Samartha Ramdas Swami

 

The birth name of Samartha Ramdas Swami was Narayan Suryaji Thosar. He was born on ‘Ramnavami’ in the year 1530 (Marathi), (1608 AD) in Jamb village on the banks of Godavari river.

 

He would wake up before sunrise and exercise. His exercise used to consist of  ‘Surya Namaskars’, a series of positions each of which involved prayers to the Sun. He used to stand in chest deep water in the river and chant “Shri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram”. Chanting used to continue until noon. He followed this routine for 12 years. Soon people forgot his original name ‘Narayan ‘and started calling him ‘Samartha Ramdas’. Ramdas means loyal devotee of Lord Ram.

 

He understood the importance of the role of women in a harmonious society. He encouraged women to participate in religious work and gave them positions of authority. He had 18 staunch women disciples. He strongly reprimanded an old man who was against women participation by saying that everyone came from a woman’s womb and those who did not understand their importance were not worthy of being called a man.

 

Leadership concept as explained in Dasbodh

 

A) Self-development:

1) He has to continuously go through the introspection.

2) He has to find out faults in him self. It is generally found that when a person reaches to a certain level he starts thinking that he never makes mistakes

3) He should be honest to continuously remove the faults in him.

4) He should develop the habit of learning the new things and latest techniques.

5) He should be a role model for his subordinates. He should convince his subordinates by working himself on the same principal.

 

B) Carrying out leadership:

1) Train and develop the followers. Find out the capable persons and train and develop them to carry out work for achieving goal.

2) Inspire and motivate the followers/ subordinates so that they will be enthusiastic to achieve the goal.

3) The leader has to build and maintain the organization of the followers.

 

C) Effective leadership:

1) Behavior of the leader has to be excellent. He should always think and then talk. He should avoid loose talk.

2) Leader has to have a proper communication channel with all the subordinates to avoid misunderstanding.

3) Team building and enhancing Team spirit in all the subordinates is very important for the growth of the organization.

4) Leader has to find out the persons with required ability and give them work suitable to them.

5) Leader has to keep on trying to achieve the best and the right. (‘Do it right first time’)

6) Leader has to keep on learning new things.

7) He should try to improve his own intelligence and after proper listening to others he should suggest changes in the working of organization.

8) Avoid criticizing and public humiliation of the subordinates even though they have made a mistake.

9) Leader has to insist on always selecting the best and avoid substandard by thinking properly.

10) The leader should be able to see the things much ahead of time. That means he should be visionary.

 

Samarth Ramdas has given many symptoms of silly (‘Moorkh’) and learned silly (‘ Padhat Moorkh’) person. These will be very useful for the leader for introspection and to improve him self.

 

These thoughts, which Samarth has written 350 years back regarding the leadership, are not outdated but they are same as what Mr. Peter Drucker or Mr. Shiv Khera have written in their books on modern management techniques. In the present age of globalization the same concepts are being used. Hence Dasbodh can be used as guide to set the work culture in different industries.