Repaying debts of gratitude

https://youtu.be/cacSqpWOgSg Auto-generated transcript:It's a beautiful misty morning and we are walking here in Ashley, Razawai, in cyclist from a telephone, granting us these opportunities, the beautiful places and this company of good friends. There was a man called Hakim At-Tai. He was the chief of a tribe in Nets called At-Tab-Bahit-Bannu-Tai and his son Uday bin Hatim became a Muslim. He was one of the Sahaba. Hatim At-Tai was known for his generosity. And I remember one of the earliest stories that my mother told me, and I must have been a meek, I mean I was definitely under 10, I was probably maybe five or six years old, was the story of Hatim At-Tai. And she used to say Hatim Tai. So the story that my mother told me was that Hatim At-Tai was one day a man, he had a horse. He had a particular stallion which was very famous all over Arabia for its breeding and for its speed and all the noble qualities of a horse. And he was a very famous man. He was a very famous man. He was a very famous man. So Hatim At-Tai was famous as the owner of this horse. So a man came to him once and his intention was to buy this horse. So he came to his village. He came and met him. And as is the norm in our culture, when you meet somebody, even for a transactional reason, you don't immediately go there and start talking about the transactions. I've come to buy you a horse. I come to buy a car. I come to buy you a vehicle. I come to buy you a car. I come to buy you a vehicle. And this man bought me a horse. And it was a very, very nice horse. There was a courtesy involved. And you meet the person. And the person, you know the other person shows their hospitality to you. And so on. And all of this is part of the part of our culture. So this man went there and Hatim At-Tai, he came to see him. So Hatim At-Tai invited him home. And as we know in Islam, a guest has a right to be hosted by you for sure. And this is the case. This is the case. This is the case. three days without question any guest so he has a right to be hosted and so hot on tight no he we hosted him and so on and at the time of the meal they had this yeah wonderful roast meat and so on now they passed two days pass and then the man said to him I have come here with this intention of requesting you to sell your house to me so how do I say to him for once I wish you had not followed our culture he said what do you mean he said because we are going through a very difficult time in terms of drought having a massive drought here in this country and when you came as a guest said the only thing I had was the horse and I slaughtered the horse to for you to eat and if you had told me you came by the horse I wouldn't have started us now see this see the level of generosity see the level of you know the the hospitality toward the host what in Urdu we call mehmanawazi another story about Hathiman Tai which Maharani just told me is somebody asked him they said who do you know anybody who is more generous or have you met anyone who was more generous than yourself because Hathiman Tai was known for his amazing generosity as I mentioned and the man said yes I know someone who was more generous than me and he said I am not a generous person I am not a generous person than I am so this man said what's the story who's who this person so have to meant I said is somebody who owned 10 sheep so this person asking the question he said this is a strange thing a person owns ten sheep and he's more generous and you say yeah so he said what's the story so the story is that only when given services people have the capacity but to I went to the village of this person and so as this usual custom of people are being hospitable and this man he slaughtered one of his sheep and he brought him brought the meat and so on cooked it and brought it for heart even tie now how to a tie he said when I was eating the sheep and eating the meat he said I love the brain the mothers so this man noticed that I loved the minute so he said to him you stay here I'm going back he left he went away for a period really long period time and then he came back with a lot of bread beautifully cooked and as well and he said as I was leaving happened to pass by his place I see blood everywhere and I'm seeing carcasses of the sheep so he asked this man what happened here so I said no you love the brain of the sheep so I brought you the brain of all the sheep and I said you eat more and these sheep for you some 1500 Ceneri they should also leave you some life and it was just lie down horsehat Cu taking the dead body also thinking like that came long upset his feeling but he just said no I'm not saying people should be left in that we again troubling on this the son brought them so our elder brother OFVB Series? But maybe this business for my staff por reflection? Well there was a farmer called a gathering of some sheep and sheep were really being slaughtered in these fields attention of the items of the the yard and he took the sheep was myself a check I recall as a Bradley pack and I took to the sheep Desmond's shop and I saw this one и something valuable. So this man who listened to the story, he said, well, then that shows that you are more generous because you gave him 300 red cameras. He said, no. It still shows that the man is more generous. He said, how? He said, because he gave me everything he had and I only gave him a small part of what I have. Because he was a very wealthy man. So he gave me only a small part. And I want to add to that by telling you my personal story and also telling you one very basic fundamental principle I have in life, which is that I believe that there is no such thing as repayment. You can never repay somebody. And this is a very big thing that happens with people. Someone does something for them and when they do something else in return, maybe send them a thank you card or just say thank you or something and they say, I have repaid. And those are the exceptional ones. The usual ones, they just ask you for a favor, they take it and go away and you never see them again until they need the next favor. But anyway, even the exceptional ones, they do something for you and they say, I have repaid this person. My submission is that nobody can ever repay anyone else for anything. And the simple reason for that is that the other person did whatever he or she did for you first. They did that without expectation of reward. They did that without being asked. They did that because they were sensitive enough to know what you needed and they went out of their way to give you what you needed without being asked. Whatever you do in repayment is repayment. You are doing it because of what the other person did. If the other person had not done that thing, you would not have done it. You wouldn't have done what you call repayment. So how is it repayment? You are not repaying because the deed is based on the intention. So your intention is to repay in exchange for what you did. The intention is what? You did more than four time in which the other person came to you first so there's no repayment. Say if someone does good for you, no matter what it is, no matter who the person is, no matter how small or big is, always remember that you owe them and you will continue to owe them all your life irrespective of what you may have knew, maybe working for 16, 17 years. And then I decided to become an entrepreneur. And I left my job. I settled down in Bangalore. I had very little savings. I invested them in a business that one of my friends had as a partner in his business. And then after about a year or so, this friend comes to me and says, I need you to give me some more money. So I was shocked. How do I have no money? How do I give him? I said, for what? He said, no, because I'm going to put in more money in the business myself. And if you want to maintain your percentage of your share, then you have to match it. Otherwise, from being a... At that time, I was a... There were three of us, so it's 33%. So your percentage will go down. I was... I didn't know what to do. I had no money. And all I had was invested in this. And I was really, really distraught because my consulting business at that time, this was in the first year of that, that consulting business also looked like it was going nowhere. Because I was new in the... in the... in the... in the market, I had almost no contacts, no network. And so, I was... in a bind. Now, I had a friend called Bertie, Cuthbert Suarez, Jr. So, very, very dear, very close friend of mine. Both of us were planters in the animal industry. So, while this was happening, on a Sunday, Bertie happened to come, come down from the States to Bangalore. And he always came to see me. So, he came. And five minutes after meeting me, he told me what's wrong. So, I said, what do you mean what's wrong? He said, something is wrong. He said, nothing is wrong. He said, don't bloody tell lies to me. Something is wrong. What is it? And he literally badgered me until I told him, I said, this is the story. So, he says to me, how much do you need? So, I said, I need five lakhs. He says, he didn't say anything after that. He went away. Next morning, Monday morning, he comes. He said, come with me. I get into his car, and he drives to the bank. And he pulls out. We go to the bank, buy a ticket. And he says, I need five lakhs. I'm going to the bank manager's office. He pulls out a bunch of papers. And he says to the bank manager, here is the date of my house. Please lend me five lakhs, five hundred thousand rupees for my friend here. So, I grabbed him. I said, what are you doing? He said, are you insane? Because I'm asking you, I mean, I need this money for this business. There's no guarantee this business will survive or, you know, prosper or sink or what. And you are giving your house as the collateral for this. Now, his house was worth at least three times the money that he was asking. So,