The Sense of Beauty:

To do this yoga, one must have, at least a little, the sense of beauty. If one does not, one misses one of the most important aspects of the physical world.

There is this beauty, this dignity of soul- a thing about which I am very sensitive. It is a thing that moves me and evokes in me a great respect always.

Yes, this beauty of soul that is visible in the face, this kind of dignity, this harmony of integral realisation. When the soul becomes visible in the physical, it gives this dignity, this beauty, this majesty, the majesty that comes from one's being .the Tabernacle. Then, even things that have no particular beauty put on a sense of eternal beauty, of the eternal beauty.

I have seen in this way faces that pass froin one extreme to the other in a flash. Someone has this kind of beauty and harmony, this sense of divine dignity in the body; then suddenly there comes the perception of an obstacle, a difficulty, and the sense of fault, of indignity- and then, a sudden deformation in the appearance, a kind of decomposition of the features! And yet it is the same face. It was like a flash of lightning, and it was frightful. That kind of hideousness of torment and degradation -what has been trans- lated in religions as "the torment of sin" -that gives you a face indeed! Even features that are beautiful in themselves become horrible. And it was the same features, the same person.
Then I saw how horrible the sense of sin is, how much it belongs to the world of falsehood.

~THE MOTHER

Journal of Business Ethics

July 2006, Volume 66, Issue 4, pp 357–375

Nurturing the Whole Person: The Ethics of Workplace Spirituality in a Society of Organizations

·                                              Mathew L. Sheep

Article

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-006-0014-5

Cite this article as:

Sheep, M.L. J Bus Ethics (2006) 66: 357. doi:10.1007/s10551-006-0014-5

·                                              38Citations

·                                              1.3kViews

Abstract

In a world which can be increasingly described as a “society of organizations,” it is incumbent upon organizational researchers to account for the role of organizations in determining the well-being of societies and the individuals that comprise them. Workplace spirituality is a young area of inquiry with potentially strong relevance to the well-being of individuals, organizations, and societies. Previous literature has not examined ethical dilemmas related to workplace spirituality that organizations might expect based upon the co-existence of multiple ethical work climates, nor has previous literature accounted for the relevance of the cosmopolitan (external, societal) source of moral reasoning in the ethical treatment of workplace spirituality. The purpose of this paper is to address these gaps by articulating two such ethical dilemmas related to workplace spirituality: the “quiet desperation” dilemma and the instrumentality dilemma. Moreover, I propose two theoretical contexts that foster “both-and” rather than “either-or” thinking, thereby mitigating (moderating) the relationships between climate combinations and conflictual aspects of the ethical dilemmas. For the “quiet desperation” dilemma, I propose a person–organization fit perspective to emphasize diversity of individual preferences instead of a managerially prescribed uniformity of spirituality. For the instrumentality dilemma, I propose a multiparadigm approach to workplace spirituality research to avoid the privileging of one research interest over another (e.g., instrumentality, individual fulfillment, societal good). I conclude with suggestions for future research.

Keywords

workplace spiritualitysocial systemsethical work climateethical dilemmaperson–organization fitmultiparadigm research