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.

In embracing rejection, you embrace yourself because ultimately there is no single person out there who has the power to move you or change you. Only you possess this. Hence, individuals or groups that reject you per se are themselves of no consequence. What is of consequence is the lesson learnt therein. The greater the rejection, the higher the mountain. If one were to look at oneself as a mountain climber, getting angry at the mountain is ludicrous. The greater the challenge, the more there is to clear.

So just as a mountain climber looks for the next mountain you will need to embrace your next rejection.  The only thing that you would not want to do is to repeat the mistake without correction. If the same mistake defeats you continuously then it is not the incidents, nor the mistakes that are at fault, but you are.  Embracing rejection without self analysis is defeatism. Self analysis makes a difference. Hence, it is about planning and preparing that makes a difference.  A rejection gone by unanalysed is a rejection lost in time. Which is why the post mortem of every rejection (through practise of Sphere of Silence) is crucial to your next stage. 

For me, my morning practise of the Sphere of Silence allows me this unique introspection where I can fit the pieces of the jigsaw of the person that I am and since I am continuously evolving, of the person that I am becoming.  Most people who have spoken to me about rejection, ask,” why me?” As if they have been handpicked for this pain! For this dismal experience they feel they have undergone was orchestrated by the lord himself.  But ultimately we are the architects of our own rejections. I do not mean that we are expecting or designing our own defeat but that we need to plan and prepare for both rejection and acceptance in the same manner.  And acceptance merely affirms a thought process and ability of a strategy. A rejection merely challenges you. So change it. And if pride has no role to play it becomes that much easier to deal it .

 

Rejection by Vijay Eswaran

Rejection is a central platform of all networking endeavour. Anyone who doesn’t understand why rejection is such a powerful and yet intricate tool of learning does not really understand networking. Take the word 'networking'. Ultimately it’s about working a net. If you see a spider building a cobweb, in essence that’s where the term net/web originated from. It’s a concept we have pulled from nature per se.

First the spider pulls one single thread from point A to Point B. And this is the most difficult most, strenuous, most daring, more imperilled venture by the staid spider. Because it is one thread and hanging by that single thread the spider tries to span an expanse of space. And generally it fails about 99 times before connecting the thread. And because its so tenuous, it breaks again about 99 times. The actual percentage of success is about 1%.

But the web itself upon completion can be an extremely powerful and extremely intricate construction. In nature, there is nothing that comes close. Man, despite all technological progress cannot match the intricacy and strength of a single cobweb even today. The strength of a single spider thread is still far stronger than the strongest steel cable known to man, if one were to measure it proportionately. Hence, it is the ideal example to use in this field of business/networking.

The first thread fails 99 times out of 100. But yet, this is the basis of the entire network that is yet to come and it will be the strongest thread that spans that space. Upon that single thread being achieved the spider goes back to its centre and then drops again to create another thread. Hence, you eventually see the entire cobweb over a period of time. Now how does this  affect the term rejection?

The spider has no ego, it has no pride. It has no intellect in terms of counting how many times it fails. It is focussed on the objective and keeps on striving and trying till it's objective is reached. It can only focus on one thread at a time. But this is how the most complex, intricate, dynamic networks are built.  The only thing that differentiates us from the spider is this concept of pride/ego/self awareness/social intelligence.

Hence, you would find that some of the most successful networkers per se, who have been able to completely build huge networks, i.e, 50,000/80,000/ 120,000 people, they have done so because they have never looked beyond the next thread/person that they are building upon. This so called simplistic approach is so powerful because there is no expectation, there is no pride in achievement, there is only the next step forward.  So why this fear of rejection? Rejection does not demean you. It does not deride you. It does not deny you. It certainly doesn’t defeat you.  It doesn’t even defy you.  So why let a single rejection or a 100 rejections stop you.

In the words of a good friend of mine, who is a great networker, "Rejection is just another gust of wind on my face. It cools my brow and is gone in the next instant. If I know it not, how can it affect me?"

Through rejection though, there is so much to be learnt. In every rejection there is a new lesson.  In every rejection, there is a different map of who you are internally, different part of a map internally being projected. If you can piece your rejections together, you will begin to see who you really are.

A rejection teaches you what you should not do next.  A rejection teaches you where you went wrong. And therefore teaches you if you care to learn from it, what you should do right.  It is an excellent opportunity that allows you to experiment just as a painter does with his canvas. If you can only remove your expectation out of the way; if you can only remove your ego out of the way, then rejection becomes a gift divine.  It becomes a true teaching tool and the master plan teaches.  There is so much more to be derived from rejection than there is from success.

Embrace it and it would guide you. Repel it and you will be forever entwined.

 

 

It is an absolute necessity. Sense of urgency says, “I do not have time”. Let me burn the candles at both ends. The sense of urgency is felt precisely like cutting off your air supply.

If someone comes up behind you right now and grabs your nose and shuts your mouth. First minute you will say someone is playing a game with me, who is this person…trying to figure it out etc. You hit your next 30 seconds and start wanting to breathe, the person grips harder. Now you start pushing harder, because you want to breathe, and if it continues for 30 more seconds, you are into desperation. You scratch, you bite, you claw, you don’t care who the hell it is holding you. At that moment in time, you will kill to breathe. And that is burning desire. It is a lot more than just survival. It is basically recognizing that nothing can hold you back. Nothing should get in your way. Survival would have been there in the first 10 seconds. But at the last 10 seconds, it was not even the issue of survival. It came down to the simple fact: “I WANT to breathe”.  Total focus becomes tinier and tinier until it reaches the point that “I want to breathe”.

 Look at Thomas Alva Edison. He is there, working away, continuously for 96 hours in his lab, not having gone home or out at all. He is so focused on his work. Literally, his housekeeper has to force-feed him. Nothing can irritate him, nothing can take him out of the lab if he is burning after an idea.

Tagore would look himself up in the middle of the night, when he was writing his masterpiece  Gitanjali. Nothing could touch him. Until it came out of him (Gitanjali), nothing could get in the way. What drives these people like that?

Picasso locked himself in the attic until he finished his painting. They all have that, where their focus boils down to that particular thing being achieved and nothing else. But you do have it too. Every single one of us does. Almost invariably, usually, when we fall in love. Be it puppy love at the childhood phase or more serious mature things in adulthood, it comes at a point where those that you love deeply, your parents, your best friends, who before this thing happened had the greatest influence over you, the people for whom you had great respect and admiration, all of them flushed down the toilet because of someone you don’t know, have not really understood, not got to know very well yet, and yet who took over your entire existence. So the capacity is there.

The sense of urgency is not something that one can seek, it cannot be contrived, it has to be derived. It comes from within us.

A great Italian sculptor was brought by the Bishop of Florence to  create a  statue.

One tonne of marble was brought and put up in the front of the chapel. The sculptor was told: “They have the Sistine Chapel, now I want something special here, in Florence. I want it to be the best ever.” He commissioned him and asked: “How long do you need?” He said: “I need a year.” He said,  “Ok, take a year”.

The bishop went on a small tour and  when he came back, he walked straight into the chapel to see what had been done…half expecting a half-finished piece of work.

It had been three months…and the stone was completely left untouched. Not a single scratch, not a mark. All the tools were brand new, still lying on the side…nothing had moved, nothing had happened.

So he called one of the lay brothers and said “Where is my statue?”

He was told: “Every single day, the sculptor is here. He comes at the crack of dawn and he sits in front of that statue. Then he repositions himself and then he repositions himself  again, as the light changes. And he just sits and stares at the stone.:

“Does he take notes, does he draw sketches…what does he do?”

“Nothing. He just stares and stares and stares. And when dusk falls, he leaves.”

“This is going on for three months?

“Yes, it is going on for 3 months.”

 “Oh well, he is a great sculptor, maybe he needs time.” So saying, the bishop took off for another tour. He came back 2 months later. He went into the chapel,  and again not a single scratch. Again, when we he talked to the lay monks, they told him exactly the same story.

 So he called the abbot and said, “You are the abbot of the monastery. Go down to him tomorrow and tap him on the shoulder and ask him what is going on”. So he went, and there he was—the sculptor—staring intently at the white square marble.

He leaned over very gingerly and tapped him on the shoulder. At first, the sculptor didn’t react. So, he tapped him a little bit more…again there was no reaction. So he gave him a light shout and there was a massive eruption.

The sculptor turned around and immediately snapped at the abbot, cursing him vehemently, demanding that he get out of the chapel, and not darken the threshold of the chapel ever again for as along as he was there. If he ever took a breath, made a squeak of a noise again, or interrupted the sculptor, the sculptor would actually complain to the archbishop.

The abbot just slunk away. The archbishop, on hearing this, thought “Let us leave him for a little while and see what happens. I am coming back next month. By then, he should be finished. Again, he went into the chapel…there was nothing waiting for him to see. Seven months of the year had gone by.

The archbishop decided to talk to him the next day. At the crack of dawn, the archbishop sat in front of the marble, waiting. The doors opened. The sculptor strode right in. He did not even see the archbishop.

He went straight up, picked up his tools and started hammering. The archbishop quietly left. Four months later, one month short of the year, La Peitra David was born. It is considered to be the finest sculpture ever done.

Now the question would be: What was he doing for 7 months? The lay monks asked the archbishop this when it was unveiled.

The archbishop replied: “The question is what has happened to my other 200 Davids.”

"What 200 Davids?” 

The archbishop said: “Seven months of 30 days, makes is 210 days. Each day, he sat there and as he walked around and he has finished an entire sculpture in his mind, and then chosen to reject it. Can you imagine, I just missed 210 Davids.”

The sculptor had studied the grain of the stone, the colour, the lighting and everything. You cannot remove it after it has been sculpted, and the sculptor learnt from the stone.

If you can learn from stone, then the question even for an agnostic is, why can’t you learn from the person in front of you? Why would you need to asses him?

The question is: How receptive are you? That is studentship.

 

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.

Confront before you conflict.  Only way to avoid conflict is to confront. As human beings we are different and hence,  conflict is inevitable.

A forest can exist because the trees learn to confront. Trees, as they grow up, realize that if they do not learn to confront essentially their air space, they cannot exist. There are trees which grow within 6-12 inches from each other when they are seedlings. Only one gets beyond the others, and the little ones eventually die in the shadow of the big one. Then, the seedling 12 feet away from this one, will eventually come into space where they have to give in to each other. The forest can appease this whole series of confrontations happening.

And that is essentially what we need to do—learn from nature. Confront before you conflict. And you have to confront early, so that even when the tiny little branches from two opposing trees come close to each other, the saplings touch each other, they recognize each otherand that is a confrontation.

 
Confrontation is never personal, conflict is always personal.

Confront issues.

One doesn’t confront the person. One is in conflict with the person.

It is not about addressing you. One can confront on one’s methodology, one’s philosophy, one’s psychology or any of this without confronting the person. A confrontation should be as beneficial to the confrontee as it is to the confronter. If the issue to you is relevant to you as a learning process, you don’t care where you learn it from.

It is like learning a language. You want to say it right, and in that process if you have someone saying to you…”No, that is wrong. You have to say dosti and not doste, the t is pronounced this way.” Are you insulted by that? It will be foolish of you to be insulted by that. You have to recognize that you do want to say it right, your goal is to say it right. The more you use the language the more people can correct you.

In confrontation it is always about the issue. You present your issue and say: “Do you think this is right?” Then you must be open to the fact that it could be wrong. But not to speak up and confront will always lead to conflict. The more you keep you keep quiet, the longer the time bomb is ticking.

But, you have to do your homework. Otherwise you will find that in every confrontation, you are proved wrong. You basically sit back and wonder – ‘why is it that I am always wrong?’  If you don’t do your homework, naturally every confrontation is a battle you are losing. That is the first aspect in the art of learning.

Read also : TAPS

There is no purpose to our existence if there is no dream. We all start off with a dream before we meet success—a dream or a reason which keeps you awake every night, and not something which you have when you are asleep. A dream which keeps you going—which keeps you out there pushing yourself, not making you feel tired—because you are so focused on what you are doing.

If this dream is not compelling, you will not do anything to achieve it. It should push you forward to do something.

If you are looking at the predicament of an impoverished village, or of a dying best friend or of a homeless child,  it evokes so much compassion and pity in you, , so much that you feel: “I want to do something for this person. I want to build a hospital. I want to give them a school…” There is a reason first, and then it compels you, it drives you.  Compelling reason is something that makes you get up every morning to do something you strongly believe in.

The first step towards achieving success is in understanding yourself and finding that compelling reason to reach your dream. Identify the driving force which will take you out there everyday, face rejections, come back home and take you back the next day.

Most of us are not sure what our compelling reason is. If we don’t have a reason pushing us forward, nothing can be achieved. No one else can tell you what your compelling reason is.

You have to BE more before you can do, and you have to DO more before you can have. Compelling reason defies logic; it does not allow you to be tired. It makes your think bigger. Because you know that there is something to be achieved.

The only secret to achieving your dreams is to help people around you achieve theirs, giving hope to people who lost it. It is in raising yourself to help mankind. If your compelling reason is beyond material needs, it is even more compelling.

Trespass is something which is fundamental to the art of communication. You need to have it to speak to someone else.  If it is not there, you will not make any impact. It has to be obtained, and if you have it today, it does not mean you have it tomorrow.  It is a process. It is something you have to work upon to obtain and maintain. It has to be constantly maintained.

Without trespass you have no communication, you have only a lecture.

Communication implies understanding and there should be something reciprocal in the process. Communication is beyond information being transferred from one person to another. It is knowledge, and at the highest level, it is wisdom. In order for that to happen, it cannot be a process of somebody hammering something through your skull.

It is a process of you seeking and  someone else guiding. Ultimately wisdom is not something from without, it is from within. You can only seek it from within, but the person has to be without to guide you.

In the learning process, who are the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’?  Academicians do not acquire wisdom unfortunately. All that they have become is a walking library. Being a professor doesn’t make you any smarter. How many professors of finance are millionaires? Being academic unfortunately only teaches one to hoard. It gets in the way of acquiring more knowledge.

Because, you are then like the monkey with its hand in that jar of peanuts. It can’t release its hands. It can’t acquire anymore peanuts. The fact that it is trapped by the peanuts shows that it is blind. But when other monkeys come close to the peanuts, it becomes aggressive. It wants to protect the jar. It is afraid that they want the peanuts inside. How foolish is that? The same peanuts have enslaved the monkey, the monkey is enslaved because of that jar. It is triumphant and is holding up that jar as a sign of victory and is protecting it aggressively. That is greed. Greed for knowledge is not a thirst for knowledge. Greedy people acquire not because they are hungry. They acquire for the sake of acquisition.

You have to recognize that the only way to reach that person is to establish trespass and without establishing trespass you cannot communicate.

Trespass is something that has to be constantly maintained. It is a garden which requires pruning. If you overlook it once or twice, you have overgrown the garden. It then becomes a jungle.

Without clear pathways, there is no communication. Without trespass, there is no communication. Mandatory trespass is not something that automatically leads to voluntary trespass. In the guru-shishya (teacher-student)equivalent, the shishya not only gives the trespass, he maintains it. The onus is on him, not the guru.

It is because you live in the foolish illusion that you will live a hundred years, that you will not give your trust for trespass. If you think you will die tomorrow, who will you give your trust to?

 

A message to networkers everywhere

The only true joy is in lifting another, true happiness comes by being inservice  through other to God. This is how one must raise himself to help mankind, the ultimate way. What good is a man's work if it is not to raise his fellow men?

Service is not just a noun, it is a verb. It is not just a job, it is a calling. It is not just a department, it is the company's conscience. It is not a way of doing business, it is a philosophy of life. There is no modality to service, it a way to live. There is only one way to serve......Service Above Self.

The V In Service

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.