The Key to Success

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The Key to Success

The question is, How can we translate Gita the philosophy of Krishna into augmenting business in India?

I have much with the Gita so I really am not … I’m sorry because from a … My own vision has never failed me. I always kept away from all scriptures because I didn’t want to clutter myself with something or the other. The only thing that I learned and I continue to do is if I look at something, I look at a person, I know their past, present, and future. That is the level of attention I am paying to them. I don’t look at like this. When I look, I look at it completely with all that I have. If you pay enough attention there is nothing that will not feel right. I never had any reason or need to go looking for scriptures or something.

With all respect and regard for them, it is not that I am adverse to it but I just do not have the time. How this whole process started is when I was very young, I realized that I just don’t know anything. See, if you realize that you do not know, if it’s a full scale realization that you do not know anything, paying attention will be natural because you know everything. I know this guy, I know this, this, this, this, this. The assumptions and assumptions, and assumptions. I have used it in a different way. Even if you are doing business, even if it is for business purposes, the only reason why one human being seems to be, all the opportunities seem to be going in his direction and not other people is simply because he is able to see and other people are not able to see. It’s not that it’s not there for others. One is able to see and others are not able to see.

Essentially, a leader means that you are able to see something that others are not able to see. Attention without intention. Simply being attentive, that’s what we were trying to do in the afternoon. Not paying attention to something, just practicing attention. A really heightened level of attention where an unfocused attention but when you focus it on something, just about anything has to leave that is not the way of that attention. I always focus on enhancing and sharpening my attention, never un-attention because what you gather is not you.

Essentially, you know that you exist only because you have some sense of attention right now. Suppose you fall asleep and you lose attention. You do not even know that you exist. The basis of your existence itself is attention. This attention need not be drawn to anything. You just have to sharpen the attention. See, if you have a knife in your hands, there is no such thing that you have to cut only apples with this. If you have a sharp enough knife you could cut anything that you want. The important thing is the knife is sharp enough so that your attention is keen enough for something or another. If your attention has become very keen, if you wish to do a certain type of activity, you can successfully do it.

I think I may say something about my own enterprises at one time. My enterprise started when I was 8 years of age because of a strange kind of pride in me, I never ever took a single rooki as a pocket money from my parents. I started making money when I was 6, 7 years of age. By 8, I was quite an accomplished entrepreneur. Simple things, even today I am known in Miso because I caught snakes in everybody’s houses. If I caught a snake, they gave me 25 roopies in 1960’s, 25 roopies is a million dollars for a 7 year old, 8 year old kid. I was just on top of the world.

There is a useful institute, CFTLI. Every afternoon I went there, I caught 4 or 5 snakes. They measured it, I have to show to you like this, if it’s over 3 feet, I get 50 roopies. Less than 3 feet, I get 25 roopies. On an afternoon, I would make 100, 150 roopies. I don’t know if you can imagine, 150 roopies for an 8, 10 year old kid in 1960’s, 70’s it was like a million dollars today. It was big. I went to so many things, just about anything that came my way. I should tell you a little enterprise that I did, it grew into a big business.

After my university where I learned nothing, but I passed. The only thing was, by then I’d criss-crossed India on my motorcycle and I said, “You only live your life.” When I went to the bodice of India, they asked me for something other than my driving license. I did even know that there was a passport. See, it’s not like today. Today every time, every 3 or 4 year old kid has to have a passport. I was in my 20’s but I do not know that I need a passport. I went to the bottom and they said, “Where is your passport?” I said, “What? I have a driving license.” They said, “No, you need a passport.” Then I turned back from Nepal border and came back on my motorcycle. My only dream was, I’m just going to ride across the world.

I wanted to do something, I started farming, commercial farming. I was making money. I thought I would do for 2 years and leave. In the meantime, my entrepreneurship took off in so many different ways. This happened about. Then there was an industry coming up close by, they wanted to build a water treatment plant. I happened to know the person who was running the industry. I just went there and I wanted to meet him. I was sitting in his office, they were discussing something about a water treatment plant. I just heard this and they were looking at the drawings and stuff.

Then I asked him, “Can I apply? Can I do this because it is close to my farm. Can I do this?” He said, “No, no, this is very complex. There are some experts from Mumbai and Bangalore who will come and do it, you cannot do it.” I said, “Give me a chance, let me see.” I took the file from him. I read through everything and then I went back after 3 days and said, “I can do this.” He said, “Don’t do this, you are my friend. I don’t want to do this.” Just let me attempt it. Those days, there was something called the Navakadmatica Bookstores. They were selling on the Russian books. You used to get big literature books, you can get Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” for 2 roopies and Engineering books for 1 roopy, 2 roopies. All hard bound books. I bought 10 books about water treatment plant. I sat down on my farm and poured through them and made my own new design.

I went there and I gave a tender for 1.76 lax. Mind you this is 70’s. The closest tender was 32 lax, the highest tender was over 60 lax. He looked at this and said, “You are funny. You are not going to do this.” I said, “No, I can do it.” He said, “No way you can do it. Look at this. The nearest tender is 32 lax and you’re saying 1.76 lax. How will you do it?” I said, give me one more day. I went back again and poured through the books. I said, “I’ll do it.” He said, “It’s 90 days, you must finish this and it must work. If it doesn’t work, at your own cost, you must remove and clean the site and go and I will not give you a roopy of advance.

I again went and poured through the books. I said I can do it. I completed this in a little over 70 days. I did this in 90 plus thousand roopies. In one shot, I made 80,000 roopies just like that. People thought this is a hit. There my construction industry started. Radaramana was coming for our empty plant. He’s just coming in a helicopter to see where the site is. There is no anybody there. I just went and met this engineer, he said he was breaking his head, I don’t know what to do. I have to mark this out. I said, “I’ve got pegs and white cloth.” I will just go and mark the site for you. I marked it. They paid me 38,000 roopies for a 15 minute job. I do it on my motorcycle and just fixed it myself. Like this, my enterprise started and we grew into a major construction company. We were going really big. Then I got enlightened so I gave up.

Thank you for sharing that story. Thank you Professor, we kind of absolutely run out of time otherwise we could have continued for another half an hour at least. Thank you for being an attentive audience.