Let me tell you one story which will make it clear. One rich man, very rich, became in the end
very frustrated – which is a natural outcome of all success. Nothing fails like success. Success is
significant only if you are a failure. Once you succeed then you know that you have been cheated
by the world, by the people, by the society. The man had all the riches but no peace of mind. He
started looking for peace of mind.
That’s what is happening in America. In America more people are looking for peace of mind than
anywhere else. In India I have never come across a person who is looking for peace of mind. Peace
of the stomach has to be taken care of first – peace of mind is too far away. From the stomach the
mind is almost millions of miles away.
But in America everybody is looking for peace of mind, and of course when you are looking for it,
then people will be there ready to give it to you. This is a simple law of economics: wherever there
is demand there is supply. It does not matter whether what you are asking for you really need.
Nor does anybody bother about what the supply is going to give you – whether it is just bogus
advertisement, propaganda, or whether there is something substantial.
Knowing this simple principle, that wherever there is demand there is supply, the cunning and clever
people have gone one step ahead. Now they say, ”There is no need to wait for demand to happen,
you create the demand.” And that is the whole art of advertisement: it is creating demand.
Before you read the advertisement you had no such demand, you had never felt that this was your
need. But reading the advertisement, suddenly you feel, ”My God, I have been missing it. And I am
such a fool that I never knew that this thing exists.”
Before somebody starts manufacturing something, producing something, even years ahead – three,
four years ahead – he starts advertising. The thing is not there yet in the market because first the
demand has to reach the minds of people. And once the demand is there, by that time the supply
will be ready.
Bernard Shaw has said that when he was new and he published his first book, of course there was
no demand – nobody had ever heard about George Bernard Shaw. How can you demand, ”I want
George Bernard Shaw’s book, his drama?” So what he used to do the whole day .... He published
the book – he himself was the publisher, he put together the money himself – and then he went from
one bookstore to another bookstore asking, ”Have you got George Bernard Shaw’s book?”
They said, ”George Bernard Shaw? We never heard the name.”
He said, ”Strange, such a great man and you have never heard of him and you run a bookstore? Are
you out-of-date or something? The first thing you should do is get George Bernard Shaw’s book.”
He had published only one book but he started advertising for several books, because when you are
going around, why just publicize one book? And one book does not make a man a great writer.
He would go in different clothes – sometimes with a hat, sometimes with glasses. And people started
calling at George Bernard Shaw’s house. And he had to do all this – the advertising, supplying; that’s
how he sold his first book. He was asking people on the street, ”Have you heard ... because I am
hearing so much about a certain book written by some George Bernard Shaw. People say it is just
great, fantastic. Have you heard?”
They would say, ”No, we have never even heard the name.”
He said, ”This is strange. I used to think London was a cultured society.” And he went to libraries
and clubs and every place where there was a possibility to create a demand, and he created the
demand. He sold the book, and finally – that’s what he was continuously doing – finally he became
one of the greatest writers of this age. He had created the demand.
But if you succeed, there is no need for anybody to create the demand for peace of mind. If you
succeed, you lose peace of mind on the way. That is a natural course. Success takes all peace from
your mind. It simply sucks everything that is significant in life: peace, silence, joy, love. It goes on
taking everything away from you. Finally your hands are full of junk, and all that was valuable is lost.
And suddenly you realize peace of mind is needed.
Immediately there are suppliers, who don’t know anything about mind, who don’t know anything
about peace. I have read one book entitled PEACE OF MIND by a Jewish rabbi, Joshua Liebman.
I have gone through the whole book; the man knows neither about peace nor does he know about
the mind. But he is a businessman, he is a Jew: He has done a good job without knowing anything
about peace of mind.
His book is one of the best sellers in the world because whoever wants peace of mind is bound to
sooner or later find Joshua Liebman’s book. And he has written it beautifully. He is a good writer,
very articulate, impressive; you will be influenced by it. But peace of mind will remain as far away as
it was before, or it may even have gone farther away by your reading this book.
In fact, if man knows what peace is, and what mind is, he cannot write a book entitled PEACE OF
MIND, because mind is the cause of all unpeace, all restlessness. Peace is when there is no mind.
So peace of mind – no commodity like this exists. If mind is there, then peace is not. If peace is
there then mind is not. But to write a book ”Peace of No Mind” ... nobody is going to purchase it. I
have been thinking ... but I thought, nobody is going to purchase ”Peace of No Mind”. It just will not
make sense to them, but that’s exactly the truth.
The child is unaware of what he has brought with him. This rich man was in the same position. He
had all the riches in the world, and now he was searching for peace of mind. He went from one sage
to another and they all gave great advice, but advice helps nobody.
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