Deepavali is a celebration of life. It is rejoicing our inherent purpose of being, to seek enlightenment. That amidst all the darkness around us, we each carry light within us, from a spark to a raging sun.

As the Lord himself is Light Incarnate, this is not merely a Festival of Lights but a Festival of Enlightenment. May each of you seek to bring out your light within today and dispel the darkness without. As a billion points of light converge, it will set the planet alight.

Happy Deepavali!

Eid Mubarak Eid-ul-Fitr to you and your loved ones. May this blessed Eid bring with it Peace, Love & Happiness for all for the year ahead.

Today is a day for renewal and rejuvenation. It is the day all things spring anew. Today heralds the beginning of a new season while bringing the past one to an end.

While we harvest the fruits of the year gone by, we need now to plan for the year ahead.On this day there is need for both celebration and deliberation. As we rejoice the present, let us reprise the past and realign the future. May we seek Him, see Him and serve Him in all that we do.

The dawning of a new year heralds a new beginning. It is in essence a chance to revisit our goals, to review the year gone past and renew our commitments for the suture.

Clearly, we have been gifted with this life for a purpose. I wish you a year of change and growth. May your life inspire others. May you be the light you were intended to be from the moment you were born. May 2009 be the turning point of your life. May the Lord bless your every step.

Happy New Year!

It has been a glorious ten years since this dream; this vision was conceived and acted upon that has subsequently grown into this vibrant conglomerate of companies and a wonderful family that has evolved within the network of entrepreneurs that we have built. In my life it has always been a practice to establish such goals and objectives and meet these objectives and accomplish the goals within the deadlines that were set. It has been further my practice to set subsequent progressive steps onwards from each deadline, even if the objectives were not completely met. Those of you who have had the opportunity to read ‘In the Sphere of Silence’ will understand what all of this is about.

The issue is that change is not only inevitable and necessary but change is also good. Change is progressive. And if one does not change, then one has begun to die. Hence, following this principle which I have advocated and propagated in many forms and modalities over the years, I set goals that were 5 years apart each time. So when I assumed the role of Managing Director on the Sep 8, 1998, I set a goal to my partners and fellow directors that I would vacate this post by Sep 8, 2003. And thus, I did. However, as we had evolved into a new plane that we had not foreseen, or anyone else, it behoved me to undertake the helm of the far larger entity that had evolved from our very first company. Hence, Sep 8, 2003 QuestNet was born and on and in Dec 8, 2003 the QI Group was born and I took on the role of its MD.

Again I set a 5 year goal that ended on Dec 8, 2008 just last week. And true to my word, I am proud to relinquish this position to the likes of my fellow founder and brother, Joseph ‘Japadas’ Bismark.

Let me please reassure anyone out there, who is labouring under the assumption that I am retiring or leaving, or stepping aside even, I say on to him- ‘Banish the thought’. I will only retire; I believe on the day that my spirit leaves this mortal coil. And there is no retirement from life per se. My life is this company and the people within it, as well as those who are with it across the globe. My purpose in raising Japadas Bismark to this post is to bring a fresh wind of change to the new drive and spirit while I refocus my energies to work on a different plateau, one on a more global scale. To raise this vehicle that we have built jointly on, to serve mankind at a higher level that encompasses a far reaching goal.

We began with the concept of raising oneself to help mankind as manifested in our motto RYTHM. Thus, it is all the more important that I apply this in my own life. And that, this is applied within the group of companies as a benchmark for all to follow. I have set the pace of creating this 5 year window whereby one should progressively keep raising oneself.

It is my purpose here to keep change as a continuous heartbeat or rhythm for the group. If one were to look at the rationale behind the naming of the V, it is about a flock a birds flying aerodynamically. The objective being that one could travel faster, and safer in this formation. Part of this requires the lead bird to change at regular intervals allowing each bird to lead. That is nature’s way.

The last 10 years have been great. And perhaps some might say, it could have been better. My answer to them is very simple - There were a thousand companies that opened their doors in the city of Hong Kong on Sep 8, 1998, statistically. 999 of them are not around……. statistically.

That defines our success, so to speak.

In so far as the future is concerned, QI was born in RYTHM and will continue to serve RYTHM. And I continue to serve it. With the single exception of withdrawing from day to day operations, I am still very much involved in the future, in the vision, and in the purpose that this group stands for.

To my staff, who have worked with an incredibly open and willing heart who have continued to serve the concept of RYTHM over the years, I pledge to you my commitment that I will always be part of this company in one form or another. On a more specific note however, I am still retaining a number of functions within the group, particularly investments, which will answer directly to me, Treasury and the Chairman’s office which will house a group of individuals who will be serving the greater policy matters of the company. Naturally, I will continue to hold the position of the Managing Partner of the V. Of equal importance is that I will be holding the Managing Trustee position for RYTHM Foundation and its associate foundations.

On the training side, I will be spending a lot more time and effort on rebuilding GITA and participating more in setting up and reintroducing my modules from 5 years ago, i.e, TAPS. It is my purpose to turn GITA into a full-fledged university and I am going to commit my time and resources into making that possible. On a final note, I am committed to raising the QI group to a global scale, not just as a group of companies but as a specialised entity per se…. an iconic brand name that should translate into a way of life.

Here is where, I would like to remind all, of the anecdote that gave birth to the concept of RYTHM

This anecdote was told to me when I was still a university student. And it’s one that has been attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. Apparently an individual approached the Mahatma and said to him, “Bapuji (as he was lovingly called), I wish to serve you. I wish to dedicate my life in service to your mission. Please accept me.”

To which Bapu supposedly said, ‘what do you have to offer?’
The man replied, “I am unemployed and penniless.”
To which Bapu’s answer was – Are u educated or do u have a skill?
The man says, “I have none, Bapu.”
And Bapu then literally snapped at him – “Go out, raise yourself, and then come back. And we can talk about serving Mankind.”

This story has always remained at the back of my mind though the decades after school wherein I had worked across many industries and many companies, on to the time that I had started with my other founding directors, this company. Hence, it was easy for me to recall the story and coin the term RYTHM out of these final words of the Mahatma.

RYTHM as a concept has taken on a life of its own. And I will in my own way try to emulate the life of the Mahatma by trying to serve very humbly this concept just as he did to his last breath.

I am sure there are many people out there who are opposing us right now who seem to think they are doing it for the right reasons. But I wish they would be better informed.  For ignorance has been our greatest defeat as Indians. Time and time again. We have lost many great souls, Three Gandhis – Mahatma, Indra and Rajiv, the people who were convinced that they were doing it for the greater good. Sadly India has lost even more over the years.  There is no greater enemy than ignorance. If there are people who are going to combat us on logic on morality, ethics or the law, we welcome them. But please, can I say this, so very humbly, please come well informed. Know who we are. For we certainly will know who you are.

 

 

To my brothers and sisters in India

They say silence is golden but silence is also where truth speaks loudest. I would appeal to all of you to step away from the clamour and the sounds that surround you right now and revert to your inner silence that each of you within you possess.  In that core of silence that I call the sphere.

Sit back and listen.  Let me state to you from my heart to yours, the feelings that I have held within me and refrained from communicating with you about. Let me begin by saying why the silence has been there. In essence, any response from me would have been taken as being inflammatory and even possibly legally binding. As you well know, my people are the most important assets I have. The media and such like have made a big furore about the fact that we have large investments holdings throughout India in land, banks and various other investment portfolios.  Ironically the same media have tried to portray us to be some kind of scam operation.

It has been amazing to me that the reporters who have the intelligence to recognise these assets have not had the intelligence to put together the fact that no scam company would have invested as we have. Furthermore, scam companies do not persevere for ten years or more. Even if a scam company had begun in such a manner, any company that survives ten years definitely cannot be called a scam of any kind. 

We have actually lasted longer today as we head towards our tenth year celebration that has lasted longer than some countries in Eastern Europe.  Have any of these media even checked that we have affiliations with international organisations of repute, any of which can be researched on the internet.   They have been unable to understand that we have been in over a 100 countries around the world in the last 10 years.

Without doing any research whatsoever, we have been put to trial by the media and essentially we’ve been convicted and hung.  So why the silence? Because each time we have tried to voice our side, there has been a cost to be paid.  Do we decide to let the courts do the speaking for us, in particular the Supreme Court?

But this is not what I am here to talk to you about today. I’m here to tell you that India needs to change. And that we are part of this change.  And that you are part of this change.  And historically, change is something that has been bitterly resisted by those who are entrenched within the system.  This is a battle that is basically being fought where we are bringing forward an India that has been virtually unchanged for 50 years. We need a world that is 50 years ahead.

This industry began 100 years ago and has been in this current form as MLM for 50 years. India has fought change at a tremendous cost and unfortunately, is still continuing to do so. But for us this is not just about business. It is our mission.  I am as convinced as I have ever been about the mission, the vision and the purpose for which we started this company all those years ago. Our motto which is Gandhin in its inception as true to today as it has ever been. I say to each and every one of you, we have to raise ourselves because it is only when we raise ourselves can we raise others. But in order to raise ourselves we have to fall. Why are we so afraid of falling? 

We can climb to any pinnacle of success in any field of endeavour there will always be the danger of falling. And there is no clamour anywhere in this world of any note who can say he has never fallen. Can we fall? Will we fall again? Yes. Yes and Yes. But to not climb at all will be the greatest mistake anyone can make. For we can climb and we can fall or we can choose not to climb and never fall for there is nothing to fall from. Or we can climb and reach the top and learn to fly.

My heart goes out to all of you who are now going to trials and tribulations but all I can say to you is between you and I, let us not give up, let us not derail for India needs to change. For India needs you, for India needs us. For India needs the world. And the world needs India. Don’t falter and if we fall. Let’s climb again.

Companies are like human beings. Just like humans are born, grow and perish a natural death, so do companies.  The percentage of companies which have survived the last 100 years is very close to the percentage of centenarians in the human race. Therefore, uniquely, companies like IBM which has been around for half a century, Tupperware which has done a century, GE, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, have been through their own ups and downs. Some of them have come to the brink of extinction and turned back while others climbed the scales of success and dropped to their current state…just like human life.

Our first decade is leading into the second. For those of us who have lived it this past decade with the company, it feels like almost a lifetime. It has taken us from the depths of chaos and controversy to the heights of spinning almost unimaginable success, and both-- the heights and the depths —have left us wiser.

The question is not so much what we have done so far, but where do we go from here. Despite the various changes that we have undergone over the years--changes like those which are undergone by mountain streams becoming small rivers.  In reality, the river is not the same as it was a few minutes ago and yet, it is changeless. From the outside looking in, we as a company, as an entity and as a network, may look the same, but we have grown and continued to grow and we continue to change. Not at the same rapid pace of the mountain stream which we were in our early years, but at a slower, steady pace of a river that is coming into its own.

We are now a river with many tributaries—all flowing into this mainstream which we hope and aspire will one day become the mighty Amazon of companies on Earth.  Why? Not because we are more efficiently run or that we are more effectively managed or even because our marketing skills are unparalleled. Not because of any of these!  It is simply because our heart is in the right place and therefore our vision too, which makes us all share a common spirit —from our most junior employee to the Board of Directors, from the networker who signed in yesterday, from a V Partner, to even our suppliers, who have come to accept who we are; and many of you, who share this powerful dream.

Just like the late Dr. Martin Luther King had said, I have a dream.

I have a dream that one day we will change the future of the human race.  These words may sound grandiose and have been echoed many times in the past by many great people. Yet, they hold true till today. 

If it is dreams that will define who we can become, then let us dream far and wide; let us dream to the dizzying heights of raising mankind to the ultimate purpose of living in harmony, in peace and in love—as envisioned by almost every philosophy and religion since beginning of time.

So how do we do this? Let us begin with little steps. The beginning is not by creating more efficient systems but rather by more effective caring, by better concern to delivering customer service to every networker; and equally by appreciation and support for the very long serving, very first people who remain steadfast till today. It begins with better dialogue and more effective communication, not just between the company and the network but also between every leader and his network. For, it is in greater communication that we have greater understanding. Instead of anger, we should have appreciation for everyone’s efforts, and the understanding required towards each other’s mistakes.  For, ultimately we are but only one family. Whether it be with the V family or the QI family or the family of nations—because in the end, we are all the family of Mankind.

Let truth shine, let love bind, and let us arise and awake into this new dawn, this new decade, this new phase—the next decade.

 

Opening quote of my new book, Sleep Only Gets in the Way:


“Heaven, when it is about to place a great responsibility on a man, always first tests his resolution, wears out his sinews and bones with toil. Exposes his body to starvation, subjects him to extreme poverty, frustrates his efforts so as to stimulate his mind, toughen his nature and make good his deficiencies. Men for the most part can mend their ways only after they made mistakes. Only when they are frustrated in mind and in their deliberations can they stand up anew. Only when their intentions become visible on their countenances and audible in their voices can they be understood by others. As a rule, a state without law abiding families and trustworthy Gentlemen on the one hand, and on the other, without the threat of external aggression, will perish. Only then do we realize that anxiety and distress lead to life and that ease and comfort end in death.”

—Mencius, Book VI Kao-Tzu
Part II, 15

EVERY PERSON ought to have a great vision. You have to get to where you want to be by not accepting what ever has taken place but by often questioning the current state of things.

Did you know that one can create a vision in a 'future backwards' manner, rather than the conventional 'present forward' manner. Try it out. You will come out successful. Companies like Motorola and Toyota have emerged successful after implementing this.

Great vision always reserves room for providence and lends itself to the power of emergence. If you have thought through how to execute the vision in fullest detail; you probably do not kow that you do not know. Great vision is an apparition of the future - not the future itself. Even when you lose your sight, there is no need to give up you vision.

We all have with us the potential for greatness or for failure. Both possibilites are an innate part of our character. Whether we reach for the stars or plunge to the depths of despair depends in large measure on how we manage our positive and negative potential. It is doubtful that, if left unchecked, your virtues will rage out of control. Unfortunately, faults have a way of multiplying until they eventually choke out your good quailities and more importantly your past good deeds. The surest way to control your faults is to attack them moment they appear.

Move on people; The world is waiting for you.

There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all, i.e. the voice of conscience, even though such obedience may cause many a bitter tear and a separation from all that you have held as dear as life itself. But this obedience is the law of our being. We all have a little voice inside us that guides us. It tells us bitter truths that are hard to accept. But I think that if we shut out all the noise and clutter from our lives and listen to that voice, it will tell us the right thing to do.

In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “Could we but evoke the oneness in stillness, we would be able to carry it within us in whatever went on in the world without. As a deep and awakened awareness from within, when acknowledged as ever present, much would be changed, and liberated indeed would we be.”

All men and women are born, live, suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things and what we do to make them come about. We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die, nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.

A man's dreams are an index to his greatness. Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal. Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself.

Go forward and make your dreams come true.

A woman has strengths that amaze men. She can handle trouble and carry heavy burdens. She holds happiness, love and opinions. She smiles when she feels like crying, cries when she is happy and laughs when she is afriad. Her love is unconditional! And her greatest strength is....she sometimes forgets what she is worth...

A message to networkers everywhere

Extract of a speech given on India's 60th anniversary of Independence by Vijay Eswaran

Indianness is a spirit and it lends itself to a myriad of interpretations—from banal inanities, to world class achievements. But the essence of the spirit is captured in the lyric, Saare jahan se achcha, Hindustan hamara…Whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you do, be proud to be Indian.

The wars of today are won and lost long before a single shot is fired. The real power today is economic strength. Iraq and Afghanistan were lost long before the advent of troops. The troops merely helped to complete the debacle. The mighty Soviet Union with its numerous satellite states fell without a single shot. As did the monolithic Berlin Wall. Whatever happened to the impenetrable Iron Curtain? The UN has been effectively muzzled, first through GATT and then again by WTO. NATO has been overshadowed by the EU. Even the military might of China and US quaver before the OIC or APEC.  Germany, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and even city states like Hong Kong and Singapore exert great influence over global affairs, well beyond their military might due to economic clout.

India is not bound by Kargil and Kanyakumari. It is a consciousness and a concept that spans 4000 years. It has permeated the planet. We are felt but not feared in distant lands stretching from the Pacific Isles to Poland, and from Jamaica to Japan. We have won our victories not in the battle fields of blood and gore but rather in the minds and hearts of man. Our supposed ‘assault weapons’ that manifest, in part, are our music and culture, our creative arts, philosophy and spirituality. Yoga and Ayurveda have spread all over the world today.

This heritage is embodied in our spirit. Our key strategic weapon—the oneness of man as envisioned by Gandhi: casteless, classless, colourless, creedless and countryless. The skirmishes have begun long ago, as the first Indians left the Motherland to settle in the far corners of the world. Let the battle be engaged, for we shall prevail. This is our Millennium! This is India and I am Indian.