Knowledge is within

I read this a while ago. All knowledge is within. We just have to discover it from our own. So we take help of teacher(s) to make us aware of all that infinite knowledge that lies within us.

To corroborate with the theory that every person has a property (dharma) implies that we can only enlighten ourselves with the knowledge that lies within the bounds of our senses, that are a function of our dharma.

I have been thinking about this ever since I have decided to do an MBA. Why? Let us assume for the scope of this reading that any human is a function of his nature (DNA/Genes etc) and his nurture (surroundings, family etc). Let us give slightly larger weightage to nurture as is proved by Time Magazine's survey ("What makes you special" - November '03). To quantify, assume 70-30 for nurture-nature combo. Last 25 years of my life decided that MBA proves good to me. I have a good work experience, I have a degree from an acclaimed technical school in India, I read, I play, I am interested in people and what else, I can bore someone to death by writing!! I thought "heck! Let us give it a shot". So there I was writing my essays for all those coveted B-schools people aspire for. And then I went all awry with one question -
"Can leadership be taught?"

I thought negative. Leadership cannot be taught. I am either a leader or follower. I cannot be born a follower and be taught a leader, can I? Or vice versa! And then someone asked me this question in one of the interviews too. It was strange what ensued after the discussion, one of the interviewers asked me "So if you don't think leadership can be taught, why do an MBA?". Was I having a dream or is this the state of educationists or was he testing me? I told respectfully, "Sir, I think Leadership is inborn. MBA in my opinion educates people to take a scientific approach to their managerial roles, so they do not reinvent the wheel."

And then it set me thinking in another direction, not during the interview of course but later. Do people seriously think that they can be leaders because they have more knowledge? Can someone do THAT to me? I'd give more weightage to a person's opinion in case he is learned, but does that mean I give him the lead role? Manmohan Singh was a great Finance Minister(was because now he is PM). He changed the destiny of India in 1991 with liberalization. He is an amazing leader of Finance department, but is he a good leader of the nation? Does more knowledge lead people to believe that he is a great leader. On the contrary, Sonia, who is NOT a great knowledge person, has worked on her image so much that she score even above Vajpayee this time when poll was done about leadership. (India Today, Jan 30 '06). While knowledge is needed, but that alone cannot make a person leader.

With this I come to the point I made earlier. All knowledge is within. And I feel even more powerful when I say that statement, because one cannot be taught what one cannot understand. Not everyone can be APJ Abdul Kalam who joins ISRO as a Junior Scientist. We need to find that ourselves, i.e. where does our core competency lie. Once that is found we have discovered our Dharma, and then we can channelize our brain to acquire all the knowledge within.

For me, well I am still thinking. Action speak louder than words, but action often makes a lot of mess too... :-)