"We teach that material success is important, but it can ring hollow without an understanding of the deeper purpose that must guide our decisions and a spirit of service that must lead us to action."
- Dr. M.L. Shrikant, Hon. Dean (1986-2014)
Centre for Wisdom in Leadership (CWIL) is the outcome of the vision of Dr. Shrikant. The Centre aims to be a place where wisdom researchers, academicians, leadership consultants, professionals from profit and non-profit organisations from all over the world share insights and collaborate to create interventions to impact the field of leadership and organisational development.
History
The Centre traces its history way back to ‘Gita Shibir ’, an initiative started by Dr Shrikant in 2008 to help shape the attitude of MBA participants by drawing from the writings of the Bhagvad Gita . Gita Shibir emphasized leadership through character building and relied on nourishing the participants’ inner spiritual core. 'Gita Shibir' offered a spiritual framework in a language familiar to the participants. Earlier, when the programme had just started, MBA participants would go and live and study in an ashram setting for seven days in Gujarat (Northwest of India). Thus, the seven-day Gita Shibir by Swami Viditatmananda marked the first step towards setting up a Center for Wisdom in Leadership.
*Shibir is a Retreat or a camp
*Bhagavad Gita is the most well-known sacred text of Hinduism
*Ashram is a hermitage, monastic community, or other place of spiritual retreat.
*Swami Viditatmananda is a renunciate monk and one of the most respected contemporary teachers of Advaita Vedanta in the tradition of Adi Shankarachaya and a disciple of Swami Dayananda Saraswati.
The ‘Gita Shibir’ course changed its name to ‘Science of Spirituality’ (SOS) and given the increasing number of students, the classes were conducted on campus by both Dr Shrikant and Swami Viditatmananda. Its purpose was to help the participants know the realities about the self and the world presented by Eastern wisdom traditions and as unfolded in ancient sacred texts such as the Bhagavad Gita to initiate the journey towards self- awareness, development and contribution to the society.
The 'Science of Spirituality' course offered at SPJIMR is in line with the spirit and vision of its creator Dr. Shrikant and also experiments with innovative ways of delivering this ancient wisdom. The content of the ‘Science of Spirituality’ course was recreated by Dr. Surya Tahora based upon insights and practices from Eastern wisdom traditions and the growing field of mindfulness, supplemented by frameworks from cognitive and developmental psychology and research findings from neurosciences and the discipline of management. It was specifically designed to enable students to engage deeper with its content in an experiential, reflective and contemplative mode. The course is conducted across various programs, for young as well as experienced MBA students (PGDM, PGPM), and senior executives (EMP) with a different content and emphasis, and is titled respectively, ‘Journey towards Self Mastery’, ‘Leading with Wisdom’ and ‘Finding the Space to Lead’.
To extend further the vision of Dr Shrikant, with the support of the current Dean of SPJIMR the Centre for Wisdom in Leadership (CWIL) was created to bring about this 'reawakening' and revival of our collective consciousness. The Centre aims to become a globally recognized platform for insights and practices at the intersection of East and West by bringing together organisation, researchers and wisdom traditions.
