Innovative Exercise & Exercising Innovation

Innovation has been called as the eternal life-saving sanjeevani (medicine) of many a corporations. Some have been able to successfully build it as a company wide culture whilst many have somehow scripted only boardroom innovations.
If we go back into mankind’s evolution then innovation has been both an autonomous function at the cellular level where adaptations, survival instincts got developed and then again there were conscious innovations at the mind and conscience level.

Modern management deploys several tools for fostering innovations such as brainstorming, brain tree, blue oceans (reduce, raise, create, eliminate), out of box thinking, some esoteric epistemology tools.

However in Vedic Scriptures, there was a beautiful method imparted for exercising oneself in the practice of innovation such that it becomes natural response.

There is a mention of “Adbhuta” or deliberately looking for wonderment in simple things. This would then be further classified as

1. “ascharyavathvadathi”….wonderment in speech.

Biologist Mark Pagel says “each of you possesses a powerful, dangerous, subversive tool that natural selection has ever deviced. It is a piece of neural-audio technology to rewire other people’s mind. I am talking about “language” which allows you to implant a thought from your mind to someone else’s mind and they can attempt to do the same. It uses a form of telemetry somewhat on lines of remote control which uses an infrared and in this case it uses sound”.

This profound explanation shows how careful one has to be in his speech.

With speech delivered with intonation, grammar, and wrapped in purity, peace, compassion, empathy…one can experience the spark in the listener’s eyes. As Saint Kabir says “aisi waani boliye, Mann kaa aapaa khoye; aap tan sheetal karein…Auron ko sukh hoye”.

2. AscharyavathPaschyati…wonderment in visuals.

Seeing same things daily but differently. Look at the everyday things but try and scan or train thoughts around its form (shape, size, material) and formless (it’s quality). Or having interesting experiments around deriving different metaphorical connection between one thing and the quality of another thing. Example: looking at sunset and connecting it with sleep. So telling oneself the sun is going to sleep. Or looking at sky and connecting it with being the earth and, sky possessing gravity which is pushing one close to earth rather than earth having gravity and pulling it downward. Or looking at same art piece and interpreting it differently in a company contest.

3. AscharyavathSrunoti…wonderment in sound

Hearing people very intently is itself a great gift a person can give to somebody. In fact as we have grown to current form, we have lost humongous ability to listen. Listening to the different music forms and appreciating them by closely and intently listening. In any soundscape (soundscape is the co-existence of different sound in any given context) try and distinguish different sounds.

Such was the emphasis on the Adbhuta (the deliberate attempt and effort to see and look for wonderment) that it even got included in the Navrasas.

If one exercises Maths, he becomes good at Maths,
If one exercises speech, he becomes a good speaker,
If one exercise muscle, he becomes fit

Similarly if one exercises Adbhuta, he becomes innovative.

Appreciating Innovative Exercises and exercising innovation.