Question:
How to compete in a business world which is so corrupt and when the corrupt have a clear edge over all your deals?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: It is difficult for a single person to fight against corruption, that too for a business man. For a monk it is easy, because a monk has nothing to lose, but for a business man it is difficult and that is why you need the civil society. When the civil society gets together in a group, they can act against corruption easily. I will tell you an example. It so happened that in Ahmednagar in Maharashtra, there was a road only on paper, but in reality there was no road. So 50 of our Art of Living youths got together and they went to the Mayor's office. The first thing they did was smile at the Mayor. All them smilingly sat in front of the Mayor and said, 'Madam, please tell us, when will this road be made? Please give us the date. Until you tell us the date we are not going to go from here.' The Mayor got shaken, and she said, 'Yes it will be done', and in 24 hours the road got done. Similarly, in Hyderabad, some young entrepreneurs who were making a factory needed a license for their factory, and every inspector they went to were asking for bribe. Now these people said, 'Look, we have taken a pledge that we will give or take any bribe. You can tell us to come here 50 times and we will come, but please be sure that we will not give even Re. 1 of bribe.' Looking at this conviction of the youth, they granted all the ten licenses that they needed. Everyone else in that industrial park was surprised. They said, 'We have been trying for two years to get these licenses and we could not get it, how did these three young boys get all the licenses done?' So once we have the conviction, we can change the system, we can make a difference. As youth, you must have this conviction in your mind, 'I can make a change.' If you think, 'The world is corrupt and it is never going to change, and nothing can ever change', then your own thought, and your own vibration will bring these kind of situations around you. So you need to come up with an idealistic dream, and then you will find things do happen. Again I am telling you, it is difficult to fight corruption alone. You have work in a group to fight against corruption.
