Cosmic conscience is what emerges when the individual awakens to the evolutionary impulse or Authentic Self, and begins to see his or her own capacity for self-awareness as part of a fourteen-billion-year process of development. When you contemplate this nothing-less-than-cosmic context for your very own life, and begin to understand that your own experience of awareness is literally the cutting edge of that vast unfolding process, you realize that the continuation of that process is now completely dependent upon your own willingness to consciously create the future.

- Andrew Cohen

So I’m off today for seven nights to Costa Brava, approx 65 km from Barcelona, to the resort Lloret de Mar. It looks absolutely stunning and I can’t wait to get there.

I’ll try and post some pictures up mid-week. Heading out with family this week so my brother, the photographer, is going to be doing much of the shots. If he can upload them to the laptop, I’ll put them on the blog. Subscribe free to this blog to be kept updated.

P.S. In the meantime, you need to see Charles Ferguson’s documentary entitled No End In Sight. This is BIG!

from Journal Chretien

The Thoughts of the ‘Saint of the Gutters’ Who Dedicated Her Life To The Poor

CALCUTTA, INDIA (ANS) — The year was 1975 and I had received a phone call at my London, England, newspaper office, asking if I would be free to fly to India to interview a lady called Mother Teresa at her headquarters in the Missionaries of Charity home in central Calcutta. Mother Teresa had just become famous after, in 1970, British journalist, Malcolm Muggeridge, went to Calcutta to do a special documentary on her work for BBC-TV.

Her words still live with me today and so, as we approach the anniversary of her death, I thought I would share with you my meeting with this extraordinary woman who was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 27, 1910. Her family was of Albanian descent.

At the age of twelve, she felt strongly the call of God. She knew she had to be a missionary to spread the love of Christ. At the age of eighteen she left her parental home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India. After a few months’ training in Dublin she was sent to India, where on May 24, 1931, she took her initial vows as a nun.

From 1931 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary’s High School in Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a deep impression on her that in 1948 she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta.

Although she had no funds, she depended on Divine Providence, and started an open-air school for slum children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and financial support was also forthcoming. This made it possible for her to extend the scope of her work.

On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission from the Holy See to start her own order, “The Missionaries of Charity”, whose primary task was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look after. In 1965 the Society became an International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI.

A giant to the have-nots of life

When Mother Teresa first came into the room where we were to conduct the interview, I soon realized that that although she was small in stature — she stood only 4-foot-11-inches tall — she was a giant to the have-nots of life that she ministered to during her six decades on the subcontinent of India, as well as others around the world. Her friends were the starving, the dying, the poor.

As a young reporter, I immediately warmed to this gentle woman who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for she had seen more poverty than anyone I had ever met. Speaking in the founding, festering slum where she made her simple home, I was surprised to hear her express pity for the “poverty-stricken West.”

“The spiritual poverty of the Western World is much greater than the physical poverty of our people,” she told me, as the fan whirred above us, trying to alleviate the unbearable heat of that Indian city.

Emptiness

“You, in the West, have millions of people who suffer such terrible loneliness and emptiness. They feel unloved and unwanted. These people are not hungry in the physical sense, but they are in another way. They know they need something more than money, yet they don’t know what it is.

“What they are missing, really, is a living relationship with God.”

Mother Teresa cited the case of a woman who died alone in her home in Australia. Her body lay for weeks before being found. The cats were actually eating her flesh when the body was discovered. “To me, any country which allows a thing like that to happen is the poorest. And people who allow that are committing pure murder. “Our poor people would never allow it.”

And the teeming millions of the poor of the Third World have a lesson to teach us in the affluent West, Mother Teresa declared.

“They can teach us contentment,” she said, her leathery face gently smiling. “That is something you don’t have much of in the West.

“I’ll give you an example of what happened to me recently. I went out with my sisters in Calcutta to seek out the sick and dying.

Gratitude

“We picked up about 40 people that day. One woman, covered in a dirty cloth, was very ill and I could see it. So I just held her thin hand and tried to comfort her. She smiled weakly at me and said, ’Thank you.’ Then she died. “She was more concerned to give to me than to receive from me. I put myself in her place and I thought what I would have done. I am sure I would have said, ’I am dying, I am hungry, call a doctor, call a Father, call somebody.’ “But what she did was so beautiful. I have never seen a smile like that. It was just perfect. It was just a heavenly gift. That woman was more concerned with me than I was with her.”

Starving

Mother Teresa, who had a wonderful way of making you feel you were the most important person in the world when you were talking to her, told me of another incident.

“I gave another poor woman living on the streets a bowl of rice,” she said. “The woman was obviously starving and she looked in wonder as I handed it to her. “She told me, ‘It is so long since I have eaten.’

“About one hour later, she died. But she did not say, ’Why hasn’t God given me food to eat, and why has my life been so bad ?’

“The torture of hunger and pain just finished her, but she didn’t blame anybody for it. This is the greatness of our poor people.”

Mother Teresa added : “We owe a great debt of gratitude to those who are suffering so beautifully. They teach us so much.”

She also told of her battle against abortion in Calcutta. “We have sent word to clinics, hospitals and police stations, not to destroy babies, but to send them to us and we will give them to families who want them.

“At birth, we arrange for adoption also to foreign countries, as well as in India.”

And she had harsh words for abortionists. “Life is a God-given gift and who has the right to destroy life ?” she said. “God’s life is in that human body. “I believe abortion is a reason why there is so much trouble in the world today. People have ceased loving God, and they think they can do without Him.”

When I flushed as I asked Mother Teresa her age at that time, she told me : “There is no need to be embarrassed. I’m 64.”

She added with a twinkle in her eye : “I’m getting old now aren’t I ? But it’s a wonderful thing to be able to spend all those years doing something beautiful for God.”

This incredible Catholic nun, revered for her tireless dedication to the world’s most wretched, died on Friday, September 5, 1997 surrounded by grieving sisters of her order. She was 87.

The one technique that has no side effects, can always stop others from responding and has the power to bring about change is non-violence. It is the act of refraining from violent thoughts, words and actions.

Who better to turn to for guidance on non-violence than Mahatma Gandhi. As Gandhi travelled the country mingling and speaking to the masses, he gave them this technique to which the British had no response. By abstaining from violence Gandhi wrested the moral advantage. He even managed to break the law and demonstrate injustice through living non-violence.

Since Gandhi, other major politicians have tried to use the technique of the non-violence in pursuit of their freedom. Martin Luther King, Jr said, “Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time.”

Most of us need to learn to use this technique in every day life. If you’re driving and some cuts you up, or tailgates, or nearly hits your car, that desire to get back at the person has now been instilled in most of us. How can you bring nonviolence into this situation?

It’s like you grip the wheel tighter about to swerve and take revenge, but all of a sudden something kicks in… call it a higher sense or something and it brings you to act non-violently. But you’ve still spoken and thought violently.

Use non-violence not just in your actions, but your thoughts and words too.

Turning to our own time, it was obvious to me, and to millions of other ordinary people, that the results of invading Iraq would be far more catastrophic than those of continuing to contain Saddam’s Baathist regime with sanctions and the ongoing United Nations inspections. But apparently that was not obvious to those who wielded power.

Perhaps the further away we are from the actual decision-making process the easier it is to think rationally without the reptilian brain-stem screaming that we must do something.

Non-violence works. You just need to observe your life from a distance to see it.

When I travelled to Thailand, Malaysia and Bali in the summer of 2006, visiting the markets, absorbing all the action and watching people at work was very insightful. It also gave me a chance to practice my bargaining skills and hone them to perfection - something I learnt from watching my mum in action over the years.

It follows this simple process:

1. Look at the product.
2. Ask how much it is.
3. Estimate and name your cost based on your judgement.
4. Look determined and interested.
5. Stick to your price.
6. Flatter them with comments (Thai’s love this!)
7. If they don’t agree, leave it.
8. In most cases, they’ll follow you and reduce the price.

Here follows a vivid conversation I once had bargaining over three t-shirts on a market stall in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand:

ME: Hello, how much is this?

PERSON: 600 baht. Would you like try the shirt?

ME: No point, I no pay 600 baht for that. That man (pointing to other stall in the distance) offer me for 400 baht.

PERSON: How much you want to pay?

ME: 125 baht.

PERSON: (laughs), See sir, I buy from warehouse 400 baht so cannot sell that much.

ME: (thinking to myself: you liar!) Ok, well I like these t-shirts a lot and your material is good but your cost too much for me.

PERSON: Ok, how about 400 baht sir?

(At this point, I’m liking the ’sir’ bit)

ME: No, my last price is 150 baht.

(The idea here is to show him that I’m willing to increase but he needs to decrease - and that I’ll be more flexible if he is.)

PERSON: That is too less sir. I have family to feed. I give you for 300 baht final price.

ME: I understand, but its not good for that price. I give you final price: 190 baht. That’s my final price.

PERSON: Please sir. Increase it more.

ME: No. (Then I start walking off, that’s more than enough time at that stall).

PERSON: Ok ok, stop sir (after walking about 7 steps). You can take it for 190 baht.

There goes a great deal. Three top quality t-shirts for less than £3.00! Also at this point, using your feelings to guide, it may even be appropriate to tip him for his generosity. He didn’t have to (or maybe need to) sell. Finally, the great thing is, the man turns around and smiles to the person on the stall opposite him and they share a joke about it all. So relaxed, yet so serious. I love it!

Share with me one of your funny bargaining stories?

“Be there, go there now, and never leave. Imagine that your dreams have already come true. Live your life from that mindset; predicate your behavior on that reality, not the illusions that now surround you. Filter every thought, question, and answer from there. Let your focus shift and be born again. Because dwelling from, not upon, the space you want to inherit, is the fastest way to change absolutely everything. — See the difference?” - Mike Dooley

After taking much of last week off from my work, I was being told today that a hotel I had booked for a talk was now releasing it as I had not sent the deposit. Today, I asked for an extension of two days so I could post it tomorrow, reaching there for the day after. The staff on the otherwise, in fairness, disagreed and asked for me to fax it.

I chuckled when I read it, not in any way against their staff, but at the fact at how life for me is evolving so nicely that I no longer know what a fax machine is. Actually, even when I was in my little room for 16-hour days, I never had one. I run my business with my laptop, electronic bank account, a wireless internet connection and a phone.

A fax machine is a dedicated box that uses power and a phone line. It’s something physical that you have to have space for. If you’re a remote entrepreneur, there’s no way you can have that. Perhaps I could outsource my faxing - now there’s a thought to entertain.

Nowadays you take the document to your desktop multi-purpose scanner/ink jet printer, scan it, and email it as a pdf. No phone line, and permanent storage online. No more lost or misfiled faxes. My dad’s office is different. They have a fax machine (maybe a few) and send/receive a few a day. Dave Leboux says he has a fax machine on the filing cabinet in his home office and estimates sending 3 faxes a year.

What about you - what do you do with printers, fax machines, xbox’s and other box gadgets?

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from Sarah, a subscriber on my Create Worldwide Buzz e-mail list and she saw yesterday’s post in her feed reader. She asked me if I could write about who I particularly outsource to and would recommend.

Gladly I agreed, and here I share with you the people and companies that handle much of my work and allow me to focus on my leadership work and free my time for my other passions.

• www.GetFriday.com - this is a personal virtual assistant firm based in India. They have various packages at different rates based on the hours you require. I prefer to have a team of assistants so that I don’t just rely on one. GetFriday provides that to me. They assign me one main personal assistant who I can give and receive work from, but he has a team under him who he can pass things too. In actuality, I have a host of different talents and abilities on my one package. Here’s what GetFriday do for me.
  • General admin, writing letters, returning calls.
  • Customer service by email
  • Refunds processing
  • Weekly invoice creation, tracking and expense logging
  • Logging cheques and creating monthly reports
  • Venue search and equipment hire sourcing
  • Press release distribution and media contact
  • Calendar management

• Jelly and Custard - Emma Villa, MD at this company, offer a brilliant delegate management system that offers registration, accepts payments and deals with confirmation and event enquiries. Event management isn’t a required thing - but it takes away the added work of dealing with calls, writing and sending confirmation and receipts. It’s something I’d gladly pay for.

• Cynergise - Sol Shah and Mik Parekh offer a brilliant web hosting service, fast turnaround on support and website design. I also share some of my marketing plans to get expert advice from them when required.

• Accountants - I have an accounting firm managing the company’s finances. These are my local friends and only deal with small businesses. If you are interested, email me and I will connect you with them.

• RentACoder.com - at this site, you can post your project and get bids from all professionals from around the world. This is how I find my graphic designers.

• uPrint Online - this printing company has some of the cheapest prices for marketing material and stationary that I have found online. Brilliant quality too.

• Short Run Printing - based in the south of England, Nick offers a low-cost, fast turnaround CD/DVD duplication and packaging.

If you want further information on any of the above, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

If you’ve been following my work and this blog for a few months, you’ll know that I’ve had periods of my life where I’ve worked like a slave to my own business goals and dreams. That period taught me some of the best lessons of my life, without a doubt.

Earlier this year, I took the plunge into the world of outsourcing. If you’re following the business world, you know it’s one of the biggest trends and most time-saving, cost-saving, enlightening thing ever.

I took out a piece of paper and brainstormed all areas of my business and then decided upon which areas I should and could outsource and those I had to do myself. It was challenging because I believed that no-one could do the job as good as I could in most areas but I also believed that I couldn’t do it all myself and along with that belief gave into the fact that if anyone can do it at least 60% better than I could, I’d be happy to let them do it. At least, I could focus on the more important tasks at hand.

So I brainstormed and I came out with the following things that required outsourcing:-

• General admin - writing letters, making phone calls, voicemails, etc
• Customer service by email and telephone
• Venue and equipment search, negotiation and liason
• Event management - payments, confirmations to participants, receipts, etc
• Product duplication, manufacture, printing, fulfillment, etc
• Refund analysis and returns management
• Financial management - book keeping, receipts, invoice creation, monthly reports printing and management
• Accounting
• Speaking enquiries, calendar management, etc
• Press release distribution and media database management

I have outsourced all of the above, and even if some of my services were a little bit expensive, it is really worth it. I have so much free time, mental space and time to do what I want. But before I get into the challenges, I’m dealing with, here’s what I haven’t outsourced and still do:-

1. Writing articles, hot sheets, newsletters, etc
2. Coming up with marketing promotions, writing sales letters, etc
3. Handling personal email
4. Speaking at live events and telephone conferences
5. Conducting monthly financial analysis and looking for ways to grow and expand
6. Keeping an eye out on my Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

These are things I enjoy doing still and until I stop enjoying them, I’ll continue to do them.

As a result of having so much free time, I’m now feeling like I have nothing to do. This is only an after-feeling of having worked 16-hour days at one point. I am still as committed, if not more. To get over this, I am working on my dreamlines as Tim Ferriss puts it, and coming up with things that I want to have, be and do.

For starters, as you may have noticed, I have got more time to devote to my work on peace and unity as I can write more at this blog. I have also started the Breakfast Conversations, which you must attend so please put it in your diary. And there’s more in the pipeline too.

Perhaps in a later issue, I’ll share my intentions of what I want to have, do and be. In the meantime, I highly recommend Tim Ferriss’s method of dreamline. Read more here. Here is an electronic version.

This morning, I was reading Jawarhalal Nehru’s speech on the granting of the country’s independence on August 15th, 1947. It seems to be more fitting today than ever before.

For aspiring writers and lifestyle designers, it is a beautifully written speech that teaches each one of the true meaning of vision. Jonathan Swift said, “Vision [is] the art of seeing things invisible.” It is the work of leaders. It is the careful planning of a very cool life.

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long supressed, finds utterance.

The above sentence taken from the speech is brilliant for our spiritual lives too. When we open our eyes and ears to be more aware, more atoned to our environment and to ourselves, we will notice that we have grown a bit more out of our shell and we are more alive!

The power of commitment, desire and the people’s dedication to their country is portrayed in this sentence here:

Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again.

And to finish that paragraph, like a true leader and writer, Nehru goes on to add the excitement which is the vision:

The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

As a British Asian, I feel a sense of gratitude to our land of origin for the people who have lived centuries before independence and fought for the country’s freedom. It is something I feel more young people need to take note of. We cannot continue to take such things for granted. We have this freedom because of our ancestors, but now we need to accept that the “freedom and power bring responsibility”.

How did India do in the first two decades of it’s independence?

As I re-read the speech by Jawarhalal Nehru and in particular, the following paragraph, I began to wonder whether any real progress had been made between 1947 and 1967.

That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

If we look at India today, there is still poverty. In fact, 70% of the population is poor. There is a lot of disease in the country and definitely a lack of equality with regards to the opportunities the country is presenting.

The public didn’t agree that “Mera Bharat Jawan“. In fact, the lack of faith and confidence of the general public and some politicians is what I believe made the first two decades quite lowkey.

But today, there is major progress. India herself is developing into a fine country that is to be one of the world’s largest economies and it is certainly today, living up to Nehru’s line:

We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.

And to end this post, a worthwhile analysis of the years that lie in front of India is this important message:

To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.

We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be. We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.

Take a few minutes to read the full speech here.