Educating for wisdom in the Anthropocene: Rethinking business schools through Indian spiritual traditions

Business schools today face a profound challenge: how to prepare leaders for a world in which the stakes are nothing less than the survival of societies and the planet. Technical skills and strategic acumen are no longer sufficient. What is required is wisdom, an integration of knowledge, ethics, and inner maturity that can guide action in the Anthropocene.

This article is a summary of a chapter I co-authored with Jagdish Rattanani. The chapter is titled ‘Embedding Indian Spiritual Traditions in Business School Curriculum’. It explores how Indian spiritual traditions (especially Advaita Vedanta) can enrich management education through a framework of five interlinked pillars: Ṛtam, Dharma, Karma, Sādhana, and Ānanda. The chapter was recently published in the Palgrave Macmillan volume ‘Spirituality and Business in the Anthropocene: Insights from Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism and Existential Humanism’.

The limits of current management education

The world we inhabit is at once deeply connected and dangerously fragile. We are living in the Anthropocene, a time when human actions decisively shape the planet’s climate, ecosystems, and future. Yet the institutions that train our leaders, especially business schools, often operate as if the challenges before us could be solved by better tools, sharper analytics, and cleverer strategies.

Management education, in its mainstream form, has become a training ground for the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of business: how to optimise resources, how to compete effectively, and how to maximise shareholder value. But in the process, it has lost sight of the more fundamental question: why. Why does business exist? Why do we act as we do? Why should leaders care for more than profits?

This failure is not without consequences. Over the past few decades, we have witnessed repeated corporate scandals, systemic financial crises, and a widening chasm of inequality. The public trust in business leaders remains low, despite the proliferation of ethics courses and sustainability modules. The heart of the problem, as we argue, lies in the absence of an inner motivation, an inspiration to act not merely out of compliance or fear, but from a deeper alignment with purpose, meaning, and responsibility.

As Dana wrote as early as 1947, ‘Education at its best is ennobling, purifying, uplifting. Education should inspire faith, devotion and cooperation… What are we living and striving for?’ This timeless question has been eclipsed in the chase for placements, rankings, and technical expertise.

Why spirituality? Why now?

Our book chapter, published in the Spirituality and Business in the Anthropocene volume, proposes a different path. We argue that management education must embrace spiritual wisdom, not as an optional elective, but as a core foundation.

Spirituality here is not sectarian doctrine. It is the lived recognition that human beings and organisations are deeply interconnected with each other, with society, and with the cosmos. Indian philosophical traditions, especially Advaita Vedanta, have long articulated this worldview. They remind us that to live ethically is not merely to follow rules but to act in ways that honour the interdependence of life itself.

This perspective offers a much-needed counterbalance to today’s fragmented and short-termist approaches. As Rattanani (2023) observed, “In the absence of a fundamental change, all other actions will be patchwork fixes turning green into another mantra like GDP.”

The five pillars of Indian wisdom

We frame this integration through what we call the ‘Five Pillars of Indian Wisdom’. These are not abstract concepts but practical orientations for education and leadership in the Anthropocene.

​​Ṛtam – The grand order.​​ Ṛtam is the all-pervading cosmic order that harmonises diversity into unity. It is both stable and dynamic, revealing the interconnectedness of life. Teaching Ṛtam in business schools helps students move from a mindset of separateness, ‘me versus the world’, to an appreciation of inter-being. They begin to see corporate decisions not as isolated moves but as ripples within a living web of interrelations.​

Dharma – The ethical order. Dharma sustains balance and justice. It is not compliance with a code but the discernment of how to act rightly amid ambiguity. The Mahabharata describes dharma as ‘finer than the finest edge of a sword’, pointing to its subtlety. For future leaders, this means developing the capacity to navigate dilemmas, balancing competing goods rather than defaulting to profit maximisation.

Karma – Action and consequence. Karma reminds us that every action has consequences, visible and invisible, shaping both the actor and the environment. It is not fate but radical responsibility. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad tells us, ‘Even as one acts, so does one become.’ In education, karma reframes results-orientation: what matters is not control over outcomes but lucidity in action, courage in effort, and maturity in acceptance.

Sadhana – Practice as transformation. The fourth pillar of our framework, Sādhana, highlights a profound difference between skill acquisition and inner transformation. Business schools excel at the former: mastering analytics, crafting strategies, using tools. But Indic traditions remind us that true growth requires practices that reshape the mind, emotions, and character.

Derived from the Sanskrit sādh, ‘to complete or perfect’, sādhana refers to spiritual disciplines that foster maturity. In Advaita Vedanta, this includes śravaṇa (listening), manana (reflecting), and nididhyāsana (deep contemplation). These are not occasional techniques but lifelong commitments or spiritual exercises. They develop discernment (viveka), dispassion (vairāgya), equanimity (titīkṣā), trust (śraddhā), and focused attention (samādhāna).

In modern pedagogy, sādhana can take the form of reflective journaling, mindfulness anchored in ethics, or experiential assignments that challenge habitual patterns. For example, at SPJIMR, students mentor children from underprivileged communities, confronting realities that break narrow self-interest. The purpose is not charity but a transformative realisation of shared humanity.

Without sādhana, spirituality risks being reduced to ‘McMindfulness’, stripped of depth and easily co-opted by capitalism. With sādhana, students learn that leadership is not a role but a practice, an ongoing refinement of being.

Ānanda: Flourishing beyond the self. The fifth pillar, Ānanda, is the culmination of the Indian Wisdom framework. Often translated as ‘joy’ or ‘bliss’, its true meaning is more expansive. Ānanda is not only individual happiness but the flourishing of the whole, the outcome of an alignment of self with the cosmic order.

The Taittirīya Upaniṣad declares: ‘From Ānanda are all beings born; by Ānanda they live; into Ānanda they enter.’ This vision insists that genuine well-being cannot be pursued in isolation. It arises only when individuals, organisations, and societies align with Ṛtam, act with Dharma, embody Karma, and cultivate Sādhana.

For business schools, this means rethinking success. Placement salaries or market share are not final markers. The deeper measure is whether graduates contribute to organisations that nurture trust, justice, ecological balance, and human dignity. Ānanda shifts the focus from ‘doing well’ to ‘doing good together’.

Bringing spirituality into the curriculum

How, then, can these pillars be woven into the MBA experience? The challenge is not to add token electives but to re-weave the ethos of the institution. At SPJIMR, this has meant:

In each case, the pedagogy moves from information to transformation. As we note in the chapter, ‘For such an initiative to be effective, it needs commitment by the Dean and faculty to embed this vision at the heart of the school, not as a mere marketing cherry on the cake.’

The integration also requires courage. In a world where market metrics dominate, holding space for contemplation and values can feel countercultural. Yet without it, business education risks producing efficient managers who lack wisdom.

Toward wise leadership in the Anthropocene

Ultimately, this framework of ‘Five Pillars of Indian Wisdom’ is not about importing exotic concepts into modern classrooms. It is about recovering the forgotten essence of education itself: to form human beings capable of living wisely.

As the Bhagavad Gita says, the true yogi ‘delights in the welfare of all beings’. In the Anthropocene, this is not poetic idealism; it is practical necessity. The future of the planet may well rest, as one scholar quipped, ‘in the hands of MBAs’. If so, then business schools carry a grave responsibility: to cultivate leaders who recognise that their flourishing is inseparable from the flourishing of all.

This is the promise of the Five Pillars: Ṛtam, Dharma, Karma, Sādhana, and Ānanda. Together, they offer a map for re-humanising business education, re-orienting leadership, and re-imagining prosperity in an interconnected world. As Swami Dayananda Saraswati wrote: ‘All that is here [this entire universe] is one intelligent order… We are never away from that one intelligent order. To act with this awareness is to act wisely, ethically, and compassionately.