First, let's get over the sad part. One Art Of Living member told me she had a business oppurtunity when I told her I was a software engineer looking for a change of job. I went to her place at the appointed hour and found another AOL member sitting near a Mac Powerbook. She asked me to help opening a document and I was quite excited - maybe these guys are real novices and somehow have chanced upon a technical venture for which they don't have expertise. The sight of an IIT engineer enthused me even more - although we have never been great friends.
The second slide she showed brought me to the ground. I was soon to go under. It was an MLM. Multi-level marketing. Searching for 'making money online' or 'home business' should give you examples of these. However, read through this blog before you do that.
So, I sat and heard how I can be financially free - I would have to make $3000 a day for that, according to the presentation. The product was a 2gm gold coin - it really doesn't matter - it can be personal hygiene to personality development. The actual cost, she claimed, was Rs. 8000 (not really, but i'll humour her). And the joining fee, was Rs. 32, 000. Anyway, after I found that she was quite dumb, I left - however, I didn't make some scathing remark that I ought to have. It was a shock that these people who I admired were perpetrating such offenses. Thankfully, however, I think these are a minority - Sri Sri still makes a lot of sense and the Sudarshan Kriya is really good!
Anyways, I looked up the internet for some facts on such 'organizations' and here are a couple for you to ponder:
Robert Fitzpatrick's 10 lies of MLM
Center for Entreprenuerial leadership
In fact there are so many ways to make money online that this blog is making money online talking about making money online. Man, I should do something like this...
And in a close by land, not so far ago...
Bhauji was reading Dan Brown. Although he seems to copy a lot of his material, he at least doesn't dupe people. I read Digital Fortress and Angels and Demons recently - and both were quite fast and gripping. It's not great literature - but hey, it keeps the mind occupied.
Another book I shouldn't be reading is 'Perfect sight without eyeglasses'. All such books preach the Bates' Method. Bates was a doc who found that glasses were not the method to correct bad sight - instead they worsen vision by 'helping' us form bad habits. Compulsive reading against reading.
