________________
"Sure, correct”, R replies “When the Lord created society, it was actually based on four kinds of people: Ascetic man, ascetic lady, man in the household, and lady in the household, and it is agreed upon in Jainism that not every soul can live as an ascetic at all times, because that is extreme and only for people who have already acquired that disposition. So, you can be part of the worldly life, but do things that will gradually bring you closer to the possibility that one day you will be able to lead the ascetic life that may bring you the wanted liberation of the soul. So, yes, I can live a family life, do business, look after many things, but what is important from a Jainist perspective is that I do it as good duty as I can, but without my emotions in there. The philosophy of Karma is more with thinking and intention, rather than with the action per se. That is why Jainism gives us the example of a Lotus flower, with roots in the mud, but yet remaining so pure. When you live like a lotus, you live in the worldly part, yes, but the worldly part, the mud say, should not be inside you. So that is how doing business is conceived in Jainism, but it is not mentioned on my site. It is not necessary in Jainism that everybody follows that path exactly, but there is one thing in Jainism on which we all agree, namely to not kill, and harm as little as possible, to not lie, not cheat at all, and these are the basic principles of our company. So, I have done many things for which a CEO in a public company would be fired, namely for not looking purely at the bottom line or profit of the company. For example, this is ten years ago, we have a huge land, a forest, in Goa, India, and the government wanted to turn that forest from green zone to construction zone, for the expansion of the city, which would have made 100 million euro. But we told our partner not to do it, that we were not ready to do this, because that would have meant killing so many trees. So, we did not take the money, and sold it and let go. The reason was ecology, animals in the forest, killing trees. Our business call was based on that, but if I had been the CEO of a public company, I most likely could not have taken that decision, because I would have needed to go for the best financial result for the company"
“So, do you see it as a benefit then that your company is more family like, in which you are surrounded by peers who subscribe to more or less the same values?"
"Oh, definitely, if I would be running a public company, I would probably have had to resign, or bend my principles, one of these would have happened for sure".
"But working in Europe, and all over the world, with partners from different cultures, that might pose dilemmas now and then, I suppose”.
“Yes, I'll tell you. We have a factory in Thailand, and we have one in China. I am ready to pay extra salary for them to have vegetarian meals, we do not want our people to have non-vegetarian meals in our factories. In Thailand it worked, maybe because they are closer to Hinduism and buddhism in Thailand. In China, however, it did not work, they did not want to. So the question is, what to do, this is the dilemma I face. I cannot do something about it today, the factory is there and I cannot just close it, but we are now building a new factory in the middle of India, so the day that factory is fully operational, I will close the one in China. One reason for doing this is also the high
362
