The concepts of Sustainable Development (SD) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have been around for a few decades, but they have not been known to include Spirituality or spiritual factors in their purview. In short, both these concepts refer to a business looking out to preserve or enhance social and environmental aspects along with economic development. So, when we heard that the Indus Business Academy (IBA) was organising a conference which explored the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and Spirituality, it piqued our interest.

The following encapsulates the purpose of the 12th International Conference of the Indus Business Academy (IBA).

To capture the spirit of the conference, the organisers quoted Prof S K Chakraborty who insightfully said that, we need to realise our potential (our real higher self) as opposed to being just a slave of narrow self-interest.

The IBA is a business school in Bengaluru, India. It has consistently been ranked as one of the top business schools in India by prominent media organisations and is among the only 42 colleges in India to be accredited by the International Accreditation Council for Business Education (IACBE). It is known for focusing on the overall development of its students, with excellent and experienced faculty and good opportunities for extracurricular activities.

The 12th International Conference of the Indus Business Academy (IBA) was held on 20-21 September 2019. It was attended by people from different fields including businessmen, spiritual speakers, professors and business school students. 35 papers were presented during the conference.

The Maharshi Adhyatma Vishwavidyalay (also known as the Maharshi University of Spirituality or MAV) presented a paper on ‘Creating spiritual purity – a corporate responsibility that has far-reaching positive effects’. The MAV paper was presented at the conference by Mrs Shilpa Magdum, who works as a Technical Manager at MindTree Ltd. and has been practising Spirituality for 20 years.

When the time came for Shilpa to speak, she started by saying, “Ask any business school (B-school) graduate about the main aim of a corporation and the most likely answer would be ‘enhancing shareholder value’. Practically however, with the stresses and strains of day-to-day business operations, the pursuit of profit and enhancing shareholder value often supersedes employees’ well-being, the environment, and any social obligations.”

This captured the essence of the issue that the business world faces in meeting their corporate social responsibilities. She then went on to systematically explain how even if businesses crossed every ‘t’ and dotted every ‘i’ with regards to their policies around SD and CSR, they would still not get the desired results unless they took the spiritual dimension into consideration. It was a whole new way of thinking that resonated with the audience. The paper was well-received and generated a good deal of interest, especially amongst the younger participants. One of the judges mentioned that the subject was path-breaking and covered a new dimension of CSR. Most of the attendees came by after the lecture and personally shared that the presentation was outstanding. Afterwards, Dr Subhendu Dey, the Program Director of the IBA said that the IBA will open a new CSR branch and will collaborate with MAV on this.

To top it off, during the award ceremony, we were pleasantly surprised when the Maharshi University of Spirituality was presented with the Best Doctoral Paper Award for the conference, which included a cash prize.

This conference is just one of many conferences where the papers that have been presented by the Maharshi University of Spirituality have elicited responses such as, ‘path-breaking’, ‘a whole new way of thinking’, ‘a higher path’, etc. The University has so far presented papers in conferences worldwide covering over 30 disciplines. Through spiritual research (using aura and energy scanners along with the advanced sixth sense of its members), the Maharshi University of Spirituality has demonstrated how every discipline has a spiritual dimension to it. If ignored, it diminishes the discipline and if embraced, it enhances the discipline to realise its full potential that truly benefits society.

Here is the conference paper on Spirituality, Sustainable development and Corporate Social Responsibility.