Wisdom

Financial Advise from Tony Robbins.

Tony Robbins is so much more than the fast-talking life coach with the TV infomercials. He is credited with helping some of the world's most powerful, wealthy, and successful people--from billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones to the late anti-apartheid crusader Nelson Mandela to Salesforce.com founder and CEO Marc Benioff.

Even Bill Clinton leaned on Robbins's advice during the former president's impeachment proceedings. Some of Robbins's best lessons from his long career as a life coach to the rich and powerful were captured in an interview with Inc. editor-in-chief Eric Schurenberg.

After the Great Recession, Robbins says he saw people lose their homes, their businesses, and just about everything they had worked for their whole lives. America is still hurting from the 2008 crash, but Robbins says you can be successful.

Below is Robbins's most important advice for entrepreneurs.

Set up a one-employee side business.

The first step in being financially successful is knowing you can be, he says.

"You need to understand the game is still winnable," Robbins tells Inc. You don't have to be Paul Tudor Jones to make money, just start putting your money to work now.

"Set up a financial business on the side with no employees, it'll be an extraordinary nest egg that could bring you income for life," he says. Robbins says you should not wait until you have a pile of cash, get started with what you have.

"To be a great investor, you need to make good decisions without perfect knowledge. The first step is not to wait until you have a huge sum of money. The illusion is that when you have more money, you'll invest and it'll be more worth while," Robbins says. "The most important thing to do is start investing now, so you can unlock the power of compounding."

Robbins recounts the story of a UPS employee who never made more than $14,000 a year, but retired with a $70 million fortune "without inheriting a dime." Theodore Johnson's friend told him he was going to take 20 percent of his salary off every paycheck and invest it. To make due without that money, Johnson's friend told him to treat it like a 20 percent tax that Uncle Sam took out of every paycheck. Over the years, compound interest and good investments helped build a $70 million fortune.

"You don't earn your way to a fortune, you invest your way, you compound it," Robbins says.

Add value, and help those around you.

Robbins wants you to dream big, get inspired, and live a life of wild success, but in order to get there, you have to accomplish smaller things and build up. Long-term, sustainably wealthy entrepreneurs didn't wake up in a room of cash, they set out to add value and help people.

"You can get rich by screwing someone, but if you're going to stay rich, you have to be constantly helping people," he says. When Robbins's first child was born, he was only making $38,000 a year. By the next year, he was making $1 million a year. "That jump wasn't a sudden new skill set, it was a must for me psychologically to produce that wealth," he says.

Robbins's mentor, the entrepreneur and motivational speaker Jim Rohn, gave him two lessons on how to tap your strongest talents and resources to be successful:

"Find your passion and find a way to use it to do more for others than anyone else does and add value. And proximity is power. If you want to get the job done, you have to get in the environment of the best of the best," Robbins recalls Rohn saying.

When Robbins told Rohn he needed to provide for his family, Rohn said for the goals he had, he needed to be in the proximity of the best moneymakers. Robbins wanted to acquire more wealth, so he started hanging out with investment bankers. "I did that for a couple of years, but it seemingly produced no business results. Until one day, one of those relationships grew into a deal that made me $400 million in a day, we took a company public," he says. "I could've worked my entire lifetime and not made that happen, I had to be in proximity with the best."

No one grows personally and professionally by themselves, everyone needs help. If you want to do a certain thing--make money, build a company, help feed the hungry--then you need to be around people who do that well.

"My own growth has always been about challenging myself to be around people who play the game of life at a higher level. In order to stay on the court with them, you need to lift your game, you need to grow," he says. "If you're around them and you're adding value, you'll find opportunity. Proximity is power."

Law Of Gratitude.

We know that everything we put attention and emotional energy on, good or bad, will eventually show up in our lives. The universe, and our subconscious mind, don’t know good from bad, and they treat fear and enthusiasm exactly the

same. If we’re putting energy on it, we’re placing an order for it.

It’s important, then, to be putting positive energy on what we want, not negative energy (fear, worry) on what we don’t want.

Gratitude is so important because it is a very high energy positive vibration of thought. It is powerfully attractive! Wattles says it connects us with the Source.

Do you see what he is saying? If we are grateful about everything, we are focusing on what we want. It’s a way of making sure we are putting the highest possible positive energy on our desires, and withholding energy from the doubts and fears that we don’t want.

This is the reason that almost everyone who teaches about goals insists that you see your goal as already accomplished, and that you be grateful for it – now! It’s a powerful way to be sure you’re putting strong energy on the goal – using gratitude.

You’d think with gratitude so important that everyone would be conscious of it. But what I’ve noticed is that many people are actually pushing away the success they want without knowing it because they are violating this law!

This belief leads to competitive thinking – the idea that in order to get what you want, you have to take it away from someone else.

This is a belief system that encourages fear and worry. Most sales training is based on this idea. So are all wars.

How easy is it for anyone to be grateful when they think that the universe is designed to make things tough for them? Especially when their thinking keeps creating situations where they get to be right about how tough it is.

Let me show you how abundant the universe really is. Both science and spirituality tell us that everything is made out of the same original stuff. Science calls it energy. So how much is there to make more of whatever we need?

A recent scientific survey of the cosmos added up everything they could find and determined that only about 4% of the available energy was used to make the entire universe! There’s 96% left over, or enough for 25 more universes! That seems pretty abundant to me.

So let’s choose a different way of thinking. We can see an abundant supply, rather than scarcity. We can choose to create our success, rather than compete for a limited supply. When we do this, we cease to be a victim of circumstances and we begin to reclaim our power over our lives! Seeing the universe this way is the first step in the law of gratitude.

All bodily manifestations have their roots in the mind

In many ways, man lives essentially through the mind. Even when we perceive something as

a physical occurrence, deep down it turns out to be a psychological phenomenon. All bodily

manifestations have their roots in the mind. Let me explain a few things in this regard, then it

will be easy to follow.

Until fifty years ago, all human illnesses were treated as illnesses of the body. In the last fifty

years, the more we have learned about illnesses, the more the proportion of physical illnesses has decreased while that of the psychological illnesses has increased. Even the greatest of physiologists is ready to admit today that more than fifty percent of all human ailments are psychological.

Sicknesses which are otherwise considered as physical, more than half of them are caused by

the mind. Mind is the very substratum of man’s being, his existence. It is the source of our life, it is the source of our illness, and it is the very source of our death. That’s why so much importance is given to the will.

If you have ever witnessed an experiment in hypnosis, there are a few things about it worth keeping in mind. A hypnotized person is simply one whose conscious mind is asleep and whose unconscious mind is awake. When the conscious mind goes to sleep, the person stops doubting, because all doubts and misgivings are limited to the conscious mind.

If we divide the human mind into ten parts, it will appear that one part of it is conscious while the remaining nine are unconscious. Nine parts are in the dark unconscious; only a small portion – one tenth of the mind – is awake.

 It is this conscious mind that doubts, thinks, ponders. If this conscious mind were to sleep, then the remaining nine parts below would stay totally receptive. There, no questions are asked, no doubts are raised.

In the state of hypnosis, the doubting mind is put to sleep and the undoubting, receptive mind comes into effect. In that state, if you were to place a small piece of rock on the hand of the hypnotized person and tell him it is a hot coal, he will cry out in pain as if his hand had been burned. He will at once throw the rock away – just as he would if a real hot coal had been placed on his hand.

Up to this point one may assume that just an idea in his mind must have caused this to happen. But the astonishing thing is that blisters appear on his hand – the same as it would have if a hot coal had been placed there. So apparently, although you had placed an ordinary piece of rock, the person’s mind totally accepted your word that it was a hot coal. And the body has no means of denying the mind, so it acts accordingly. Remember well, if the mind accepts totally, the body will have to follow it.

There is a reverse of this experiment too, which is even more astonishing. You can place an ember in the hypnotized person’s hand and tell him it is just a cold pebble. The man will keep on holding the ember and yet no blisters will appear on his hand. Without the mind’s permission, the body is helpless to do anything.

That is why fakirs are able to dance barefoot on fire – there is no miracle in it. It’s just a little

experiment in the science of mind. There are ten fakirs dancing on the fire, they openly invite

anyone to join them, so there is no question of any fraud. You are welcome to dance with them.

But that will be possible only when watching those ten people you become fully convinced the fire is not affecting them. Once you are convinced – that if they are not having burns, you won’t either– you reach the same state a hypnotized person does. In that state, the one part of your mind is not doubting, and the nine parts are believing – now you can jump into the fire, your feet won’t burn.

One who has any doubts will not jump, but the one who has none will jump in. What this means is that even fire cannot burn you if the mind is not open to it, and even coldness can cause burns if the mind is ready for it.

The society is not for human beings,the society is using human beings as a means for itself.

ECSTASY IS A LANGUAGE that man has completely forgotten. He has been forced to forget it; he has been compelled to forget it. The society is against it, the civilization is against it. The society has a tremendous investment in misery. It depends on misery, it feeds on misery, it survives on misery.

The society is not for human beings. The society is using human beings as a means for itself. The society has become more important than humanity. The culture, the civilization, the church, they all have become more important. They were meant to be for man, but now they are not for man. They have almost reversed the whole process; now man exists for them.

Every child is born ecstatic. Ecstasy is natural. It is not something that happens only to great sages. It is something that everybody brings with him into the world; everybody comes with it. It is life’s innermost core. It is part of being alive. Life is ecstasy. Every child brings it into the world, but then the society jumps on the child, starts destroying the possibility of ecstasy, starts making the child miserable, starts conditioning the child.

The society is neurotic, and it cannot allow ecstatic people to be here. They are dangerous for it.Try to understand the mechanism; then things will be easier.

You cannot control an ecstatic man; it is impossible. You can only control a miserable man. An ecstatic man is bound to be free. Ecstasy is freedom. He cannot be reduced to being a slave. You cannot destroy him so easily; you cannot persuade him to live in a prison. He would like to dance under the stars and he would like to walk with the wind and he would like to talk with the sun and the moon. He will need the vast, the infinite, the huge, the enormous. He cannot be seduced into living in a dark cell. You cannot make a slave out of him. He will live his own life and he will do his thing.

This is very difficult for the society. If there are many ecstatic people, the society will feel it is falling apart, its structure will not hold anymore.

Those ecstatic people will be the rebels. Remember, I don’t call an ecstatic person ”revolutionary”; I call him a ”rebel.” A revolutionary is one who wants to change the society, but he wants to replace it with another society. A rebel is one who wants to live as an individual and would like there to exist no rigid social structure in the world. A rebel is one who does not want to replace this society with another society – because all the societies have proved the same, The capitalist and the communist and the fascist and the socialist, they are all cousin-brothers; it doesn’t make much difference. The society is society. All the churches have proved the same – the Hindu, the Christian, the Mohammedan.

Once a structure becomes powerful, it does not want anybody to be ecstatic, because ecstasy is against structure. Listen to it and meditate over it: ecstasy is against structure Ecstasy is rebellious.

Love should not be a demanding love

Love should not be a demanding love;

otherwise it loses wings, it cannot fly. It becomes rooted in the earth, becomes very earthly; then it is lust and it brings great misery and great suffering. Love should not be conditional, one should not expect anything out of it.It should be for its own sake – not for any reward, not for any result. If there is some motive in it, again, your love cannot become the sky. It is confined to the motive; the motive becomes its definition, its boundary. Unmotivated love has no boundary: it is pure elation, exuberance, it is the fragrance of the heart.

And because there is no desire for any result, it does not mean that results do not happen; they do, they happen a thousandfold more, because whatsoever we give to the world, it comes back, it rebounds. The world is an echoing place: if we throw anger, anger comes back; if we give love,love comes back. But that is a natural phenomenon, one need not think about it. One can trust: it happens on its own. This is the law of karma: whatsoever you sow, you reap; whatsoever you give, you get. So there is no need to think about it, it is automatic. Hate, and you will be hated. Love, and you will be loved.

And the third thing: let love become more and more conscious. When it is unconscious it remains entangled with sexuality. Nothing is wrong in sexuality but that is the lowest form of love, the first rung of the ladder. It is good in itself but to remain confined to it is not to grow: there are higher rungs in the ladder. The ladder reaches to the ultimate and sex is the first rung. Use it to go beyond it.

Love should be more conscious. When it is conscious it is less sexual. I am not saying that there will be no sex: sex will be there but it will not be sexual. It will be pure sensuality; that is a totally different phenomenon.

It will be sheer joy, sensitivity, but there will be no sexual mind behind it. You will not be thinking about sex, there will be no cerebral sex in it no head sex in it. It will be a simple sharing of energies. So these three things to be remembered; then love, slowly slowly, becomes light.

The English word ’light’ is very very significant. It has two meanings: one is light, luminosity; another is weightlessness. Those two meanings don’t seem to be joined at all but they have a subtle connection. When one becomes full of light, one becomes weightless; one can fly, one has wings.

Why say the word ”God” at all? Why use it?

GOD IS WITHIN AND WITHOUT, because only God is. In fact to say ”God is” is a repetition because God is never ”is not.” God is the very isness of existence. We can say ”the house is” because once the house was not and once again the house will not be. To call the house ”is” is okay because the ”is not” is possible. We can say ”the man is” but we cannot say ”God is,” because only he is, always has been, always will be. God is the very isness, God is existence itself.

Then why say the word ”God” at all? Why use it? We use it very symbolically, to indicate something. When we say ”God is” we mean existence is not without a soul. We mean that existence is not dead.

We mean that existence is alive, throbbing with love, compassion, consciousness, conscience; that existence is intimate; that there is a possibility of addressing existence and there is a possibility of getting the response. When we say ”God is” we mean that existence allows the possibility of a dialogue. You can have a dialogue with it; you can call it ”thou” and it will not be meaningless; and you can be in such a state that prayer becomes possible, that communion becomes possible.

That’s all the word ”God” carries. Existence is not like a dead rock; it is an alive flower. It will respond to you. If you love it, love will flow towards you. If you move towards it, it will move towards you. If you seek it, it will seek you. Existence is not care-less. If you are in love with existence, existence is in love with you. That’s all that we mean when we call existence divine or when we say God is.

Remember it. It is a poetic way of saying a truth. It is not a fact. It is poetry, it is romance. And religion should be romance with existence.

The Charge of Goddess

Listen to the words of the Ancient Mother, who was of old called among men Astarte,

Aphrodite, Cerridwen, Maia, Diana, Terra, Ishtar, Hecate, Brigid, and by many other

names.

Whenever ye have need of anything, once in the month, and better it be when the moon is full, ye shall assemble in sacred space and adore the spirit of me who is Mother of all.

There ye shall assemble who desire to learn all sorcery, yet have not won its deepest

secrets. To these I will teach things that are yet unknown, and you shall dance, sing, feast, make music and love, all in my praise. For mine is the ecstasy of the spirit, and mine also is Joy on Earth, and my Law is love unto all beings. Keep pure thine highest ideals, strive ever towards them. Let naught stop thee or turn thee aside, for mine is the secret that opens upon the door of youth, and mine is the Cauldron that gives the knowledge of rebirth.

I am the gracious Lady who gives the gift of joy to the hearts of mankind. I give the

knowledge of the spirit eternal, and beyond death I give peace and freedom and reunion

with those who have gone before. Nor do I demand aught of sacrifice, for behold! I am

the Mother of all things, and my love is poured out upon the Earth!

Hear the words of the Star Goddess, the dust of whose feet are the hosts of heaven, whose body encircles the universe:

I am the beauty of the green Earth, and the white moon among the stars, and the rhythms

of the waters, I call to your soul to arise and come to me. For I am the soul of nature who

gives life to the universe. From me all things proceed, and to me all things must return.

And before my face thine inmost self shall be enfolded in the rapture of the infinite.

 Let my worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold! All acts of Love and Pleasure are my rituals! Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility,mirth and reverence within thee. And thou who seek to know me, know that thy seeking and yearning will avail thee not, unless thou knowest the mystery: for if that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee, thou wilt never find it without. For behold, I have been with thee from the beginning , and I am that which is attained at the end of desire.

Celebrity's Opinion of “love sucks, lets F**k”

Emblazoned boldly on the chest of a man in his late forties was the t-shirt slogan “love sucks, lets F**k”.  
It made me giggle for a moment then I wondered what made that statement so attractive or relatable to him that he actually felt the need to scream it from his chest. For a lot of people sex is just a function, a need to be fulfilled and yet for many it’s synonymous with love.
 It takes an embittered person to want to only have sex and deliberately do away with all notions of love and to not even entertain the thought of a heart being involved! It’s a common belief that for women love leads to sex and that for men sex leads to love. 
I find that generalisation itself puzzling, because it either alludes that women fall in love before men do or that men fake being in love to get sex or that women compromise and have sex hoping to get the man to fall in love with them. 
The fact is that none of it really matters as long as the end result is a happy fulfilling unison, be it just for the sake of sex or because people happen to fall in love. 
The only sad part is in believing that love sucks. Because it truly doesn’t! Love is a magic ingredient. It makes for healthy relationships and ups the ante in your sex life too. Don’t let the fact you made a few wrong choices get to you.

 A defeated or cynical attitude doesn’t serve you. A heart may heal in hibernation, but it is meant for loving. Go out there, spread love, find love and experience love.

--- Pooja Bedi

(Pooja Bedi is a popular personality across all Media. In films, newspapers, television, theatre and digital media. )

Do you beg for attention..all the time?

People go on doing things which they never wanted to do, but they go on doing them because that is the only way they can get the approval of others. Everybody is distracted from his destiny.

The thinking up to now has been this – that the individual exists for the society so the individual has to follow just what the society says. He has to fit with the society. That is the definition of the normal human being – to fit with the society. Even if the society is insane, you have to fit with it; then you are normal. Even if the society is neurotic and you try to be sane, you will be thought neurotic because the society is the majority. They have power so they can make anybody feel guilty.

They have put a deep mechanism inside you which they call a conscience which, if you move slightly away from the norm, the accepted rules of the game, immediately says, ’Wrong! Wrong! You are doing something wrong!’ Now the problem for the individual is that nature demands one thing and society demands something contrary. If the society was demanding the same as nature demands,there would have been no conflict. Man would still have remained in the garden of Eden.

The problem arises because society has its own interests which are not necessarily in tune with the individual and his interests. Society has its own investments. The individual has to be sacrificed.

This is a very topsy-turvy world. Just the other way round should be the right thing. The individual does not exist for the society. The society exists for the individual. Because society is just an institution. It has no soul.

 An individual has the soul, is the conscious centre; it has a centre.

God resides in the individual, not in the society. Society is nothing – just a word.

Once you know that miserliness can be dropped, you move into a different dimension.

Much will be happening, much more, and gratitude prepares the way. Feel as grateful to existence as possible – for small things, not only for great things... just for sheer breathing. We don’t have any claim on existence, so whatsoever is given is a gift. If it is not given we don’t have any court for appeal.

So grow more and more in gratitude and thankfulness ; let it become your very style. Be grateful to everybody.

If one understands gratitude then one is grateful for things that have been done positively. And one even feels grateful for things which could have been done negatively. You feel grateful that somebody helped you; this is just the beginning. Then you start feeling grateful that somebody has not harmed you – he could have; it was so kind of him.

Once you understand the feeling of gratitude and allow it to sink deeply within you, you will start feeling grateful for everything. And the more grateful you are, the less complaining, grumbling.

Once complaining disappears, misery disappears. It exists with complaints. It is hooked with

complaints and with the complaining mind. Misery is impossible with gratefulness. So that is one of the most important secrets to learn.

You see a person and you smile. You smile for him. One should smile only for oneself. If others share, good. If nobody shares, good. But one should smile of one’s own accord. One should not laugh to make somebody else happy, because if you are not happy, you cannot make anybody happy. Even if you are happy, it is very difficult to make somebody else happy because it depends on that somebody else as to whether he will accept it or not. One should simply laugh of one’s own

accord, and one should not wait for reasons to laugh. That too is absurd. Why wait for reasons? Life as it is should be enough of a reason to laugh. It is so absurd, it is so ridiculous. It is so beautiful...

it is so wonderful. It is all sorts of things together. It is a great cosmic joke.

If you start looking into things you will not be able to stop laughing. Everything is simply perfect for laughter – nothing is lacking – but we won’t allow. We are very miserly... miserly about laughter,

love, life. Once you know that miserliness can be dropped, you move into a different dimension.

Marriage is the ugliest institution invented by Man,Marriage is against nature.

WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT FOR MEN AND WOMEN TO BE FRIENDS? IT SEEMS SO ORDINARY,AND TURNS OUT TO BE ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE. EITHER THERE IS AN UGLY COMPROMISE– LIKE MAN AND WIFE – OR ELSE PASSION THAT EVENTUALLY TURNS INTO HATE. WHY IS

THERE ALWAYS UGLINESS BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN?

It is very simple to understand. Marriage is the ugliest institution invented by man. It is not natural; it has been invented so that you can monopolize a woman. You have been treating women as if they

were a piece of land, or some currency notes. You have reduced the woman to a thing.

Remember that if you reduce any human being to a thing – unaware, unconscious – you are also being reduced to the same status; otherwise, you will not be able to communicate. If you can talk with a chair, you must be a chair.

Marriage is against nature.

You can be certain only of this moment that is in your hands. All promises for tomorrow are lies –and marriage is a promise for your whole life, that you will remain together, that you will love each

other, that you will respect each other till your last breath.

And these priests, who are the inventors of many ugly things, say to you that marriages are made in heaven. Nothing is made in heaven; there is no heaven.

If you listen to nature, your problems, your questions will simply evaporate. The problem is biologically man is attracted to woman, women are attracted to men, but that attraction cannot

remain the same forever. You are attracted to something which is a challenge to get. You see a beautiful man, a beautiful woman; you are attracted. Nothing is wrong in it. You feel your heart beating faster. You would like to be with this woman or man, and the attraction is so tremendous that in that moment you think you would like to live with this woman forever.

Lovers don’t deceive each other, they are saying the truth – but that truth belongs to the moment.

When lovers say to each other, ”I cannot live without you,” it is not that he is deceiving or she is deceiving, they mean it. But they don’t know the nature of life. Tomorrow this same woman will not look so beautiful. As days pass, the man and the woman both will feel that they are imprisoned.

They have know each other’s geography completely. First it was an unknown territory to be discovered, now there is nothing to be discovered.

And to go on repeating the same words and the same acts looks mechanical, ugly. That’s why passion turns into hate. The woman hates you, because you are going to do the same thing again.

To prevent you, the moment the husband enters the house she goes to bed, she has a headache. She wants somehow not to get into the same rut. And the man is flirting with his secretary in the office; now she is an unknown territory.

To me, it is all nature. What is unnatural is binding people in the name of religion, in the name of God, for their whole life.

In a better, more intelligent world, people will love, but will not make any contracts. It is not a business! They will understand each other, and they will understand the changing flux of life. They will be true to each other. The moment the man feels that now his beloved holds no joy for him, he will say that the time has come to part. There is no need for marriage, there is no need for divorce.

Then friendship will be possible.

There will be only friends – no husbands, no wives. Of course, if there is only friendship, passion will never turn into hate. The moment you feel passion disappearing, you will say good-bye, and it will be understood. Even if it hurts, nothing can be done about it – it is the way of life.

But man has created societies, cultures, civilizations, rules, regulations, and made the whole humanity unnatural. That’s why men and women cannot be friends. And men and women either become husbands and wives – which is something absolutely ugly; they start owning each other....

Meritocracy -The system of Future Governing

HOW CAN THE IDEA OF MERITOCRACY BE PRACTICALLY REALIZED?

ONE thing is absolutely certain: The days of the politicians are over.

They have done too well their job of being destructive, violent.

They have come to a point where humanity has to decide either to die remaining with the politicians, to commit a global suicide, or to throw out the politicians and save humanity, civilization, culture, life.

Nothing is favorable to the politician; and as each day passes his death comes closer. He himself

is responsible. He improved the weapons which can bring death to the whole world to such a point

that there is no way of going back. Either there will be an ultimate war – which means death to all and everything – or a total change in the whole structure of human society. I am calling that change,meritocracy.

One thing – we have to drop the idea that every man, just because he is Eighteen, is capable of choosing who is the right person to decide the fate of nations. Age cannot be the decisive factor.

We have to change the decisive factor; that is changing the very foundation.

My suggestion is that only a person who is at least a matriculate should be able to vote. His age

does not matter. And as I explain to you the whole thing, it will become easier. For the local

government, matriculation will be the qualification for the voters. And graduation from a university,at least a bachelor’s degree, should be a necessary qualification for anybody running for election,for the candidates. A master’s degree should be a minimum qualification for the one who is running for mayor.

I have seen education ministers who have never been to university. Before they became education

ministers they had never even seen a university campus. Yes, after becoming education minister

they start giving convocation addresses to the universities. Universities start giving them degrees,

honorary degrees, because actually they are not even matriculates.

Then just because you are Eighteen it does not mean you are capable of choosing the government. Choosing the government should be a very skillful, intelligent job. Just by being eighteen you may be able to reproduce children – it needs no skill, even animals are doing perfectly well. It needs no education, biology sends you well prepared. But to choose the government, to choose people who are going to have all the powers over you and everybody and who are going to decide the destiny of the country and the world... the way we have been choosing them is simply idiotic.

And what power do politicians have? All the power that they have we have given to them. We can take it back. It is not their power, it is our power. We just have to find a way to take it back – because giving is very easy, taking is a little difficult. They will not be so simple and innocent when you take the power back as they were when they were asking it from you. It is our power, but they will go on having it if the mob remains there to give it to them; the mob can be convinced about anything.

I am not against the people. In fact, in the hands of these politicians, the people are against

themselves. I am all for the people, and what I am saying can be said to be exactly what has

been said about democracy: for the people, by the people, of the people – just ”by the people” I will have to change. This intelligentsia will be for the people, of the people. It will be serving the masses.

It is so simple a thing. You don’t elect a doctor, that just anybody can stand, it is a birthright, and

people can vote. Two persons fighting to be the doctor or to be the surgeon? What is wrong in it?

The people choose for themselves: for the people, by the people, of the people. They choose one

person, a surgeon, because he speaks better, he looks good on the television and he makes great

promises.

But he is not even a butcher! – and he is going to become a surgeon. He is not even a butcher.

Even a butcher would have been better; at least he would have known how to cut, and finish you.

This man... but you don’t choose a surgeon by election.

How can you choose a president by election? How can you choose a governor by election? You

are giving so much power to power – hungry people; with your own hands you are telling them to

hang you! This is not democracy. In the name of democracy these people have been exploiting the masses.

Just to make a distinction I am calling this system meritocracy. But merit for what? The merit

is to serve and share. And once you have decided to shift the power from the politicians to the

intelligentsia, everything is possible – everything becomes simple.

Then I want every university to have two compulsory institutions, because that is the way I would

like the people who are going to be powerful to be prepared.

Right now, up to now, for thousands of years you have never prepared anybody. If somebody is going to be a boxer you don’t just push him into the ring and say, ”Start!” He has to learn. If somebody is going to be a swordsman, it will take him years. Otherwise he won’t even know how to hold the sword – using it and fighting with it will be impossible. First he will have to find out how to take it out from its sheath, how to hold it. It needs training. You don’t just give a guitar to somebody who has never seen the instrument before and expect him to be an Expert.

Now this is your fault: these people who are in power, have you trained them? Has anybody ever

thought that the people who will be holding so much power need some certain qualities so that they don’t misuse power? It is not their fault.

So I propose two institutes in every university. One institute is for deprogramming. Anybody who

gets a graduation certificate will first have to get a clearance certificate from the deprogramming institute – which means it has deprogrammed you as a Christian, as a Hindu, as a Mohammedan, as a Jew... because this has been our trouble.

And four years is enough time. Deprogramming does not take that much time; just a few hours a

month for four years and you will be deprogrammed. And you will not get any certificate from the educational institute unless you are cleared by the deprogramming institute that ”this man is now simply a human being. He is no longer a Christian, no longer a Hindu, no longer a Mohammedan, no longer a Jew.”

The second institute will be an institute for meditation, because just deprogramming is not enough.

Deprogramming takes rubbish from you, but you are left empty – and it is difficult to be empty; you will start gathering rubbish again. You cannot manage by yourself to learn how to live joyfully with your emptiness. That’s the whole art of meditation.

So on the one hand the deprogramming institute cleanses you, empties you, makes you a vacuum;

and the meditation institute goes on helping you to enjoy your nothingness, your emptiness, your

inner vacuum its cleanliness, its freshness. And as you start enjoying it you start feeling that it is not

empty at all, it is full of joy. It looked empty at first because you were accustomed to having so much rubbish in it, and that rubbish has been removed so you say it looks empty.

It is just like a room full of furniture: you have always seen it full of furniture; then one day you come and all the furniture is removed and you say, ”The room looks empty.” The room is not empty, the room is simply clean. The room is roomy for the first time. It was cluttered before, burdened, full of rubbish; now it is pure space.

You have to learn meditation to enjoy your emptiness.

And that is one of the greatest days in life – when a person starts enjoying emptiness, aloneness,

nothingness.

Then nobody can reprogram you, nobody in the world.

The university’s degree will come only when a clearance certificate from the deprogramming institute and a graduation certificate from the meditation university have been granted. It will depend on you– you can graduate in one year, you can graduate in two years, you can graduate in three years, four years. But four years is too much. Any imbecile, if he just sits for one hour every day doing nothing for four years is bound to find what Buddha or Lao Tzu have found, what I have found.

And I want this to continue: if you are going to do your Ph.D. then you do three years deprogramming and three years meditation. Those are compulsory to the very end, so when you come out of the university you are not only an intelligent person, well-informed, you are also a meditator – relaxed, silent, peaceful, observant, watchful, intuitive. And you are no longer a Christian, no longer a Hindu, no longer an American, no longer a Russian. All that bullshit has been completely burned, nothing is left of it.

This is the only way, to replace the politicians by the intelligentsia.

Never make love a politics, a power struggle.

A gift of love out of freedom is beautiful. When you possess a person and the person is forced to give her love, it is almost ugly, almost dead, full of hatred. If you feel unhappy, tell her not to worry and that it has nothing to do with her. Never make love a politics, a power struggle.

When love gives freedom it becomes tremendously powerful repression. People don’t understand and that’s why they have chosen repression. Freedom means that both are free. But people have decided to repress it because they know that if the woman moves, the man is allowed to; if the man moves, the woman is allowed to. Rather than being free they have decided to be slaves. People have decided to be slaves in order to make others slaves.

So just think about it. Meet out of your freedom, stay together out of your freedom, and when you are feeling good, be together. Both drop all repressions and let’s see what happens, and that power is not ordinary power. It is very very graceful and has a totally different quality to it – magnetic, but almost divine.

Your action is punishment and your action is your reward. You are the master of your destiny."

There are many legends about the Bodhidharma; they all have some significance. The first legend is: When he reached China -- it took him three years -- the Chinese emperor Wu came to receive him. His fame had reached ahead of him. Emperor Wu had done great service to the philosophy of Gautam Buddha. Thousands of scholars were translating Buddhist scriptures from Pali into Chinese and the emperor was the patron of all that great work of translation. He had made thousands of temples and monasteries, and he was feeding thousands of monks. He had put his whole treasure at the service of Gautam Buddha, and naturally the Buddhist monks who had reached before Bodhidharma had been telling him that he was earning great virtue, that he will be born as a god in heaven.

Naturally, his first question to Bodhidharma was, "I have made so many monasteries, I am feeding thousands of scholars, I have opened a whole university for the studies of Gautam Buddha, I have put my whole empire and its treasures in the service of Gautam Buddha. What is going to be my reward?"

He was a little embarrassed seeing Bodhidharma, not thinking that the man would be like this. He looked very ferocious. He had very big eyes, but he had a very soft heart -- just a lotus flower in his heart. But his face was almost as dangerous as you can conceive. Just the sunglasses were missing; otherwise he was a mafia guy!

With great fear, Emperor Wu asked the question, and Bodhidharma said, "Nothing, no reward. On the contrary, be ready to fall into the seventh hell."

The emperor said, "But I have not done anything wrong -- why the seventh hell? I have been doing everything that the Buddhist monks have been telling me."

Bodhidharma said, "Unless you start hearing your own voice, nobody can help you, Buddhist or non-Buddhist. And you have not yet heard your inner voice. If you had heard it, you would not have asked such a stupid question.

"On the path of Gautam Buddha there is no reward because the very desire for reward comes from a greedy mind. The whole teaching of Gautam Buddha is desirelessness and if you are doing all these so-called virtuous acts, making temples and monasteries and feeding thousands of monks, with a desire in your mind, you are preparing your way towards hell. If you are doing these things out of joy, to share your joy with the whole empire, and there is not even a slight desire anywhere for any reward, the very act is a reward unto itself. Otherwise you have missed the whole point."

Emperor Wu said, "My mind is so full of thoughts. I have been trying to create some peace of mind, but I have failed and because of these thoughts and their noise, I cannot hear what you are calling the inner voice. I don't know anything about it."

Bodhidharma said, "Then, four o'clock in the morning, come alone without any bodyguards to the temple in the mountains where I am going to stay. And I will put your mind at peace, forever."

The emperor thought this man really outlandish, outrageous. He had met many monks; they were so polite, but this one does not even bother that he is an emperor of a great country. And to go to him in the darkness of early morning at four o'clock, alone.... And this man seems to be dangerous -- he always used to carry a big staff with him.

The emperor could not sleep the whole night, "To go or not to go? Because that man can do anything. He seems to be absolutely unreliable." And on the other hand, he felt deep down in his heart the sincerity of the man, that he is not a hypocrite. He does not care a bit that you are an emperor and he is just a beggar. He behaves as an emperor, and in front of him you are just a beggar. And the way he has said, "I will put your mind at peace forever."

"Strange, because I have been asking," the emperor thought, "of many many wise people who have come from India, and they all gave me methods, techniques, which I have been practicing, but nothing is happening -- and this strange fellow, who looks almost mad, or drunk, and has a strange face with such big eyes that he creates fear.... But he seems to be sincere too -- he is a wild phenomenon. And it is worth to risk. What can he do -- at the most he can kill me." Finally, he could not resist the temptation because the man had promised, "I will put your mind at peace forever."

Emperor Wu reached the temple at four o'clock, early in the morning in darkness, alone, and Bodhidharma was standing there with his staff, just on the

       steps, and he said, "I knew you would be coming, although the whole night you debated whether to go or not to go. What kind of an emperor are you -- so cowardly, being afraid of a poor monk, a poor beggar who has nothing in the world except this staff. And with this staff I am going to put your mind to silence."

The emperor thought, "My God, who has ever heard that with a staff you can put somebody's mind to silence! You can finish him, hit him hard on the head -- then the whole man is silent, not the mind. But now it is too late to go back."

And Bodhidharma said, "Sit down here in the courtyard of the temple." There was not a single man around. "Close your eyes, I am sitting in front of you with my staff. Your work is to catch hold of the mind. Just close your eyes and go inside looking for it -- where it is. The moment you catch hold of it, just tell me, `Here it is.' And my staff will do the remaining thing."

It was the strangest experience any seeker of truth or peace or silence could have ever had -- but now there was no other way. Emperor Wu sat there with closed eyes, knowing perfectly well that Bodhidharma seems to mean everything he says. He looked all around -- there was no mind. That staff did its work. For the first time he was in such a situation. The choice... if you find the mind, one never knows what this man is going to do with his staff. And in that silent mountainous place, in the presence of Bodhidharma, who has a charisma of his own.... There have been many enlightened people, but Bodhidharma stands aloof, alone, like an Everest. His every act is unique and original. His every gesture has his own signature; it is not borrowed.

He tried hard to look for the mind, and for the first time he could not find the mind. It is a small strategy. Mind exists only because you never look for it; it exists only because you are never aware of it. When you are looking for it you are aware of it, and awareness surely kills it completely. Hours passed and the sun was rising in the silent mountains with a cool breeze. Bodhidharma could see on the face of Emperor Wu such peace, such silence, such stillness as if he was a statue. He shook him and asked him, "It has been a long time. Have you found the mind?"

Emperor Wu said, "Without using your staff, you have pacified my mind completely. I don't have any mind and I have heard the inner voice about which you talked. Now I know whatever you said was right. You have transformed me without doing anything. Now I know that each act has to be a reward unto itself; otherwise, don't do it. Who is there to give you the reward? This is a childish idea. Who is there to give you the punishment? Your action is punishment and your action is your reward. You are the master of your destiny."

Bodhidharma said, "You are a rare disciple. I love you, I respect you, not as an emperor but as a man who has the courage just in a single sitting to bring so much awareness, so much light, that all darkness of the mind disappears."

Wu tried to persuade him to come to the palace. He said, "That is not my place; you can see I am wild, I do things I myself don't know beforehand. I live moment to moment spontaneously, I am very unpredictable. I may create unnecessary trouble for you, your court, your people; I am not meant for palaces, just let me live in my wildness."