He is in the 60s: would he sell his Ferrari again to become a monk?
At this age one already realizes that what he thought was big and important was actually small and irrelevant... And vice versa.
What is big today and small yesterday?
Now I think more about death, without tragedies, and that gives a new meaning to life.
Anything else?
That sense is immense: it allows you to connect with your mortality and value every second.
Something less?
I also fantasize, like Ray Kurzweil, founder of Singularity: "Live long enough to live forever."
How is it achieved?
Kurzweil and I believe that we will live long enough for science to allow us to choose how much longer. I want 50 more years.
Should I aspire to buy a Ferrari to be able to sell it or to be a monk first?
I became a highly paid lawyer for Ferrari, but I felt empty so I changed my life from the ground up...
His character suffers a heart attack.
And he becomes a monk in the Himalayas. I self-published that book and it was a best seller, because millions of people needed it. And the most important habit in the book on which I have structured my existence ever since is getting up at 5 in the morning.
The one who gets up early... sleeps less.
And live more. By waking up at 5 o'clock, I make time for myself and by turning it into a habit, which I propose here to everyone, my life acquires more quality and meaning.
On the one hand, do you give advice to succeed and on the other to not need to succeed?
It is a common tension between East and West that I already experienced as a child with my Hindu family. Spiritual, personal... and financial growth. And how to reconcile them.
Can you learn to earn money and, at the same time, not need it?
"Live in the world, but not all of yourself," advise Hindu monks. Emperor Marcus Aurelius reflects: "We pursue fame, glory, gold and victory... Just to name a year on the calendar."
Hello, Marcus Aurelius.
And I preach the aurea mediocritas, temperance: virtue is to create wealth, also the way to distribute it, but without depending on it.
Yet the monastic tradition deplores the world and its vanities: don't you?
I believe in the possibility of finding that Aristotelian golden mean. I suppose that having death in mind helps to remember that there is no king or queen who does not end up rotting.
We will be dust, but dust in love: if the experience was worth it, death does not win.
It is a reflection that I appreciate. But the most common aspiration here today is not to miss anything and to go all out... It's so western...
"If you want you can".
But there is something toxic in it, because it condemns you to dissatisfaction: if you want you can; but that implies that you never be satisfied, because if you want, you can do everything. So if you do, you're always a failure!
How to avoid it?
Again, balance, temperance. We know that life is short, but also that we are happier if we give it direction and meaning and the daily illusion of progress.
How do you find it?
I remember every morning jumping out of bed to the Spartans: "The more you sweat in the gym, the less you'll bleed in battle." I get up every day at 5 in the morning – we are a world club – to prepare myself and progress a little bit every day and feel it and thus not bleed before the worst in life.
¿Deporte?
Not only: also mental exercise, like the meditation I learned from the monks, concentration, reading... I learn guitar, philosophy, chess, languages... Any discipline –try it– in which you can feel that you are progressing day by day. If you sweat in that exercise, you will bleed less in the battle of life.
Why at 5 in the morning? Have you tried 5 pm after a nap?
Because at 5 in the morning we can take advantage of the magic of Brahmamuhurta, a 48-minute period that begins one hour and 36 minutes before sunrise and ends 48 minutes before sunrise.
Ideal time to sleep so richly?
We know that it is the moment of greatest peace, creativity, energy and good vibes. Try it a few days in a row and you will discover unusual energy in you: you will write better, you will concentrate easily. And you will visualize your achievements.
And I won't go asleep the rest of the day?
It will be glued to the sun with nature.
And my friends? I won't see them. They activate at 7 or 8, like everyone else.
No human relationship with someone will be pleasant if you don't have it first with yourself.
Could it be that you want to sell more books?
The more I write, the less I am interested in selling and the more reading and being read to. The more I meditate, the less I serve myself and the more I serve.
