Being bookish was never in my genes, so reading books, novels was an outlandish question in my case. A friend, though was exactly different, he would chew every character of a book. He was perhaps more than concerned about “Self Development”. He made sure he attended all kind of Seminars and Lectures in the Town. Once he requested an admission in a Beauty Parlour Course (which was organised by my Office for Ladies). My doubt that too much hunger for knowledge has turned this good boy into a confused man ( i meant to say an insane one, was just trying to be sober), never remained a doubt thereafter.
Somehow though as I looked back at myself, i find that I too had started getting more and more inquisitive about knowledge. About learning more and more things. High Speed Internet and loads of material on Internet and availability of internet almost everywhere from pc to lappie to tablet to mobile made it easy. Just to kill time i started watching videos (reading was never my forte) on sites like youtube. Videos ranged from Spirituality to Evil Spirits, from fun to science, from 2012 Apocalypse to Motivational Videos on Self Development.
Now Self Development was my weakness, I always kept on learning and still believe that I am a student even junior to my kid. I learnt techniques to read face, how to identify body language, how to kill stage fear, how to start conversation, how to stay positive etc. It was necessary for me as I used to conduct training programmes on self employment in my social group. To keep myself updated I used to watch loads of these videos. Somehow though, i got inclined to watch the videos of Modern Motivation Gurus. They claim to change lives by their speeches. Their powerful delivery of speeches combined with aggressive body language makes you feel different. You too get into the zone, the motivation level increases, though momentarily in my case at least.
I was not a fan of any one motivation guru, the modern money minting business, one guy in his typical broken Hindi spoke about total self transformation (lest he should have transformed his power of the language in the first place), the other guy told the power of hard work, to contradict this, yet another motivation leader taught that only donkeys and labourers do hard work, hard workers never succeed. Now, I understood why my dear friend was like this – confused.
On close analysis one can say is that these modern age gurus do not teach you rocket science in the first place, they teach you what you already know. One must feel shortchanged actually after listening to these deliberations. The only person who benefit from these deliberations are the speakers themselves as they rake in millions by organizing these motivation talks. Most of these speakers speak about their own personal experiences and how they succeeded and then sum it up as a success mantra. Why to rely on prescriptions that others used, you are genetically different your DNA is different and you require may be different then what is prescribed.
Sometimes, it makes me wonder whether these modern day Motivation Gurus are the mirror images of our Spiritual Babas & Gurus ?? Their similarities are strikingly similar – both use their gift of the gab to mint money, one is dressed in vermilion colored clothes, the others mostly suited booted in blacks. One uttering Sanskrit Shlokas intermittently the other quoting difficult terminologies both of these are not understood by common misnomers like me 😦 Ultimately both end up with claps and return with good bank balances. The audiences feel they have become more happier, more motivated. But for how long ?
To succeed I guess the formula is very simple, I learnt it from my trekking experience, we succeed in our trekk because we are focused on our target, the pinnacle where we are destined to reach. We are aware of the route that we will be treading, the dangers of it, we remain focused and we spend our time, money and energy. The joy that one receives after reaching the pinnacle is the joy of success, the feeling of winning the world. This is the simple formula for success, aim at the target, compete with yourself, do swot analysis, take unbiased decisions and keep moving. Have belief in just one person, and that is you. Do I sound like a motivation guru in making. No I have many other better vocations 🙂
Yes modern life has been more than stressful and people do take recourse thinking that they will benefit from such discourses in their professional lives. Acquiring Knowledge per se is a good thing, one has to be a keen learner all through his life, but you don’t need to take a middleman to tell you.
I stopped watching these videos when i first saw the contradictions and preferred to watch Tom and Jerry instead, atleast those characters bring back smile and not make you look confused.
PS : Just a One liner I read on one of the T-Shirts recently – I was Intelligent… Education Spoiled me 🙂
Vijay's Space 
I learned that the more you learn about a subject, the more interesting it becomes. I used to hate history. Now I find mankind’s great foibles funny – especially when we keep repeating some.
People have always sought one thing: happiness. That’s all. They cover it up in wealth and goods – or knowledge – but the truth is even an idiot can be happy – happier, perhaps, given his ignorance of what’s around him. However, envy the idiot should he be happier than you – he is doing a better job in his life than yours, if he is the happy one and you are not.
Knowledge is a twisted blessing. It can also be a curse. Lack of knowledge can get you dead, or a dead end job, which is worse.
Some people benefit from gurus and speakers; however, many forget the lessons learned. Or they do not “internalize” them – they just hear the words, say “that is right” – but can not feel it. They repeat the mantras by rote, not really believing what is said.
If a guru, speaker, or spiritualist can help someone – that is good. However, most – like most of us – want to make some money at it. Is it wrong to use what you know for gain? Engineers do it all the time. However, when it comes to matters of spirituality and feeling – people want it for free. They want to be led. Many are unhappy, unfulfilled – and think these seminars will tell them why. But the truth is they are just words. I imagine most of the people resort to their normal selves soon after they leave the room. They cannot internalize those lessons though they may agree with what is said. Humans are strange internally conflicted hypocritical beings at best; worse could be said.
To question one’s self is dangerous. You may not like what you find. Many people haven’t a clue as to how their own mind works at any time. They just think “this” or “that” will make them happy; that “this” will do the trick. The truth is the road to happiness is long – and I’ll settle on just being contented instead. 🙂