Conversations With Ananda — Ch. 22, Vasanta Weber

Vasanta served for many years as a general consultant for the Ananda businesses. His job involved helping the managers and employees find better ways to do business while growing spiritually themselves. (Photo: 2000s)

Q: Tell us a little about your background in business.

Vasanta: I graduated in 1970 from the University of Utah with a degree in marketing and went to work for Firestone. I managed two stores in Salt Lake City, and I learned about retail management, cash flow, and personnel. I did pretty well, but I was just twenty-nine, and they said I was too young for a supervisor’s job, so I started looking around. I went to work for Ashland Oil, and we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I worked in sales, and then I transferred to their oil company, Valvoline, and worked in Southern California for five or six years as a sales rep. I was a mass merchandiser for a while, and when I left I was district sales manager for Southern California, Nevada, Hawaii, and Arizona, with nine or ten people working for me. But I finally decided I’d had enough with the commute.

We’d been coming up to Ananda, and I was real happy to move up here and get out of L.A. I liked marketing, but I didn’t like what I had to do to be successful in the conventional business world. It was almost like bribing the customers. The relationships were awful, and you had to take a throwaway approach to the employees. You couldn’t work with people. You would put somebody in a job, and if they did it, fine and good, but if not you’d get rid of them and find somebody else. It was all based on performance and the bottom line, and I didn’t like that, so I was real happy to get out.

Q: What kind of relationships do you have with the people you’re working with now?

Vasanta: The main part of my job is dealing with personnel. People tend to move from job to job within the Ananda community, whenever it seems like a change would be beneficial for them. It’s very different from the oil business. We look at an individual’s special attunement, because every business is different, and each job needs a different kind of person. At Ananda Country Products, for example, we’ll often try to fill a job with somebody who needs a break to do something that’s not too hectic, just bottling oils and packing incense. That’s a very therapeutic place to be.

Q: Quite a few mothers seem to work there.

Vasanta: They do very well there. They can work the hours that are convenient for them, and it’s a great job. When I first moved here I did it for six months, and I loved it. I would fill these little bottles and pack the incense, and it gave me a break from what I’d been doing. Then, after six months, I was ready to do something else.

Often the new people will get hired at Earth Song Cafe, right out of the postulant training program, and learning to work hard in a busy restaurant teaches them a lot. At Earth Song everyone needs to do his or her part during every shift, and people end up forming close bonds. For spiritual growth, Earth Song is an incredible place to work.

Q: I’ve talked to people who said they loved it.

Vasanta: The hours and the work are demanding, but people seem to glow after they’ve been there a while. They form friendships, and there’s a genuine camaraderie.

Some people think, “I’ll come to Ananda and sit under a tree and meditate all day.” And that’s just not our path. If anybody at Ananda’s doing that, I don’t know who they are. In this day and age, people have to work to earn a living. And the reason we have a place like Earth Song is so people can learn to work hard and serve others while maintaining a focus and calmness. In fact, that’s a central teaching of yoga, “calm, God‑reminding activity,” as Paramhansa Yogananda used to say.

If you’re packing incense, it’s easier to keep your mind centered, but when you’re facing dirty dishes and customers waiting to be served, it’s a different challenge. That’s why we have that business, so people can learn to work and keep their mind focused on God in a relaxed but high‑energy way.

Q: How do people make the adjustment?

Vasanta: I’ll give you an example. A woman started working at Earth Song, and she did not want to be there, but she felt she needed the experience, so she stayed even though she was having a heck of a hard time. I knew she had really made it, and that it was time for her to move on, when she started smiling at the customers and she actually told me a joke. The other people will all help out when you’re just starting. People work at Earth Song for a while, and they develop good attitudes and energy, and pretty soon everybody wants to hire them.

 

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