All our senses are designed with certain bandwidth of perception. My eyes, like your eyes, can see VIBGYOR. Infrared and ultraviolet, human naked eyes cannot perceive, and yet, there is infrared, and there is ultraviolet, just that we are not perceiving it, because my eyes is designed for a narrow bandwidth of perception.
Anything this side and that side, I cannot perceive! There are micro-organisms right now in you, which even if you want you cannot see, because the wavelength with which your eyes can perceive them is limited.
So, which means, there is lot more to see, than what our eyes are seeing, our eyes is limited by, not by the objects in the world, our eyes are limited by the bandwidth of your visual perception. My years have a limited bandwidth of perception.
So, there are sounds on that spectrum of decibels and there are sounds at this spectrum of decibels. And I am not hearing it, which a dog will be able to hear, a bat will be able to hear. Which means there are more sounds in the world than I’m hearing.
And I’m not hearing it because, I am limited by a narrow bandwidth of perception. My nose can only pick up this bandwidth of sensation. A dog will be able to smell, a cat will be able to smell. I am not, because I am limited by my bandwidth of perception. We have reached this modern times where, when you eat salt is not there also, you’re not able to find out! Something is not okay.
Your grandmother, who has grown right through in a village. She can smell food that is boiling there, and tell you, you have not yet put salt. She doesn’t have to even taste it, and she can tell you.
In fact, she can taste it and tell you, I think you added salt at the end, not in the beginning. I think as an afterthought only you added, correct? And she’ll be able to do it. We are all shrunk by narrow bandwidths of perception.
So, the world that we are perceiving is more than what we are perceiving, and yet we are not perceiving the entire world, limited by our bandwidths of perception.
Are you all with me?
Rest of you?
Similarly, the life that is manifesting for you, is limited by your bandwidth of beliefs. You are limited by your bandwidth. The only reason you are only a city-based brand is that you believe you can only be a city-based brand. Somebody who is in the same line of business which you are, is a national brand, not because they are more capable than you, but they believe they can be a national brand!
Somebody in the same line of business in which you are, is now developing it into an international brand, not because they are more capable than you, but they believe they can be an international brand.
Your salary is twenty-five thousand rupees per month, and somebody else’s salary is one lakh per month, and somebody else is earning few crores per month. And that’s because you believe you’re worth only twenty-five thousand! You’re saying, “No, my organization is not paying me more than this!”. You are limited by your beliefs.
In fact, the only reason poor people are poor, is because they don’t believe they can be rich. Because lot of people sitting here, you or your father or your grandfather was poor, but they didn’t believe they have to be poor, and hence you are living the life that you live.
A lot of them, two generations, three generations later, continue to be poor because, they don’t believe that they can be rich. You’re an employee because you believe you’re cut out to be an employee.
And a lot of these employees have become entrepreneurs because they believe they can be an entrepreneur. Potential comes later! The skills can be cultivated, the attitudes and the competence that is required for you to do that can be learnt.
There are people to mentor you, there are avenues to learn. We can create a child into a computer professional, and an extraordinary computer professional. This whole project believes that we can take somebody out there who is illiterate, has no vocational basis and we can train them long enough, and they will know spoken English and they will develop a vocational capability.
They will become employable and they’ll get employed. Some of them will remain employees, some of them will actually become entrepreneurs themselves in their own right. And ten years from now, some of them, I really wish one person from this project, ten years from now should sponsor an event like this in Rotary.
And you will find the difference is not in the capabilities. The size of the beliefs. You think you can be a player, you’re a player. You think you can… “Mahatria, just because I believe I can be the best, can I become the best?”, and that’s one usually asked question.
Positive thinking does not guarantee success. Negative thinking guarantees failure. There is a race and there are eight lanes there, and I’m there in one of the lane, and I’m telling myself, I know I’m going to be the champion, provided Usain Bolt is not running, and I know I’m going to be the champion, I tell myself, and I’m ready to run the race. I’m not saying because I believe I will win the race; I will win the race.
Because the others also maybe believing. But one thing I can guarantee you, I’m there in the starting block, and I am telling myself, looked at the left and looked at the right and said, no chance at all!
Where am I going to win? I don’t know why I’m running also. Can that person win? No, that person can never win. Positive thinking does not guarantee success, but negative thinking guarantees failure.
So, it’s better to think positive. I’m not saying because you believe you can be the number one, you will become the number one, but without believing you can be the number one, you’re going to be nobody in life.
And without expanding the bandwidth of your beliefs, with the sort of multi-currency earning that is possible and the way the world has shrunk through technology, and the options that are available, none of you here should excuse yourself.
Unless in this lifetime you can achieve something like where, you can lift hundred people, thousand people. In fact, this entire program should not be about lifting yourself! In fact, one of the metrics of success itself must be, you have to ask yourself, year on year, in how many more lives have I become useful?
How many more people are living a life doing justice to their potential because of me? So, it’s not just about lifting yourself. There is a beautiful Vedic expression which says, lift yourself so that you can lift others.
Because if I stay in the third rung of the ladder, all others will have to stay in the second rung of the ladder or the first rung of the ladder.
If people have to be lifted, then I have to move from the third rung of the ladder to the fourth. Then they can come to third. I have to go to the eighth, they can come to the seventh.
So, if you don’t lift yourself, you cannot lift anybody else! And you are not going to lift yourself, unless you break this bandwidth of limiting beliefs.
