Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram

Satyam, Shivam Sundaram

Satya literally means truth, reality. It also refers to a virtue in Indian religions, referring to being truthful in one's thought, speech and action. In Yoga,satya is one of five yamas, the virtuous restraint from falsehood and distortion of reality in one's expressions and actions.^[6]It is a Sanskrit word that is also interpreted as "absolute truth".

Shivam, means virtue – all that is good, all that is valuable, all that is the most precious in you, the ultimate good. The man who comes to experience the truth starts living the truth immediately. There is no other alternative. His living the truth is shivam. Shivam means truth in action, truth in your life, truth in your love, truth in your friendship, truth in your eyes, and truth in your heart. Shivam is the action of truth; truth itself is the center of the cyclone. But if you experience the truth, the cyclone around you becomes shivam. It becomes pure godliness. A man of truth is the only proof that the world is divine. No argument can prove that the world is divine.

Sundram means beauty. So this is the mystic trinity: satyam, the truth; shivam, the good, the divine;and sundram, the beauty.
You have seen the beauty of the flowers, you have seen the beauty of the stars, you have seen the beauty of a bird on the wing, you have seen beauties upon beauties of sunsets and sunrises.
But the greatest beauty is to see the totality, the intensity of the mystic. That is the greatest flowering in existence of consciousness itself. It is available only to those who are humble enough to receive it, who are not living a closed life of fear, of paranoia, but who are living a life of love, with all the windows open, and are ready to go with life wherever it leads. These receptive souls are the only real seekers in the world. These receptive souls are blessed with their experience of sundram: the beautiful rose that is opening in the heart of the mystic. These three words are so unique, so incomparable, there is nothing parallel to them.

Truth is the experience, shivam is the action that comes out of the experience, and beauty is the flowering of consciousness of the man who has experienced truth.

As I read this, for me applying it to OD (organization design) or in systems it translates to

Simple, Smart, Safe.

Truth has to be simple, ingeniously simple. If a design is too complicated it cannot have the properties of Satya. Whether it is the strategy of the organization or its values, or the work process or management processes or policies that are in place the satya must be simple, easily understood. Truth is, that most strategies are not clear, not understood, vague and as a result lose out in its essence of Satya.

Shivam is the smartness with which systems and processes and people work together. A great example of Shivam is my apple laptop. It works of the simple design so smoothly and seamlessly. It is very intuitive and one does not need a user manual. Hence it is very easy to move quickly and effortlessly around the various modules. Unless the design is built around the user interface then only can one experience Shivam.

Finally, to pull it together the design has to be inherently attractive. It must be exciting, engaging in use. The parts must connect with the whole. Then the product gives a total experience, a fullness of outcome.

Sat-chitta-ananda’ has the same meaning as ‘satyam shivam sundaram’. Sat is truthfulness, chitta or Shiva is consciousness and ananda or sundaram is the inner happiness.

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Extracted from Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

Pirsig examines the modern pursuit of "Pure Truths", claiming it derives from the work of early Greek philosophers who were establishing the concept of truth in opposition to the force of "The Good". He argues that although rational thought may find a truth (or The Truth) it may never be fully and universally applicable to each and every individual's experience. Therefore, what is needed is an approach to viewing life that is more varied and inclusive and has a wider range of application. He makes a case that originally the Greeks did not distinguish between "Quality" and "Truth" – they were one and the same – and that the divorce was, in fact, artificial (though needed at the time) and is now a source of much frustration and unhappiness in the world, particularly overall dissatisfaction with modern life.

Pirsig aims towards a perception of the world that embraces both sides, the rational and the romantic. This means encompassing "irrational" sources of wisdom and understanding as well as science, reason and technology. In particular, this must include bursts of creativity and intuition that seemingly come from nowhere and are not (in his view) rationally explicable. Pirsig seeks to demonstrate that rationality and Zen-like "being in the moment" can harmoniously coexist. He suggests such a combination of rationality and romanticism can potentially bring a higher quality of life.