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Mahatma GaaNDHijii:
YOU MUST OPEN
THE WINDOWS OF YOUR MIND...
BUT YOU MUST NOT BE
SWEPT OFF THE FEET BY THE BREEZE.....
The current richest man in India, who made it from a small grocery shop in a
small town in gujraat is Azim Premji, Chairman
and majority share holder of Wipro Corporation, India. He has the following key
message to young students everywhere and especially in the
PVAF Gujraat Education Program in the "Shaping
Young Minds Program" organized by the All India Management
Association:
"Respond instead of
reacting:
you must be open to change,
do not compromise on your values."
The values of life in the
SCIENCES OF CREATION AND LIFE called veD
are defined in the first two aNg
(parts) of ym and
niym of aSHt-aNg yog
(8 part yog):
"ym
and niym": in the practice of yog,
is the practice of restraining, controlling, curbing
kARm through self control of
iNDRRiyo (senses) and mns
(mind), buDHDHi, and
aHNkaar, and with application the rules
of DHARm
so as to live only by DHARm).
You can study the 8-ang yog on VED PAGE, TODAY'S
PRAYERS AND TODAY'S VED LESSON on this PVAF web site.
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The six daily practices of
ym are :
-
aHiNsaa
(non-injurious behaviour towards others);
-
st`y
(speaking truth only);
-
astaey
(not misappropriating wealth of others);
-
apRigRH
(not accepting monetary gifts from others);
-
akRoDH
(not getting angry towards anybody);
-
anusuuyaa
(not getting jealous towards anybody)
The six daily practices of
"niym"
are:
-
tps
(performance of penance),
-
svaaDHyaay
(self- study of ved
to understand one as aatmaa
and not the body)
-
sNtoSH
(desireless contentment with what one obtains through
daivya or bhaagya (fate or destiny)),
-
shaouch
(purification of a living being's existence as a body
and body's empowering entity called
aatmaa (soul)),
-
hri-puujaa
(puujaa or
worship of brhmah
by thought, words and karma),
-
sNDHyaa praathnaa
(prayers to brhmah
3 times a day - morning, noon and evening),
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To read the meaning of the above from Aziz Premji,
Chairman and majority share holder of Wipro Corporation, Indian, in his recent
speech titled "Shaping Young Minds Program" organized by the All India
Management Association please click on the next line......This speech was
submitted for publication on this web site by SRii Jaswant
Mehta of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada....
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February 10, 2004: Address by Azim Premji, Chairman,
Wipro Corporation, in the "Shaping Young Minds Program" (SYMP) organized by the
All India Management Association:
I am very happy to be here with you. It is always wonderful to be with young
people. The funny thing about life is that you realize the
value of something only when it begins to leave you. As my hair turned from
black, to salt and pepper and finally salt without the
pepper, I have begun to realize the importance of youth. At the same time, I
have begun to truly appreciate some of the lessons I
have leant along the way. I hope you will find them useful when you plan your
own career and life.
The first thing I have learnt is that we must always begin with our strengths.
From the earliest years of our schooling, everyone
focuses on what is wrong with us. There is an imaginary story of a rabbit. The
rabbit was enrolled in a rabbit school. Like all rabbits,
it could hop very well but could not swim. At the end of the year, the rabbit
got high marks in hopping but failed in swimming. The
parents were concerned. They said, "Forget about hopping. You are anyway good at
it. Concentrate on swimming."
They sent the rabbit for tuitions in swimming. And guess what happened? The
rabbit forgot how to hop! As for swimming, have you
ever seen a rabbit swim?
While it is important for us to know what we are not good at, we must also
cherish what is good in us. That is because it is only our
strengths that can give us the energy to correct our weaknesses.
The second lesson I have learnt is that a rupee earned is of far more value than
five found. My friend was sharing me the story of his
eight year-old niece. She would always complain about the breakfast. The cook
tried everything possible, but the child remained
unhappy. Finally, my friend took the child to a supermarket and brought one of
those ready-to-cook packets.
The child had to cut the packet and pour water in the dish. After that, it took
two minutes in the microwave to be ready. The child
found the food to be absolutely delicious? The difference was that she has
cooked it! In my own life, I have found that nothing gives
as much satisfaction as earning our rewards. In fact, what is gifted or
inherited follows the old rule of come easy, go easy. I guess
we only know the value of what we have if we have struggled to earn it.
The third lesson I have learnt is no one bats a hundred every time. Life has
many challenges. You win some and lose some. You
must enjoy winning. But do not let it go to the head. The moment it does, you
are already on your way to failure. And if you do
encounter failure along the way, treat it as an equally natural phenomenon.
Don't beat yourself for it or any one else for that matter!
Accept it, look at your own share in the problem, learn from it and move on. The
important thing is, when you lose, do not lose the
lesson.
The fourth lesson I have learnt is the importance of humility. Sometimes, when
you get so much in life, you really start wondering
whether you deserve all of it. This brings me to the value of gratitude. We have
so much to be grateful for. Our parents, our teachers
and our seniors have done so much for us that we can never repay them. Many
people focus on the short comings, because
obviously no one can be perfect. But it is important to first acknowledge what
we have received. Nothing in life is permanent but
when a relationship ends, rather than becoming bitter, we must learn to savour
the memory of the good things while they lasted.
The fifth lesson I learnt is that we must always strive for excellence. One way
of achieving excellence is by looking at those better
than ourselves. Keep learning what they do differently. Emulate it. But
excellence cannot be imposed from the outside. We must also feel the need from
within. It must become an obsession. It must involve not only our mind but also
our heart and soul. Excellence is not an act but a habit. I remember the
inspiring lines of a poem which says that your reach must always exceed your
grasp.
That is heaven on earth. Ultimately, your only competition is yourself.
The sixth lesson I have learnt is never give up in the face of adversity. It
comes on you suddenly without warning. One can either
succumb to self-pity, wring your hands in despair or decide to deal with the
situation with courage and dignity. Always keep in mind
that it is only the test of fire that makes fine steel. A friend of mine shared
this incident with me. His eight-year old daughter was
struggling away at a jigsaw puzzle. She kept at it for hours but could not
succeed. Finally, it went beyond her bedtime. My friend
told her, "Look, why don't you just give up? I don't think you will complete it
tonight. Look at it another day." The daughter looked
with a strange look in her eyes, "But, dad, why should I give up? All the pieces
are there! I have just got to put them together!" If we
persevere long enough, we can put any problem into its perspective.
The seventh lesson I have learnt is that while you must be open to change, do
not compromise on your values. Mahatma Gandhiji
often said that you must open the windows of your mind, but you must not be
swept off your feet by the breeze. You must define
what your core values are and what you stand for. And these values are not so
difficult to define. Values like honesty, integrity,
consideration and humility have survived for generations. Values are not in the
words used to describe them as much as in the
simple acts. At the end of the day, it is values that define a person more than
the achievements. Because it is the means of
achievement that decide how long the achievements will sustain. Do not be
tempted by short cuts. The short cut can make you lose
your way and end up becoming the longest way to the destination.
And the final lesson I learnt is that we must have faith in our own ideas even
if everyone tells us that we are wrong. There was once
a newspaper vendor who had a rude customer. Every morning, the Customer would
walk by, refuse to return the greeting, grab the
paper off the shelf and throw the money at the vendor. The vendor would pick up
the money, smile politely and say, "Thank you,
Sir." One day, the vendor's assistant asked him, "Why are you always so polite
with him when he is so rude to you? Why don't you
throw the newspaper at him when he comes back tomorrow?" The vendor smiled and
replied, "He can't help being rude and I can't
help being polite. Why should I let his rude behaviour dictate my politeness?
In my youth, I thought of myself as a rebel and was many times, a rebel without
a cause. Today, I realize that my rebellion was
another kind of conformity. We defied our elders to fall in line with our peers!
Ultimately, we must learn to respond instead of
reacting. When we respond, we evaluate with a calm mind and do whatever is most
appropriate. We are in control of our actions.
When we react, we are still doing what the other person wants us to do.
I wish you all the best in your life and career. I hope you achieve success in
whatever way you define it and what gives you the
maximum happiness in life. Remember, those who win are those who believe they
can.
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