beyond measure and they swore that they had never attended any camp that gave them so much and they waxed eloquent about its merits. They determined that they would continue practicing the unconventional exercises that worked so effectively.

There were some that did not get on the court at 6.00 a.m and were in the bars at midnight. They took a desultory stab at some exercises but were quick to chuck them if results did not appear immediately. Life always encroaches, and they let it. Their initial enthusiasm wore off. Commitment waned. And they left disgruntled with no improvement in their tennis skills. "What a waste," they clucked as they departed.

So there you have it. Does the subject matter of this course call to you so strongly that you would walk ten miles in tight boots to attend each session? Are you ready to crawl on bare knees over broken glass to explore these issues with a group of your peers who are similarly motivated?

If the answer is 'yes', you will assuredly have a profoundly transformative experience that will change your life for the better in unimaginable ways. Here are some that have been reported: depression being replaced with deep-seated optimism and joy; warm relations developing with estranged parent; changes in career path in line with innate interest and passion; astonishing turnabout in job-interviewing skills - rejection changing to near 100% call backs; unbelievable, almost miraculous, 'coincidences' from tough professors easily agreeing to changes in dissertation topics to uncompromising employers agreeing to flexible job arrangements; profound reconnection with spirituality and newfound ability to infuse it into all aspects of life with no inherent contradiction; extra-ordinary increase in effectiveness - three to four times as much accomplished with less strain and effort; clarity about personal values and how to shape jobs, relationships and other activities so they are in conformity.

If the answer is 'no', ask yourself further questions. Can I engender the motivation, the commitment, to give this course my very best shot? Will I work hard enough that I will not 'let down' others who are taking the course and who expect the same degree of involvement from me? If the answer to these is 'yes', you will probably benefit greatly from taking this course. If the answer is 'no', do yourself, and others, a favor and exit now.

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