Asking does not reduce me nor does it take away from my friendship.
Asking requires humility, something I am always in need of.
Asking is how I learnt as student and how I remain so.
Asking is how I learnt my trade and how I continue to ply it.
Asking is how I get customers and how I keep them.
Asking is how I got my wife and how she remains so.
Asking is the basis of prayer.

It is the only way to the Lord.

If I have no expectation and no fear asking can only make me stronger.

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?

 

It is the most dangerous form of lethargy. It is worse than cancer and ultimately the most destructive energy on the planet. Cancer only kills your body. Cancer of the mind is comfort zone.

A man who is content obviously is someone who can have no children, no relations, no one who looks up to him, no one who depends on him, no one he looks up to.

What about an ascetic?

Is an ascetic content? Not only is he still seeking, he is walking on the edge.

People run to the caves to escape the world. That is escapism, not ascetism. There are people who say, I have failed miserably in life, as a father, son, businessman, in every possible way. Now let me don on yellow robes and at least somebody will feed me three meals a day.  Let me hide in a cave, and not be disturbed by the world. That is escapism.

Buddha was a true ascetic. When he was Siddartha, he was a king, he had riches beyond the dreams of a common man. He had everything anyone could have hoped for—wife, children, all the glories, and he walked away. That is an ascetic. Buddha left his comfort zone. A true ascetic leaves his comfort zone. A true ascetic walks away from the cross beams on the building under construction. That is where you find an ordinary person clinging in fear to the closest person or pillar her can find, looking down at the height and trembling and not willing to leave that comfort zone even if his life depended upon it. But an ascetic walks on those six inches wide beams.

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.

You have understood nothing of leadership if you don’t understand the term “Be the change you want to see in others”(Mahatma Gandhi) To manipulate others is like trying to control the wind and the waves. Managing yourself is to adjust your own sails. So if you wish to use the wind, change your sails (change yourself).

Amongst the greatest warriors in the world were the Samurai, the Gurkha, the Tuaregs, the Beduin, the Commanche, the Mongols, the Spartans....to name but a few. An earmark of these class of warriors were the ceaseless infighting that kept them at the top of the game in times of peace. So it always took great leadership to bring them together in times of war. But when they came together they were invincible. Empires have been built and lost on their backs. Great leadership has never been about great systems or great organising abilities, it has always been about bringing together improbable allies and implacable forces into one's force.

For Networkers : Leaders are made, not signed up…

For Corporate Management : Leaders are made, and not hired…

For Parents : Leaders are made, and not inherited…

Leadership is not a talent, nor a skill, nor is it genetic. It’s a mindset.

Vijay Eswaran

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...

This is not a book for someone sitting on a rock contemplating on a lotus pond.  Not for someone who is retiring into a forest and walking the path of zen. This is not a self realization book and not meant for spiritual upliftment of mankind.

This is a day-to-day manual that can be used to create a dossier of one’s own progress thru life. The objective is to stop, think, reflect, introspect. It's is meant to question, challenge the standards that we have become accustomed to. We have allowed ourselves to fall into somewhat of a trap by allowing our habits to dictate our destiny from thought to word, word to deed, deed to habit, habit to character, character to destiny.

The objective of the book is to break the process at the very onset, when at the thinking stage. If thought is the architect of your destiny, then it’s the thought that needs to be the force of change. Its thought that needs to be addressed and challenged.

As we grow in material gains, acquiring various trappings of wealth, we are trapped, ensnared, and locked by it. We don’t seem to be able to get out of this comfort zone. Hence, the process of this book is designed to challenge it.

In essence, the book is designed to look simplistic and designed uniquely in a fashion that is meant to attract the reader's attention and draw him to every page. It's with this in mind that the words and the phrases used are all designed for a  specific purpose, to stop one in their tracks. The attempt here is not so much to overload the individual with information, but to make him find his own solutions within himself. It is my position per se that all of us have answers that are unique and specifically designed for our position in life. These answers though are sometimes very clearly in front of us, usually completely overlooked if not ignored. It’s the purpose of the book to search and find these answers ourselves. Atleast to begin the process that would lead the process.

Answers change, day to day as it were. If it does not, by then, by definition we have not changed. Our ability to analyse, assess and apply these answers in day to day life grows as we grow. Hence, the answers to these problems, appear different to different people. These answers have many levels of understanding and many levels of application. And this process is something that engages you at every level.

Life is not just in colors…its in hues.  Therein lies each of us, the answer within each of us. The quest to these answers actually leads to us asking better questions. And that would be the ultimate purpose of this book.

In essence all of us have an internal source of energy. Something that we acknowledge in many ways. Eastern culture refers to as 'Qi'. In Sanskrit it is referred to as 'Prana'.   It’s a mental/physical/spiritual energy source. Its an internal balance that this energy source creates. This internal balance is between the kinetic and potential, the yin and yang, the negative and positive, the shiva and shakti in Hinduism. This balance of energy is found within us. The sphere of silence forces one to basically tap into this energey and build up its reserves in a way. Its an application of self discipline everyday.  Keeping silent for one hour , we are forced to communicate with oneself.  This helps us get in touch with ourselves instead of living in a façade.

 
We create this artificial barrier between who we are and who we want the world to perceive us to be. We walk around with this mask, assuming the face behind the mask in reality is the mask itself. Here I refer to the masquerade that one is forced to put up to live in the social strata. The three essential questions we have to ask every day:

1. Who we are?
2. Where we are?
3. Where are we going?

 
We need to ask these questions everyday because the answer to these change everyday. The process of analysis helps keep us very much in touch with ourselves. In this process we build up the inner "Chi", the strength in action, the versatility in language.

 
The application of this doesn’t have an immediate or direct  objective. If one doesn’t even achieve the objective just the process of trying everyday is enough because you have embarked on the journey. There is no such thing as the proper time or proper place. There is no waiting for the right time. It must be done everyday, like breathing.  It is the trying that makes all the difference. Eventually, there are people without trying very hard, simply by virtue of their being manage to achieve an hour a day. They actually gain from the process can be lead. The trying is fundamental to the change.

Someone who managed one hour is maybe ahead mentally, physically, spiritually to someone who managed 20 mins a day.  But to someone to who this comes easily, is not growing. For someone who struggles to do this 20 mins, is pushing oneself and hence the percentage of growth is higher.

You cannot define the process by the  1 hour or the 21 days. But define it by how much of a struggle it is for you. Hence, naturally the process of struggling against oneself , however mediocre it may seem to the rest of the planet, is what is important.

I don’t lay any claim to the originality of the process. Something that I acquired gratefully…….. its a labour of love to take it across the planet. The effect it had on my life. By making it a process that I could share with others.

 

Words without thought,
are leaves swirling in the wind,
tumultous yet lasting but only a moment,
leaving just a movement in the pattern

Thought without words,
are as the clouds on a clear day,
leaving mere shadows that fade as the sun leaves the day,

Thought with words
are as footprints in the sand,
to be swept away with the next play of the wind or wave

Thoughts pondered, written and then spoken
are like a force of nature
a whirlwind that leaves in its wake,
a change in all that it touches.

But in the rare few instances when such thoughts carried by
such words are written again.
they remain as the milestones of man,
written across the pages of history
leaving a message for generations to come.

Vijay Eswaran

The difference between silence and speech is the difference between sms and talking via the phone, email and chat or wisdom and mere intelligence. Silence can take you to many places, a journey that is often subtle yet profound while speech, without the resonance of reflection, has the transience and futility of writing on water.

Talking is curiously deflating and it is a wonder how many people fool themselves that they are working when they are actually just talking. The exquisite suspense of the sms or email, the reflection, thought and commitment behind the written word is truly thought provoking as opposed to reactive talk. If practised well, the ego is also distanced by the lack of attachment to the personality allowing the intellect to focus on the issue. Talkers find the writing process taxing as the mind requires more substance than the mouth to address the same point.

The trick is not to write as you talk. Don't react, interact!

Don't let the words flow from your mouth to your hand, rather let it trickle from the mind. Only in silence can you envision, speech only blinds you…

Muhibbah. Merdeka.

These are words that I grew up with. It was virtually impossible for us to move from Merdeka to Muhibbah and from Merdeka to Maju. That was the first ten years that I remember of my school days - “Majulah Malaysia”. The concept still stays in my mind.

It’s the amazing fact that as Malaysians we are a nation that is clearly defined, purely by the geography and the concept of a nation as opposed to racial, religious and cultural barriers or parameters. Hence the only thing that makes a Malaysian, Malaysian has always been in my mind, his affinity for the land, of his birthplace, his love and his loyalty for the soil that we have all grown up on and learnt to love.

Malaysia has been a safe harbour for the various people who have populated this place. There are the various Chinese, races from the Chinese Mainland. Remember that at the time they came over that there was no China to speak of. And they themselves came from different lands, be it from Ghuangzhou, from Hainan, from Fookien – these were different nations. So to construe that there was one China that populated Malaysia is by itself wrong.  Same thing applies to the Indians, because when they came over, there was no India per se. At that time it consisted of 500 different princely states. And this applies also to the influx of Malays from various parts of the Indonesian archipelago – Sulawesi, Molukas, Java, Sumatera, Lombok, Banda and so on. Each bringing with them a whole different cultural heritage. But none of these nations existed when Malaysia was being formed as its own set. So the definition of us in the form that we are looking at today which is the Indian, Chinese and Malay context is by itself wrong because none of these existed when these people reached our soil. We are a conglomeration of people who came together because we were seeking new frontiers, facing new challenges, people who dared to be different and on arriving on this soil of hospitable safe harbour of the peninsula, we then basically became sons of the soil. If one were to look back historically for instance during the Larut War from 1861 to 1874 between the Gee Hin and the Hai San, who were on two different opposing factions,this was traditional going right back to the Malacca sultanate. There wasn’t a Chinese Malaysia, a Malay or Indian polarisation of any kind in our history. If Kedah waged a war in Kelantan or Pahang, there were Chinese on both sides just as there were Malays or Indians on both sides.

To be proud of this cultural heritage is to be proud of the fact that we have interwoven from this myriad of different humanity, into a fabric that is not only strong as hem but also smooth as silk and versatile.  This fabric is now Malaysia today; our own red, white, blue and yellow. Our own corner of the planet which we call home is not just about being proud of being 50 years old because we were a nation long before the flag was hoisted. We are proud to have single-handedly proven that despite the differences that we have brought to this land, we have learned to celebrate the similarities. In Malaysia you can see the unison of men which gives hope for the rest of the planet. Not only are we a melting pot per se, we are in fact a smelting pot. There is a term in Sanskrit called “panchaloga” which is the coming together of five different rare metals - gold, silver, copper, brass and iron – the “panchaloga” is supposedly a metal which was greatly revered in ancient times for its strength, for the fact that it never corroded.

For the intrinsic beauty and purity of Malaysia, we have created our own smelting pot. We have created our own brand, our precious metal. And we celebrate this oneness on this coming 31st August 2007 – we are a nation from which hope is reborn for the planet. It’s a gift we have received and fostered that we today present to the rest of the human race. Let us all be Malaysia. It is not about Malaysia for the Malaysians anymore. Let the world be Malaysia.
Salam Merdeka!

Warm regards,
Dato’ Vijay Eswaran