The tragedy of life is, there are lot of people who are in business and somehow it is not their intention to fail but they do fail. You have to understand that when we make room with a idea to start business, we immediately think of profit. We think of greatness, we think of lot of stuff, that’s where we do mistake.

Business is keep yourself busy in a nice way, you can never be strong enough to do business as a business. Therefore, you must determine what is, what do you want to do with your business, sales, service, etcetera. If you do not have capacity to deal with people, you do not have the capacity to trust people and you might be dealing with your psychological problems through business, you better not do business. If you do your emotional, psychological, biological, parental problem, your religious faith and belief and facet and all that, you better don’t do business because business is itself an identity.

Let us not start a business, we do not determine first of all, I am going to do business for the business sake. I have never seen anybody who cannot have sex but marriage is sex included, marriage is a sex. But in marriage, sex is the least important role. When somebody says, ‘I am married and my chemistry doesn’t meet and I don’t enjoy a sex, I don’t have good relationship,’ sometime you see me with all my control I laugh. Because sex and marriage have nothing important in-between. Marriage is for perpetual, permanent partnership. Sex is between a male and a female. Same principle applies to business. Business is a permanent, perpetual, projection between you and your future and business. There are three people involved. Business is never done alone.

Business has a future, you. Because if you do business and you understand business is yours, it is my business that’s all you have to say, it’s my business, you are done. Business is never yours. That’s the first fundamental mistake you commit logically, psychologically, personally and socially and individually and this is first misguiding statement you make, this is my business. You are cooked, you are done. You won’t have it. One way or the other you will fall short because this is the business I deal with. That I can understand maximum, that’s the max. But if you are partner in a business and your future and you are businessman, then that is what your role is.

In a business you play a role, like in a movie an actor plays a role, it’s a first rate role, second rate role, third rate role, it is supporting role, it is subordinate role, you play in business role. You do not have business, nobody has business. Therefore it has to be totally understood very methodically, systematically and chemically, what a business is. You see one thing? Nobody wants to learn how to do business. Majority of the time you do business for your ego, for your survival, for making money and you have always a different attitude, that’s why I am emphasizing this point, you must determine what you want to do with your business. Do you want to be busy in a nice way and you want to play a role?

If you are willing to subordinate your ego to that point that I am going to play a role, then you will be successful. Then you play a role, then other will see you playing a role, other will play the role and everything will start rolling. It’s every important. It’s a very determined attitude in which every businessman has failed. Because sometime you cannot play a role because you overact. Sometime you cannot play a role because you under act, sometime you are not in time, sometime you are over, overtime, sometime you do not have the capacity, sometime you do not know, sometime you don’t see pre-guidance, pre-calculations, you do not do your homework, you do not give importance because it is your business. It’s not your business is to pre-prepare role, read the script, learn the lines. Ninety-nine percent people have failed in business because of this mistake.

I have seen a person calling his office secretary and checking, what are the appointments tomorrow, if there any important person coming, is there any important disease I have to treat, is there any medicine in the pharmacy not available, I mean to say, it was amazing to me that the gentleman will take a trouble to check everything before even going to office. He will, he named his secretary, Beginning secretary.

I said, “What is beginning about you, what you are talking about, what she begins?”

She said, “She comes begins checking two hours earlier than everybody gets every pencil, pad, everything, (?), office is clean, inventory is right, tables are okay, paper is enough, she has two hours clean to herself not a one thing whole day shall go wrong.”

He will come nine o’clock to work at, at, fifteen minutes to nine (?) there were no big deal in Tucson, his office and his business and his store, everything was just in one area and fifteen minutes before, she will call and she said, “Doctor, everything sounds okay, checked, but you are seeing…”

I was taking actually a breakfast with him and he said, “You are seeing, this leader of the Sikhs, YogiBhajan, something like that. He is a tall six feet two, weight this much, he has this, he has this,” and she was talking to him. “I think we have to make a room, I have prepared for reception and anything else you want to do.”

It blew my mind, that is like business. There is a role in a business. And it’s a role, model role. Higher you are in the business, harder is the role to play. Higher you are in business, harder is the role to play. And perfect you want the result, perfect is the role to be played. This presumption that I am a businessman, it’s my business, everything is perfect, everything is all right, just walk in as you want. That’s not business. In the orient, you go to the business, you sit down on the place where you sit and work, you worship. You worship. Everybody goes to, they say Gaddi Puja. Gaddi means where they sit. They worship that place where they sit. Wahe Guru Kaur, can you give her these lozenges, these, her cough will go away in no time. So, business is nothing but the test of your determination. Not on your intelligence.

Once I went to, I was posted as an officer to the industry town, I met my old classmate, he used to copy us all the time, we were always troubled because of him, because he never knew what to write and what to say and in examination he will always copy our questions, answers and naturally sometime he will exactly copy it and either the person in the front or the back will also be smashed with it, why you allow him to copy. And he was known to everybody he copy. Somehow he passed the school standard and we never saw him, he never came to college and all that. So when I went to this industrial town, he met me in the club, town club, industrial club, and I said, “Hey, where are you doing here?”

He said, “Oh, I work here in the factory.”

I said, “Which one?”

He said, “Oh that one factory.”

I said, “That is the biggest factory, I mean to say, it’s the big one.”

He said, “Yeah, I just work here. I understand you have come to the arts officer of the town.”

I said, “Happens to be I do not know yet first of all.

Industry is not all set, some work is there, too much is to be done, but let us see what we do.”

I said, “Well, I am glad to meet my classmate and friend, I will see you sometime.”

He said, “No, no please, just whenever you go that side, visit our factory first, I like to meet you.”

I said, “Wow, well, at least I know somebody I know in the whole town.”

“Why not?”

I said, “You are married?”

He said, “Yeah, I have children, bah, bah, bah.”

I said, “Have children too.”

So, we talked and it was a good association. And I said to myself, “Okay, he is my friend, what factory, he must be a factory worker, something (?), what else he can be,” I said, ‘he doesn’t look like a factory worker, I mean, (?) here in the industrial club. And everybody was very nice to him, what kind of worker he can be.’ So I said okay, that, that trigger the curiosity, so I went to that factory that day and gateman saw me, naturally (?) when I went they opened the gate respectfully and… But I was not taken to the manager. Normally you go to the general manager of the factory and meet him, talk to him. But I was told, I should go to the boss room, my reception is there and he knew that I will be coming.

I said, “Wow! This man must be chief of intelligence, look at him, how did he know,” because there was no program nothing, I just walked into. But I went and he went to his room and almost his room was little bigger than this hall. Huge office table and he was, he opened the door and received me in.

I said, “What are you doing here?”

He said, “This is my office.” He was not shy about it.

And I said, “Why, this big office like a football ground.”

He said, “Oh I exercise here, I am suppose to walk everyday and I take my walk in my office.”

I said, “Well, why don’t you have a full football ground, I mean, what is wrong with that?”

He said, “Well, you know, that’s the way I live and that’s the way my medical requirement is.”

I said, “Oh God.”

Well, I went and I sat down and he sat up and he said, “Come and sit on my…” Normally in oriental when you want to respect somebody you will make him sit on your chair.

And I said, “No, no, I will sit here and you sit there.” But I said, “Are you general manger? But they say you are the owner of this factory.”

He said, “Yeah. I, I own all this.”

I said, “Well, you made a quite a progress.”

He said, “No, no, I have seventeen PhD degrees too.”

I said, “Wait a minute, wait a minute man, I can believe you own this, that’s fine, I understood you come from very poor pauper family that’s true, you must have made wealth, that I can understand, I understand everything but this I am not going to understand that you did seventeen PhD’s. I mean, it takes a lifetime to be one and where you got those seventeen and I know.”

He said, “That is true. I copied everything.”

I said, “You copied seventeen PhD’s?”

He said, “True. You want to see it?”

I said, “Sure man, that’s the only thing I want to see.”

So he pressed the button and told the secretary, “Bring my PhD degrees in, I want to show my boss.”

There came seventeen PhD’s having a framed degree like this and walked into that room and stood in one line, he has already trained them. And they were all his chemists and everybody he hired was a PhD. Doctor in chemicals, doctor in this, doctor in research, doctor in that, doctor in that, all seventeen was doctors.

And he said, “These are my degrees.”

(Student’s laughter)

Now what I can say you are wrong and they were standing really the degree was here, I mean, they were fully trained that if they don’t do they are fired. They were just like this, degree was just with the chest, held in a hand like this. So I could not shame them by reading their degrees.

And I said, “I believe you man, I believe you.”

And he said, “Thank you.” And they all went like a they were robots, they walked in, they walked out.

And I said, “What do you mean, you have seventeen degrees.”

He said, “Why not, these are all PhD. They work for me. Why should I have PhD? You know I passed my matric in third division, hardly I passed. I mean to say I was exactly thirty-three numbers, otherwise one number less, I would have failed.”

I said, “I know and you put us all into every trouble, every time.”

He said, “Well, now I have learnt, how to copy right.”

I said, “But how you learn all this business?”

He said, “Oh, yeah I started with one factory and learned what they do. I said, wow, we can do it. And I just showed up lot of talent, not that I was knew anything but somehow and I started my own little factory and I created new, new paints and they got popular and one thing led to the other, this industrial town came up, I bought the biggest place in factory, Government gave me loan and I set it all up. But what I have done is, my first choice is to hire a PhD, second is to hire a master, third is to hire graduate, fourth is to hire none.”

I said, “Oh you must be kidding.

Can’t be. You press a button and guard, the… What they call it manager or person or (?), work and all that.”

And there was a column which called education, there was a not one employee in those seven hundred people who was less than graduation. And there was also whether he is A plus graduate or A graduate, I didn’t see any B.

So what I mean to say is that when you are successful, you know what business is, you can determine, you know your role, you can hire anybody as a adviser, counsel, management, anything. Money can hire anything but it cannot hire you. And that is the crushing point which I want to sit in your head, like anything else.

Money can buy everything around you but it cannot buy you. It cannot buy your determination, it cannot buy you the inspiration, it cannot buy you the habit of homework, it cannot buy you to remain unbiased and impersonal with the business. Your business is as much personal and it will only work when you act, decide, make decision impersonally. No personal habit, ego flavor involve. Therefore, they say, be determined the business is to be busy in a nice, impersonal fashion. And in a business play a role and serve it. Serve your role and if you have a role model, everybody will subordinately or higherly will follow it. Number two, the most effective tool in business which you all forget is how much you are trusted. If your trust is not there, you are busted already, you will have trouble one way or the other, today or tomorrow, there is nothing you can do about it.

So these are certain things which you have to determined when you think of a business. These thoughts must be there and they must give you a clarity and you must clarify with your ego that you want to do business. Actually without these things no business can succeed and you shall fail. Why? Because as you grow business and business will grow, it will become a furnace and you will not be in a position to detach yourself and you will burn in your own furnace. Business will be busy to kill you too, if you do not match up to your status in business. In business there are only for certain jobs you can do, do them well, there are certain role you can play, play it well, don’t start doing everything or anything.

When a President work as a clerk, hire that President as a clerk and when a clerk work as a President hire that clerk as a President. Mostly we hire wrong people for right job and for right roles. When a person has a wrong motivated role and person’s personality do not fit in with the role, a person has to play the entire thing will burst up. Some people have sales tendencies, they should sell. Some people are administrators, they should administrate, some people are organizer, they should organize. So every person basically has a elementary nature. And no person if they do not determined what their real nature is…

Now, look at me personally, I can talk about God and give you experience about God, that’s okay, that’s, that’s, I have, that’s absolutely I can do but I can’t make a telephone call. Now, I can’t type a line on a typewriter. To me to connect seven digits on a telephone or five digest is more difficult than telling somebody to give somebody a typist for ever life. Now, what you can do about it? I know my difficultly. I have a photogenic memory. You put me anywhere in the world, I will find my way but I will never know which way is north pole, which way is south pole, I have nothing to do with that, I somehow smell my thing to the nearest place.

So there are certain faculties in you and certain are not and if you, you cannot have photogenic memory and you also cannot write everything, they don’t go together. There are some people who remember every telephone number. You speak one number they will remember it, you will not speak, you take a, I mean chisel and chisel the number in my head, I will still forget it, if it is a telephone number, otherwise you speak any number numerical I know. I have something with telephone. You talk to me on the telephone, I exactly know what you think, what you are saying, how much you are, what you say, there is nothing you can hide, just speak, just one word. And that frequency will totally I, I can read you inside out.

So normally on the telephone either I am talking or you are listening or you are talking and I say, hah, hah, huh, huh, yeah, yeah, go ahead, keep speaking, I am listening. I am not listening, I am just reading you, I don’t listen. So it is not that for one faculty you have all the faculties. Now, you have facets to cover but you cannot cover all facets. Just determine that first. Try to behave very honestly with yourself when you want to start with (?), you cannot do all facets.

Business has its own identity, own personality, own facet to cover and they are factually have to be covered. And you can’t be expert to cover all facets, some people think ‘oh, it is my business, what I say goes,’ forget it. Now, if a person is expert in the area, then what that person is expert that… In business, we require expertiship and partnership. We do not require in a person, emotions, feeling, all this garbage and laying them… Do not mix business and pleasure. When you want to play, play, when you want to work, work. Some people are very foolish, they mix both. You don’t have to. Do business as a business impartially and when you want to play, play and don’t play it as a business. In business there is only one motive, determined (?) this, you have to be flawlessly, flawlessly, ruthlessly, flawlessly, ruthlessly determined to make a profit.

Pro Fit, otherwise you are not fit for business. Business for the pro and for the fit people, unfit will not be a part of business. And pro will not survive very long. One who is not a pro, is not going to survive in business. That is how read the word profit, you have to be pro and you have to be fit. You must be one step ahead of the situation. That’s the one faculty of management. So you must determine what is you want to do with your business. Actually, you must determine what you want to do with yourself. Business knows what business want to do with itself. Whether you want to come through or you don’t want to come through, that is exactly your choice. In every relationship, in any partnership, in any living condition, in any environments, just please remember. Just please remember, you have to come through. And nobody else can come through for you. You can take it or you can leave it.

In business, business in one thing is only you cannot blame anybody. Success is a business success, you can enjoy the profit. Failure is your failure, now what is the relationship, tell me? There is absolutely no relationship, what you are talking about. When a business fail, business never fails, nobody ever has agreed on this planet that business has failed. They know you have failed, they don’t want to tell you, they say, ‘oh, God, this is a terrible business time, business has failed.’ Business has not failed, you have failed and if you are success then business is successful. ‘Oh your business is flourishing, your business is doing good, your business is doing great.’ When you fail, ‘oh God, you never knew a thing damn it, you messed it up.’ So actually speaking there is no relationship absolutely between you and your business.

Therefore, please don’t blame anybody, except yourself. And business claim only your role, if you claim all the roles of all the people who are your subordinate all that, yes if you are in a management role that’s true. Then buck stops with you. Then you are everything, right from the basic trash man to the President you are answerable, this is one thing I have found in America, you do not know how to answer. You are not responsible. And actually you are not able to response, what is there responsible, when you are able to response to the question asked. That’s called responsible. You don’t know the meaning of this word actually to be frank, in America, I have gone through everywhere and I have taught lot of courses, you do not know what the word responsible means. You responsible means, you are just there. No, if you are able to response every point in your role of that business, you are responsible and if you are able to response, if you are not and you irritate other with your answer you are irresponsible.

And if you cannot answer a question with a smile and you cannot speak with a smile, you do not have a dialogue. If you cannot yell and scream when you have to, you don’t have a dialogue. If you cannot order exactly, you don’t have a dialogue because all your behavior and how you play your role determines your trust. In business your trust is more valuable and more vital than you are pretending to be. In business question come to one answer, can you trust your business role and can your role in business be trusted. That is the deciding factor. Not more, not less. Your games oh, the tragedy we do is, we play games in business, you are done deal. And the worst part of it is when you play role, you lose your respect and trust between your, between your subordinates. A subordinate will say, ‘oh forget it, that person is a baboon.’

Everybody in business has a nickname. Remember… If you want to know how people know you, try to know from somebody your nickname in business. Not what is written on your door, not what the paper say you are, you are in business what your subordinates say you are and what your bosses say you are and what your business say you are. And also what your bank say you are. You have heard the expression, ‘it’s very nice to do business with you.’ You know that expression? That is you, that’s your role. If you try to play your role, stupid role stupidly and you want people to respect you, trust you and believe you and deal with you, you are really asking too much.

I was having a business meeting today and I never thought the person think I am his spiritual teacher, so he wanted to treat me a spiritually, I said, “Wait a minute buck stops here.”

Then later on, when we were talking privately, I said, “In any business meeting, if you would have talked to a man of my authority, I would have fired you in next minute.”

He said, “I saw that.”

I said, “Something upset you,” he told me something.

I laughed, I cracked up, he didn’t know one word of business, totally blew my mind.

I said, “This person can be a good administrator of accounts.”

“Oh my God,” that blew the mind. Why administrator of accounts is one who supervise the administration of accounts, sales, purchase, orders, bah, bah, bah, the whole thing and he knew only the administrator is only who works in the office.

I said, “Administrator of territory, administrator of office, administrator of sales, administrator of purchase, administrator of this, administrator of that. Administrator doesn’t mean one job. Administrator is to administer the job of that what it is.”

He said, “I couldn’t understand it.”

I said, “Why you only know there is a one administrator, that’s it.”

(?) he was sorry hundred million times but that doesn’t make the sense to me, how can this person can have such a powerful future so defined and doesn’t even understand.

So please, this predetermination, habit to predetermine, that’s why you must determined, that’s a very powerful word, I specially knew that. You must determined what you want to do, with your day, with your business, your day is a business, your lies, your home, your environments, every facet of life, you have to determined must. If you don’t have a habit to give a determined answer your subordinate won’t respect you and your bosses won’t trust you. The business moves with two points, north pole and south pole. It is the determination of yours, which must be trusted, who can stop the inflow, who can stop you. And the subordinate which you have, must respect you. You are fine.

I remember in one business, one salesman went to the business and the businessman said, “I am not going to purchase anything more, anymore but tell me how much I have to pay you. What is the inventory?” He told him what is the inventory, what his pay. “Okay,” he said, “I will pay this much, rest the inventory pick it up. Take the rest of inventory, you can sell it.”

This man was very intelligent. He said, “Fine.” Picked up the rest of the inventory and he came and he asked me, he said, “It’s a very wonderful relationship of mine and so and so and they always buy from me things and I always sell them and this is what happened this time.”

I said, “You are right, is that person very much in love with you and respect you too much.”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “Well they are in financial trouble, they are going to close down the shop. They might be going for chapter eleven or seven something.”

It was true, a month later, (?). But because of his respect for this guy, so he may not suffer, he just cleaned that out.

Now the most important part you do not want to talk about is called planning. Planning is like a blueprint. Planning is like a blueprint, planning is like architect makes the blueprint. You can tell what you want in a house, architect this to produce it. But most of the time you put those two together in you, I want a house and I want this kind of house, that’s okay but I want to built it this way. Now that’s not your job. And it’s always better to plan dividingly and act unanimously. Plan dividingly and act unanimously. What you do is you plan unanimously and act dividingly. And that’s the tragic part of business.

It’s surprising to me, if America would have been in business with the world and it would not have been a corporation and people are not forced to cooperate in a corporation, America would have been the most nasty business country in the world. But it is first class, because everything is by corporate living, corporate working and in a corporation bureaucracy much time you cannot go wrong. Because somebody is going to catch it and this is how like a nagging wife starts. Once a wife is in trouble, she start nagging you, you think she is something wrong with her brain; or there is something wrong with you. She is nagging you because she doesn’t want to say what she want to say or what she feels by intuitively and intelligently whatever. She is saying something to you which you don’t understand. Then there would be fights, then there will be some other man she is going to find out and dump you or force you to dump her. That’s how a divorce happens. It’s very systematic system I have seen, it develops over the time and it takes its own time and own role, it’s very simple thing. Between a man and woman exactly that’s what it is. Exactly like a wife or like an husband, whatever you case you want to gave a name to it, a business will start nagging you. You will start finding snags they call it. In relationship it is nagging, in business it is snagging. And moment you face a snag in business or a nag in relationship, wake up, otherwise your Kundalini is never risen.

Please understand planning fairly well and very determinedly that you have to act dividingly when you plan. Plan dividingly and when you perform, act unitedly. And what is you mean in business act unitedly. This is the same thing in life, cover each other. There is only one thing in life – cover or suffer. There is nothing in life and that you cannot learn from me; that you can learn from yourself. In the morning when you get off the bed you put a housecoat, you cover. You go on a shower you come out you put a towel around, you cover. For everything you have to cover and in a business your role is to cover your yesterday, there is a problem with business, that’s why relationship are little easier than business. You have to cover your yesterday, you have to cover your today and you have to cover you tomorrow. All three tenses have to be covered. Understood?

In planning a day in a business. What is the deadline most important? Any call which you have to made yesterday and you couldn’t make it or your staff couldn’t make it do it today. In business yesterday uncovered situation is becomes a deadline today. And the important is what you have to connect tomorrow and you cover today. It is very unfortunate that you all do business and you do not know the fundamentals of it. You totally cover tomorrow today. It is called predetermined tomorrow. And you totally complete yesterday, it comes to word called priority. Have my priorities been finished, I have met my deadline and is my tomorrow clear? The chief executive has to say yes sir. If he doesn’t say yes sir, you are in trouble. Rest is your guesswork. In planning, you must also have alternative projections and all projection should be in progressions. In case this happened, that happen in that case, this happen, it is a permutation and combination. There is no one straight projection. It is suicidal to have one projection.

That’s why the most difficult word in that line is-you must be clear. That means you have as many permutation and combination and projections, in progressions as many you can have or can be possible. If A doesn’t work B will cover, if B doesn’t work C will cover, C doesn’t work D will cover, D, E, F, G, I, Z, you have to go all the way up to that. It’s very important. In a business school they will teach you business, they will not teach you business and success at the same time. Success you have to learn by practical means and that will take many lifetimes. But basically business has to be learned for success and start profit. So you have to be pro fit. So you must clear your thinking and your goals and also you must be clear that your role should fit in those goals.

If your goal does not want your role, it’s not your goal, it’s somebody’s goal. You can counsel, help and advice but don’t start putting your nose in every, every affair. If you are a President just preside. You will never be dented. But as a President and you finger everything and you box up everything and you do everything wrong and if you are owner, you don’t show the ownership, you will sink the ship. You must come through. There is no me, we, us, they; it is a clear cut laid down rule. Then comes the most vital of all, it is called preparation area, which your business is going to deal. The territory, the jurisdiction, the contacts, the ethical groups or ethics of that area and culture and demographics means everything.

What kind of plants there are, what kind of roads there are, what kind of insurance there is, what is the theft in that area, it’s a industrial not industrial, what is the walking facilities, what are the restaurant near, how many away the motels are, hotels are, how you will receive your… It is everything. You have to be a total city clerk and it should be on a paper and it should be in your memory and should be known to you. It is very important. Then you must hire staff which must fit in your status and your state of mind, so you can be happy and proud. You can’t tell your wife what to dress but you can tell your staff how to behave. You can’t tell your children what to eat and not to but on a company lunch you can decide what you want to be served.

There is a different between a husband and a boss. There is a different between owner and a boss. A boss is a boss, owner who does not know how to give presents should not be owner. Always made a boss to take dirty linen (?). Leave all bad acts to him and when it comes to a boss, if you are a boss then you have to do all the dirty work but when you come to giving presents and parties, then it’s the owner’s headache. How he wants to do it. Role of a owner is not a role of a boss. Boss is a jobber who does it, delivers it, keeps it going, whatever you want to call it. Boss smoothes it. Boss is a diplomat but of a less degree but more a commander.

A good boss will brief his subordinates in a meeting, a bad boss will discuss the matters. A good boss will take all the objects and subject and planning and everything and just prepare the brief. Absolutely exact, goes to the meeting, then start ta, ta, ta, ta, this is this, this is this, this is area, this is go, this is do, just do, just do, will you do this, will you do that, will you do that, do you promise to do that (?) no, no secretary take the note, keep determination, keep checking, we will meet the goals or not. But if a boss starts talking and discussing, planning and catering and asking, forget it. You need many lifetimes. Then you are fortunate if your business is successful. Then it’s a magic, there is no business sense in it, it is happening, nobody knows, neither you know nor anybody else know.

It’s world proportion is ratio proportion, how much you put out and how much comes in, how to be truly successful, you have to be willing to offer more than what is expected of you and by doing so will receive the referral and repeat business which is the cornerstone of, this is actually pro and con. Proportion and ratio. Actually you don’t misunderstand that, this is what your PR is. This is basic sense of public relation. How you want to succeed, how you want to propose, how you want to be, it’s the cheapest and much less costly public relation that you must think of ratio proportion when you give a gift, you must know, when you send flowers you must know, who you are sending, what it means to you? A ordinary card…

It’s very funny, (?), the secretary of the interior, wrote a handwritten card and send it to me at the hospital just (?) what, what to him. He said, “Wow, Yogiji he said, find it out where is he, which hospital he is, I want to send him the card.” And it is a handwritten card, (?) wrote and secretary of (?), card was on a slip, he said. I wish you recovery well, so we can meet in New Mexico again, something, very personal, handwritten. It meant a lot than anything in the world. First of all I am a democrat, he is a republican. But we are twenty-two years old friends. And by doing that he totally acknowledged that friendship, that’s what matters. That card didn’t mean anything. It does acknowledge that sentiments, so in ratio proportion see what sentiments you are creating.

Side B

Sentiments are very vital and very personal in a personal sense in a business. And they play very important role. You know, wherever I go, they ask me who is he, who is this, what is this ego, you know, there are three hundred question, I covered all, I wrote in the back of my card, if you cannot see God in all, you cannot see God at all. Now nobody ask me, who am I, what am. Just two lines are… They convey my real sentiments, who am I. And no question is asked thereafter. It has free me of so much conversation and so much time you can’t even believe it. So preparation is never once, it’s everyday and unfortunately every hour of the day. That is why time is divided in seconds, minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years.

If your preparation is intact and you have pre-prepared, you are in good shape. If not, you are out shape. So please in ratio and proportion you must decide that it also show your preparation, your readiness, your personality. You are dealt by your public relation, not by your bank account. Your looks as a solid person, as a prince, as a regal person, as smartly dress, as authentic person, is more important than what you want to impress and preach. That’s why the beauty of a Sikh is when you go, it is difficult to introduce yourself but once you are introduce, it is very difficult to forget you. So you have a edge over others.

I was telling some Singh, he said, “Well, in this situation, I am finding difficulty.”

I knew his old name, I took that name, I said, “That must have come through your, through your conversation.”

He said, “Yeah, he was saying to me, you look like a Sikh but you are convert.”

I said, “Well. You know what that means, by behavior you must have brought your past in your present and it is going to bother you in future.”

You know yesterday is gone, you have learned from it, if you are not learned from it, it is your wrong but it’s gone. The tragedy is you have gone yesterday, bring it today, waste your today for it and mess up your tomorrow. What is gone is gone. And if you are not learned yesterday from yesterday, you are not going to learn today. Are you going to learn today be miserable. It will cut short your energy, it will not let you plan tomorrow, it will not let you walk free. And that’s not fair. It is not fair to you. Then another thing which you must know in business is the parallel competition. What are people doing who are doing like you or somewhat like you or around you and all that stuff.

You must know who else is doing what you are doing, products, services and also be. You have to also understand, who is your ally and who is your competitor and who can be cutthroat and who is going to be jealous and who is going to stab you and it is a whole area for which there should be a complete defense mechanism, they call it intelligence and counter intelligence in a business. It’s very shocking to you when I say that but there is not a any good business which does not have intelligence and counter intelligence complete and have ever succeeded. He is always overtaken by others, it has always by dumped by others and with all your good heart, God bless your good heart, you will lose your head. It’s a very simple thing, they say, there is no human body without a mole. You might have heard that.

There is no business, if you do not know the intelligence and the counter intelligence of your own business and the field thereof. If you talk to your friend, you must talk to your foes too. Because there is no better counter intelligence than talking to your foes and something may slip, which may save you forever. I have used this formula and I have never failed. Friends you can talk or not that is not, that’s important but not that important. But if you have somebody is your foe, keep on talking to the point, their head goes around. Busy them, speak to them, send a foe a flower. He will return it with a nastiest note but from the cutting of the T, you will know where he stands. Don’t ask anybody how much strong your enemy is against you, just send a gift, it will come back, you are not going to lose the gift. It’s going to come with a nastiest letter, but how the T is cut and how is I is dotted, you can very well know what is going on.

In big businesses, we hire detectives, in big businesses there are cells called intelligent cell. And it’s equally important to small businesses. Total immediate and far out, you must see what goals can be reached in a short-term, midterm and long-term and determine if it is worth pursuing in the first place. Every potential is imaginary. Imaginations are very important, imagery is very important but it is not reality.

You know, this course which I am teaching right now is so boring that if I do not keep on talking high and low, you will go to sleep.

(Student’s laughter)

No, no, don’t, don’t misunderstand me because business is the most enthusiastic subject you want to do and it is most boring when it comes to learning. I am not kidding with you, it is a real thing. If you ask a person I will teach you business, you will lose him for a week at least. Nobody wants to learn business. Because business is one thing where your ego will not work. Business is one thing your ego will serve. Business is the first-rated enemy of the ego. If you look in any business you have done, any deal you have run, you only fail when your ego is involved. You know me, if you call me anything, if I want to do it I’ll do it. I will say I will do it for you. And if I don’t have to do it, I will say, well, I’ll tell the President to deal with it. Because the things are not straight.

And I use my ego exactly to put the thing to the process because my honesty cannot take it. But if I have a bad news and I don’t want to lie to somebody, I always ask my chief of staff to call that person and talk to that person. Because I want to give a person grace. It’s always better, you use your personal staff for your messages, rather than doing it yourself. Because you can cover your staff, your staff can hardly cover you when it comes to equals. A pleasant, well mannered executive secretary can do lot more for business than you can do yourself.

When it come to bad news, tell the secretary to communicate, when it tell to the good news, send a gift and a personal letter. Always when you write sincerely, write personally with hand and sign it, always if somebody is your own determined write the name of that person yourself with your ink. Don’t type every damn thing. Give a personal touch. Create a potential friendship through your communication, through your manners, through your planning, through your behavior, through your public relation because the whole world is your potential customer. (?), this is a one thing which I must remind you in a local, vernacular.

“Pie bepar gak the ranhe.”

Business is the wife of the customer.

It’s a very old saying. So everything is by the customer, sales. But some people are so greedy they don’t care, what kind of sales they do. Many time in our business trouble is, we get so much sell, sell, sell, we end up selling our profit and our capital both. And we are so determined to sell, computer was saying that we are selling the product five cent loss per piece and the man still not determined it. He said, “No, no, no, computer doesn’t know what it is doing.” Computer is doing what computer has been programmed to do. We ended up under chapter eleven for nothing.

So please, the value needed for success, you must have utmost integrity so that your honesty is considered beyond re-approach and then you can be completely interested, this is achieved by placing the customers’ need in front of your own and doing what is best for them, also called finding out their needs and wants, you must do something that is done out of your personal passion. You want to use passion in a business, that’s how it goes. If your reception room is has a beautiful natural smell, healing smell, a good music, a person is received and asked to be seated and after ten minutes your reception say ‘please, I know you are there, don’t worry,’ just those little, little gestures make a lot of difference.

We have come to almost eight things and I am just not talking in detail and it has come to about two hours. So you can well understand how boring is business. I am skipping lot of things which I talk because I can go on on these up to now, I should have covered in six months. What I am covering in minutes, it take months because for many years I have trained people how to be officer and it’s all in my head and officer is one who commands the business, the territory, the jurisdiction and the pros and cons of it. It’s not a small person.

Now, there comes the most vital question which you like to ignore because I have seen our business have the habit not to have an internal audit. Actually every business must have a quarterly internal audit of inventory, profit and loss, the whole thing. And I have seen practically, we specially will not like to do it and will not like to let anybody know how bankrupt we are and how good bankers we are. This personal funds we watch like dogs and we become dogs. And it’s very unpractical. Internal audit must be done by impartial person who is not convinced by our personality or our projection, it should be totally independence person… If you want to save your business and save yourself, please learn one thing; internal audit is as vital as anything else and it must be done. It’s as must as you have to have a breath of life to live, exactly what a internal audit is. Before somebody hits you, you must hit yourself and correct your path and quarter is the maximum you can go. After that things become very competently complicated.

How fit you have to face the economy, you must be aware of the state of economy to see if your product or services can be used at their particular time, what segment the population you are targeting upper class, middle class and mass market. And you know, while purchasing also products and proposals and all that, you have to know what seasons are, you must know your basic elementary price on the market, you must know Wall Street, must know banks. Today is very easy, you have to watch that Dollar And Cents, that little five minutes make more sense than anything. You got to know three times a day what is going on. That’s why this headline news in CNN has made, CNN more important network in the world.

You know in thirty minutes it tell you all about you want to know. Forget about sports or some people, sports is very important, some people the other Hollywood minute and all that is (?), leave those ten minutes but first ten minutes and those five minutes, it’s fifteen minutes. You know what that fifteen minutes mean, you have to read a full local newspaper, national newspaper and the world newspaper and Wall Street journal. And you can get that in fifteen minutes.

And it’s funny in one office I saw, the man came to office, he pressed first thing, first thing was the all the messages and within a second computer automatically put a prayer out, then there was a prayer, then there was his family meeting, then there comes all the good news he can have on his computer and this was a huge screen and finally it told him his deadlines and dead was very big lines word was very small.

And I asked him, I said, “What is this dead?”

He said, “If I don’t deal with this thing, I will be dead man, that’s what it means and please sit down and wait, let me finish with this.”

And he called his secretary, executive secretary and he said, “This is so and so, I have got Yogiji here and I can’t meet my deadline, could you ask my executive, executive director to process them for thirty minutes and see what he can do and know, then come on to me and then I will deal with it.”

Because I got a hint, I slipped from that place in ten minutes. And he said, “No, no, please sit down, we have half an hour.”

I said, “No, no. I heard your phone call, let me get out.”

So you should know, economy, world economy, local, personal economy and business economy. There are so many economies you have to know, one won’t work. Trends, trade, economies, weather, elementary, products, crops, seasons.

Now comes the most vital, I intentionally keep this the last, bank role. Bank relationship is not a personal relationship, it should be always business relationship. And how much bank is going to support you and how much your bank know you and how much trust and PR you have your bank, that is a very vitally issue. And for a long time, if you are a good relationship and sometime you are in a bad weather, sometime the bank will come through for you. Good customer is as good for them as you are, your bank is good to you. And you always should have a basic collateral or a basic investor. That is important. There is a very simple thing which I can relate to you,

“Guru bena gatha nai, sha bena path nai.”

Without a banker, there is no prestige and without a Guru there is no salvation.

A very simple line. Guru bena gatha nai, there is no redemption without Guru. Sha bena path nai, without a bank behind you. Actually if you really want to look at it, ‘oh, this is my house, nineteen bedrooms and six bathrooms and all that,’ who is the real owner, who owns the note? The bank. What are you paying on it? Interest. Oh, I have a … You know some people, if you take their purse out, the purse is bigger than its own thing with this plastic cards. That means eighteen percent interest doesn’t bother them. Net profit in every business is never more than fourteen percent. And if a person so foolish, that that person is willing to pay eighteen percent, the only idea to have a credit card is, you pay within thirty days. So you practically you pay nothing. It give you one month free credit, that’s the beauty of a credit card, never use it to pay interest on it. It’s the biggest drag this our economy has.

It’s very lowering, it is very attracting, it’s very wonderful because you can pay a little, little, little whole life but believe me or not, it’s a wonderful device for thirty days. Twenty-nine days to say. Twenty-nine days is a kill, thirty-first day you are killed. Flash a card, never use it. If you use it, pay it next day first thing. It’s good not to carry money and a plastic card. But plastic card must be paid like a ticket, traffic ticket must be paid that (?) day, twenty-eight dollars paid. Otherwise, what is the idea to have warrants and pay to a attorney six hundred dollars, five hundred dollars and stay couple hours in a jail lockup, what is the idea, for twenty bucks. And they can do it.

I tell you my personal thing, somebody must have taken my car, that’s why I hardly have a car registered in my name, my car to the airport, and the guy must have got a ticket. Whosoever was the driver of the day and must not have paid it. Hey, what do I know? One day notice came, it was brought to my attention, it’s a notice. Notice was there is going to be warrant against you, if you do not settle the issue and we do not know what issue. So we send the guy in, to check it out that we found out after half day in downtown what the issue is. It was twelve dollars ticket and by the time the notice was, it was forty-two dollars. Plus a person has to pay in person, so there was another half day.

So one full day of a person for you and plus, more than three times the money, well, good luck. That’s what a credit card is. They say, the rabbits multiply faster but the credit card the fastest. Because she rabbits give kids every full moon on the strike. God has a food production company called rabbits. Oh lot of animals, humans, all they get fed on them. So naturally production line is very powerful. But the fastest is the rabbit but fastest of all is the credit card. Eighteen percent compound interest, forget it, it’s not worth. It’s not worth a dime. And use the credit card, pay in thirty days, you are fine, thirty days free loan, wow, wonderful.

You have personal investment, you have to know how much you, your own funding and times required and whether you are willing to invest those commodities. Everything in your life is your personal investment, period, I don’t have to explain. Everything, going to right time to a bathroom and sitting on a chair in a right angle and relaxing to just answer the call of nature or urinate properly stopping four times wild in the process, will save your prostrate. And other will save your colon cancer, that’s how important this investment is. From sex to using a axe to cut somebody throat, everything is the same. Because every action has a reaction, equal and opposite and it is a investment. Bad investment will bring bad result. Good investment will good result, investment done in, good investment done in a bad manner will bring you pain and a bad investment done in a good way, may save you.

I asked somebody once, I said, “You are investing three million dollars in this proposal, what you are talking about?”

He said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have to do it.”

I said, “Why?”

He said, “In that thing we are going make nine million dollars and three million and I am going to write up this three million into nine million (?) equal. It’s okay, this loss is going to go up to nine million.”

I said, “You are investing three million to just participate in it.”

He said, “Yeah. And by the time I will be even aware of it it’ll become nine million.”

I said, “How you know, you have not to pay nine million?”

He said, “No, I will settle three million cash.” I’ll let my cash go but I will have nine million equal to that (?), make me six million, it’s not a wrong thing, I am okay.”

And logistically he was right. And that’s what the accountants are for. But they are not, they should not be final, sometime in these kinds of game, you lose your bottom. Playing games in business is your nature. It’s called childish nature, it’s not child like. In business I have seen, if you are simple, straight and do it with a smile, you shall flourish and you shall grow. But your nature is to play games and these games, floating the checks and these are very essential necessities sometime and sometime you can do it for a while but once it becomes your habit, you lost it.

Playing games is not playing games with others, it’s your playing game with yourself. So business should be mostly simple and straight and that’s the best PR you can ever do. If somebody doesn’t say you three time, it’s a pleasure to do business with you, there is something wrong.

There is a last of all we are coming now to potential profit, the total profit potential and the perpetual profit potential, you have to examine when and how much your project will show a profit and how long there will be a cash flow and if there is a potential to create a cash flow in perpetuity. Mostly in business we do one mistake, we don’t care for cash flow, we care for figures about cash.

One person has what you call it, cash flow problem and I ask him, “What is the problem?” He thought his securities are worse that much but when he wanted to sell his shares and securities, he was shocked, he could only fetch one third of his value. Face value was great and that’s where the mistake was.

Well, we have covered ourself in two hours just going through the twelve points, isn’t shocking? And yet I have covered it, per minute a month. Normally I used to teach this course for one year, everyday straight for three hours and that’s how big it is. So I thought, you have come, give you a new look into your old habits. That’s why many of you have not try to come because you don’t like to learn business. I know in business one thing definitely suffer, that is imaginative ego, you have no word about it, you have not heard it. The pain in your life is not real, it is a pain to your imaginative ego. Real ego never suffer. So I thought, I can make a hole in the imaginative ego and I can give you something just in two hours, what I two hours I can do.

We explained every facet of it and step by step we taught, start teaching just one part of it, you can have few books on them. But we are not in that much time and hurry, ours just idea because there has been a saying I am a great spiritual teacher but I am a bad businessman. And I just wanted to correct my impression with those who said so, that it’s not true. I am a very ruthless cutthroat businessman. Because if you are not ruthless and cutthroat businessman you better not do it. Because that means two negative words I am using because those two words mean, you have to be totally impersonal in business, you touch business personally it will cut you so bad you cannot even know. And you can’t take those two words, those words in the western words are very, what you call a negative. Ruthless and cutthroat, sure, that’s the only way to do business. And that ruthless and cutthroat is towards you not, not to the business. But when you hear it, you have to be ruthless and cutthroat businessman, we say, wow, what a person we are dealing with, no, it’s not a person, it’s a business. The person is you, not other, please understand that. That’s the only thing can which you can make you impersonal, if you are cutthroat and ruthless, to not interfere with business attitude and with business matters. Don’t touch it, you touch it personally the business it will cut you, it will shatter you, it will make you look so foolish. It will magnify your faults. You’ll start getting nicknames.

There was once a secretary, I went to a circle office for inspection and his secretary said, “I boss.”

And I said, “Yes boss I can understand, thank you boss I can understand, sir, can understand, (?) we are uniform people, what is this I boss?”

And I said, “Oh, oh, why should I say it, this man doesn’t know.”

To know the fact, there was a chance that that secretary was to be promoted, so I permitted her very quick, I mean in within twenty-four hours she was posted somewhere else, as promoted an officer. And after three months, I transfer her to my direct control. So she was very happy and I said, “Hey, how are you?”

She said, “Yes sir.”

I said, “Why don’t you say I boss?”

She said, “Sir, I can’t tell you I boss.”

I said, “What is, what is wrong with me? I think that day I went to inspection four days, every time you said I boss.”

She said, “That meant idiot boss, I mean to say that’s how I was saying, he never knew about it, but that’s how I satisfied my his foolish recommendation, commands and behavior and sir, I killed myself covering this idiot, you can’t believe it. If I would have told you in that inspection you inspected whole circle I said, there was it was flawless.”

She said, “It takes whole night and whole day for three hundred sixty-five days to do (?).”

She said, “I went there three months first, I found it out not a one thing he can do right and he cannot say one thing right.” And I said, “Oh my God. I have a boss which is totally idiot, so I made a word I boss to satisfy myself to live and whatever he said, I did absolutely opposite and did it right. Sir you are in trouble.”

I said, “How come?”

He said, “He still control the circle and you are not going to have a good day, one day you will with it, you can check it out.”

And just believe me or not in a month I found out he is really I boss. So you can very well understand you are a I boss or a yes boss. You know where the termed came, I, I, sir, it’s a naval term. Because naval is always shaking, shivering, cold, so you cannot say I sir. So and they made a slogan not to miss and the man must not hear it, so they put this three words I, I, sir. Similarly the salute, you know the army salutes like this way you see the palm, in navy you don’t, it was between the Spanish Armada and the English, when the English general Nicholson came, his hands were still dirty with a and everybody’s hands were dirty, they didn’t have the time to clean it and the queen just went there and they just covered their black hand, they didn’t want to show to the queen so they change the salute.

All over the world the naval salute is always palm is downstairs and army is always like that. So these are kind of traditions which comes through us in life, in person, in business, you have to decide you are I boss or you are a yes boss. And the third is, thank you boss. Between three, you will roll and your role will only decide what response you will have. If there is any question, I am open to it, feel free.

Yes. If the owner and the boss is the same and if there is absolutely no other person, use your wife or a husband for that. Because to convey yourself a bad news is very reactively and it does not give a diplomatic coverage at all. If there is no boss, (?) up your clerk or secretary or anybody in the business to do the dirty job for you and in case it is wrong, you can feel sorry and cover your act pretty well. But when you are doing it, there is no coverage point. Huh, huh, normally it is seventy percent dirty job. In a business, seventy percent is dirty job, if you do not keep business seventy percent clean you are going to be in trouble doesn’t matter who you are.

Every business needs seventy percent cleanliness and two hundred percent Godliness if you want to have a trust. And trust is very attractive scenario you should have because people must trust you. You know if you trust your garment man, doesn’t matter where you are and you like something I said, ‘oh, I’ll first check it my shop.’ It’s always in you. You have to have this Godliness about you, this princliness about you in your business. You have to act in that way, you may not be.

This is the role they say, you are a prince and then you are a prince of Wales and then you are a king and then you are a emperor. That’s how business trust moves. If you are less than a prince in business you better forget it. That’s why there is a business suit and business tie, business dinner, all that stuff, it, it has its own rules, it own principle, principles and principalities and princes. And that’s very vital in a business. Go to some business meeting in underwear, you will find it.

Mahatma Gandhi used to always walk in loincloth and all that stuff in India with a stick in his hand. When he went to a conference about independence in, he put a shawl around, somebody ask Mahatma. And Mahatma answered, “Well, the England weather is very cold, I think I need a shawl. And secondly I don’t want to show them I am naked. I just want to show them if I have to cover myself, I can cover myself well,” and he was wearing a white two shawl which the queen of the England couldn’t buy. It was so costly.

So it doesn’t matter what you wear, what is the quality of that what you wear. It’s not who you are. It is what quality you present. Quality of your behavior can override the quantity.

Quality is very important, over quantity… That’s another tragedy in business, you always deal in quantities, not quality. Quality determines the quantity, quantity demands the quality. Quantity needs the quality. Without quality you cannot qualify in a business. It is very vital.

We can talk on this for whole year, I think within the time of your payment and your blessing we have done the justice and it is just, the basic idea of this course was not to convince you, the basic idea was to let you know that I have forty years of business experience and I am not a businessman idiot. I very well know business because a person who can sell God can sell anything. And one thing you must know, please for God sake I give you piece of advice in business. Sell everything and anything, never sell your consciousness. Never bargain with your grace and never, ever cash on your honor. You will be fine. Goodnight, thank you and God be with you.