Does Religion and Business Mix?

Living and working in Asia I have often encountered a unique culture of mixing business with religion. I have walked into offices where I see photo frames of God on a wall, or idols of God placed in offices, or an alter and sometime religious scriptures on photo frame. I have experienced offices where staffs took a break for prayers while on work. I have heard businessmen utter the name of God while discussing business. Some even take vouches in the name of God to conduct business. In one instance I even met up with a man who had made his patron God as the president of the company and he worked as the vice president.

Does business and religion mix, I had asked myself? It makes sense to know this amalgamation more, because I have known people who were put-off by this very mixture and walked away to do business elsewhere. The reason was not with the particular culture, but simply a culture which make one feel uncomfortable dealing with. It works as a cultural turn-off. 
It is a general perception in Asian cultures that money making is considered necessary, but it is not necessarily righteous. This could be a taken as a blunt statement, but I say this as a synthesis from a collective social feeling of the masses, that profit making is possible only by immoral methods. People who have money thus fall prey to a debilitating dilemma that they are representing immoral people. As a consequence, the largest and plushest temple of religion we encounter in the region are the outcome of the biggest donation from businessmen. Most foundation under a temple or a church is run on funds from philanthropist businessmen. Are these businessmen bent on pleasing the Gods to find their solace or cover their acts? Is this an acknowledgment, that business represents some sort of immorality?

Irrespective of a brewing concoction between money and morality, I was overwhelmingly convinced right from my university days that I would go for a career of my own and would work for myself. I will own a business. In fact, financial freedom was the first freedom I craved for before anything. I had picked up the word entrepreneurship then. It was a new word to me and it made me think. I remember I had discussed this among friends, but they did not seem a lot impressed. Most of them were inclined to follow the prevailing trend, seek out a good job and follow their peers. It is certainly safer to be doing what others have done. It involves lesser risk. In fact, for Indians, self-employment or entrepreneurship had never been a career option. I remember an incident published in a local daily. When at a convocation ceremony the university vice-chancellor was informed by the press that “his university is being known to give out the highest number of doctorates degrees”, in response he had said “he never knew which one of them will show light to the rest of the society , so he awarded as many as possible”. I had cut out that piece of the newspaper and kept it in my file. To me, his words hinted at entrepreneurship and I had caught on to it as an idea then.

As the world evolved over the two decades, everyone suddenly became a brand. I am reminded of my start-up incident where a venture I was prospecting was taking shape. It opened an opportunity for me to become a producer and manufacturer. I didn’t have to go through the process of physical travel, and yet tasted my first big success. A company in Turkey had contacted me to produce a specific product for their market. I had the chemistry to make it but lacked the resources to produce it in bulk. To do the work I sought help from my contact in South Africa who co-owned a factory in China.  The next few months passed sharing notes and updates. We spoke over Skype and viewed the process live. In six months, I transacted my first physical business, without having to meet any of the parties. This was outsourcing in a time when the phrase was not so common. The power of the internet freed me from the need to search for a home, an office, much more a factory. It did put me on a path of wandering, but of a different kind. My thoughts went back to the Buddha once again as a wandering monk. He never had a home, nor stayed in one place, but connected with the web of life and came up with dictum which hold steadfast even today.

My religion did not influence me here, but I felt my zeal to be an entrepreneur took me close to religion. Religion to me is nothing but "a way to live" and my ventures provided it to me.

Today when you walk into any country, the thoroughfare screams with banners of new business, money and development. Rich and money laden people projected in the media as champions. No longer there is any expressed concern about whether one could pursue profit without sacrificing moral character. Such worries appear to have diminished as the traditional culture is being challenged by a resurgent economic culture. To critics who decry capitalism as a foreign entity threatening to erode traditional values, lives of an entrepreneurs serve as example how they have transformed society. True entrepreneurs are true philanthropist too, and in their giving they find their religion.