1. Hardship teaches you to know yourself and others truly. When you find yourself in some grave trouble, the way you behave then—that is who you really are. The faces you see around you in that moment, remember them all your life—those are their true faces. Once the danger passes, never forget the masks you and others wore in that time. Rest assured: when trouble comes again, they will return to those same faces. You need not shake hands with everyone; some you must simply wave goodbye to from a distance. 2. When misfortune strikes, play at being afraid—it pleases some people. But hold courage in your heart, for then these people cannot harm you as much as they wish to. Remember: the more you fear, the more those around you will trample upon your head. Even one unworthy of being the sole of your shoe will come to kick you, if you stand before them weak. Most people enjoy hurting the defenseless. During hardship, we see circumstances as far more terrible than they truly are. The calamity multiplies in the mind alone. 3. To live a life, two things matter most: first, the capacity to love someone, even if that love is not returned. Second, to guard against letting that love destroy your peace. In the end, peace matters more than the feeling of being loved. To me, love given by another is worth less than my own reckoning if it brings unrest. Yet peace given by another—even without love—is worth more than my life itself. So if ever you sense that reciprocating someone's love would cost you your peace, it is better to love them in solitude. In the power to love lies infinite strength. 4. When you lose yourself in work born of your passion, day and night, to others it looks like madness. It is madness indeed—for what is unfamiliar to ten ordinary people is called madness. Think about it: if they did not see it as madness but as something normal, how could it set you apart? Here is the truth simply told: the more they call you mad, the deeper you must plunge into your work. One day you will see them standing in line for your autograph. 5. Two paths lie before you: either you join the mediocre and taste the pleasure of their mediocre pursuits. Or you stand outside the popular current and keep your conscience awake. The second path is hard and solitary. If you wish to be a king for five minutes, walk the first road. If you wish to be a king for five ages, walk the second. Remember: nearly all people in this world walk the first path, and so they remain small their entire lives. Those on the second path travel so far that even the dreams of the first cannot reach where they stand. No matter what anyone says, a worthless person remains worthless in the end.
6. When an elephant gets stuck in the mud, even a mosquito will kick at it. Yes, that single act constitutes the mosquito’s entire lifetime of success. A million mosquitoes put together cannot equal one elephant; in the end, an elephant remains an elephant and a mosquito remains a mosquito. Both the elephant and the mosquito know this. When a great man falls into trouble, those who gather around him to strike—you can be certain of this—are people who, even united, do not possess the qualifications of even a single nail on that great man’s foot. Once that great man emerges from his predicament, he will become greater still, while those small creatures will busy themselves trying to attach themselves to someone else. I watched a video the other day. Some monkeys, hanging from trees, were pulling at two tigers by their tails and ears, slapping their faces, and fleeing in joy. How happy those monkeys were! And yet they would never muster the courage to face those tigers in direct combat. Do you know why? No matter what else may be true, a tiger is a tiger and a monkey is a monkey. The tiger is born to die a tiger, and the monkey is born to die a monkey. This is what we call destiny. You can be assured that none of those who come after you are your equals or your superiors—they are all far behind you. The amusing part is that they will never—not in a thousand years—surpass you, and they cannot even become your equals. If you doubt this, look around and verify it for yourself.
7. To know whether someone truly loves children, there is little use in observing how he treats his own offspring. You must see how much he draws the children of others to his breast. In exactly the same way, to understand how humane a person truly is, observe his conduct toward those from whom he has nothing to gain. And here is another matter. A person who practices humanity while keeping accounts of sin and virtue is far less humane than one who shows humanity without reckoning anything at all—simply out of habit or nature.
8. When a nation’s education system is influenced by politics and religion, that nation is bound to fall behind. If education controls politics and religion, a country typically enters the ranks of the world’s first-class nations with great ease in social and state affairs. When the reverse occurs, all manner of calamity begins. Here is one more thing to consider. If the citizens of a nation identify themselves first not by their nation, but by their religious or political identity, it becomes very difficult for that nation to be civilized.
9. The world speaks two universal languages: the language of the heart and the language of money. Understanding the language of the heart is a matter of time and labour; the language of money, by contrast, is far easier to master. When you travel to a country whose people’s tongue you do not speak, and they do not speak yours either, you will find that if your pocket is heavy enough, the moment you wish to buy something, they themselves will feel regret and guilt—regretting that they do not know your language! This is why the English, when they came to our land, learned Bengali once upon a time. Yes, out of necessity, not out of love for Bengali. Let me tell you of my own experience. I went to a Titan watch showroom in Delhi. A gentleman entered at that moment who knew neither English nor Hindi, but spoke only in his regional dialect (I won’t say which region). He purchased twenty-eight watches in total. And throughout the entire transaction, he spoke only in his pure regional Bengali, unmarred by English or Hindi. The salespeople at Titan had no real difficulty understanding the gentleman, because the language of his credit card was far more powerful than any spoken tongue. Yet there is a caveat here. Just as the language of money is swift and fruitful, so too are the misinterpretations of that language swift and consequential. Therefore, when you inhale the fragrance of money, be prepared also to inhale its stench.
10. When we pass through moments of boundless joy and continue to dwell in them, we must sometimes pause and ask: will what we are so delighted about truly bring us good? Yes, even in the midst of happiness, we must stop and reflect on the larger circumstances. If we do so, we shall see that today’s joy has often led us into such suffering that escaping it becomes terribly difficult. Not everything that brings pleasure brings benefit. If my present happiness is bought at the price of another’s sorrow, then I can be absolutely certain of this: a day will come when suffering will arrive, and it will be borne not by me alone, but by generations that come after me. History bears this witness.
11. The ugliest person in the world is loved by someone. So do not look for who has failed to love you; instead, seek out who does. Be exquisitely kind to those who love you—so much so that those who do not love you feel regret, thinking: why do I not love this person? You may have many dark aspects, certainly, but take care that they do not directly influence you and the one who loves you. Darkness exists in all humans; there is no fault in that. The problem arises only when that darkness begins to govern the person.
12. Whoever we have loved even once can never truly leave us. Their memory, their eyes, their voice, their laughter, their feeling—we carry all of it with us for a lifetime. To love someone means to keep them in your heart forever. It is impossible to erase them from there. If you can erase them, then be certain: what you shared with them was an acquaintance, not love. The curious thing is, in most cases we discover whether we truly loved someone only after they have vanished from our lives. While they were with us, we cannot even fathom how deeply we loved them. A song of Lalon comes to mind: *When time passes, fulfillment will not come*… An incredibly true line!
13. No matter what happens—whether you err or are right, whether you are innocent or guilty, whether you are destitute or wealthy, whether you are safe or in peril—whoever stands by your side unconditionally and selflessly, accepting you as you are, they alone are your family. Blood ties mean nothing here, nor bonds of obligation or habit. If someone judges you and then decides whether to stay or leave, they are not your kin in any sense. The person who, no matter what you are, will stand by you simply because you are a human being—the person with such unwavering conviction—that one alone is truly yours.
14. You are eccentric and strange, yet if in being so you harm no one and you are well and happy—then I say you are on the right path. Whoever finds you eccentric cannot bring you happiness, for there is no sense in surrendering yourself to their words and destroying your own joy. Come now, be unique! There are plenty of copy-paste versions of other people around—you can find them aplenty on the streets. Rather than becoming like them, be yourself. Celebrate your own madness. Let some time be wasted, let some money be spent. It matters not! If you were to die tomorrow, what would haunt you is not the time or money you squandered, but the regret of never having lived happily.
15. The bird you have caged—even if you took that cage and traveled the world, it would never know the joy it would have felt flying freely from one nearby tree to another. Similarly, even surrounded by the world’s most precious things, you will not find peace if your heart does not get what it desires. I knew a cat whose owner left it with a wealthy friend who loved cats. The cat wept itself to death in that new home. Though the new owner loved the cat, it kept searching for its old master. So it could not survive; it died of longing for that old person. That someone loves me is less important than whether I love them—this is what keeps us alive. Wealth cannot sustain life; people live by the richness of the spirit.
16. Reading a thousand books will avail you nothing if you do not awaken what lies within. Books fail to exert their full influence upon us if we cannot establish that vital connection with our own hearts. Not a fraction of what life teaches can be learned from books alone. Books can refine our minds, prepare us to receive the manifold lessons of living. But the learning itself—that must come from within. Study as much as you will; if you cannot put pen to paper in the examination hall and write something down, your score will be zero. Mere knowledge is not the issue; what matters is putting what you know to use.
17. When I say I truly love someone, what do I mean? It means I am prepared to die for them. But if I love someone so intensely that I would be ready to kill them for love, then by no measure, under no logic whatsoever, is that love. When you love someone, even the smallest hurt to them causes your own heart to bleed—so how could you bring yourself to kill them? Once you have loved someone, it becomes impossible to cause them the slightest harm. If someone can do such a thing, rest assured it is not love—it is merely madness.
18. People struggle for two reasons: for something good, or out of some belief. Those who struggle for something good keep their conscience more awake; those who struggle for a belief keep theirs less so. Yet here lies a paradox: those who struggle for a belief possess far greater strength of will, and they often prevail. Those who fight at the prompting of conscience are beset by countless doubts, and rarely achieve final victory. Look at the fighters of this world, and you will see the second group vastly outnumbers the first—for it is far easier to join that camp.
19. Once a word leaves your mouth, it takes control of you. We fall into ruin because of what we say, not because of what we think. I should never have said that—believe me, no one in this world except yourself will wish to understand it. Remember: most people are waiting for the chance to trap you in some mistake. When people see another falter, they feel pleasure and behave as though they themselves stand above such errors. Yet though we must return to people in the end, we must always keep in mind—there is no greater scoundrel in existence than man himself.
20. Whether you are brave or not, let bravery shine in your eyes, your face, your words. The more you expose your weakness before others, the more they will strike at you. When people see weakness in another, they begin to believe themselves stronger than that person. And this belief alone will empower them to destroy you. There are few in this society willing to help the genteel and the vulnerable—though perhaps you might expect such kindness in a more refined society. In the world of small minds, humility and courtesy are seen as nothing but weakness. Often you will see that a man who is not worth the dust on your shoes, if you show him respect, will come to think himself your equal in standing. A dog must be kept in a dog’s place. Give it the bed and it will soil it—and this is only natural.