Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

SPIRITUALITY & THE TAMIL NATION
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
The Threads of Union
Divided into Four Chapters
Before beginning any spiritual text
it is customary to clear the mind of all distracting thoughts,
to calm the breath and to purify the heart.
Translation courtesy Bon Giovanni
Contemplation Spiritual Disciplines Divine Powers Realization
Chapter One
Contemplation
1. Now, instruction in Union.
2: Union is restraining the thought-streams natural to the mind.
3: Then the seer dwells in his own nature.
4: Otherwise he is of the same form as the thought-streams.
5: The thought-streams are five-fold, painful and not painful.
6: Right knowledge, wrong knowledge, fancy, sleep and memory.
7: Right knowledge is inference, tradition and genuine cognition.
8: Wrong knowledge is false, illusory, erroneous beliefs or notions.
9: Fancy is following after word-knowledge empty of substance.
10: Deep sleep is the modification of the mind which has for its substratum nothingness.
11: Memory is not allowing mental impressions to escape.
12: These thought-streams are controlled by practice and non-attachment.
13: Practice is the effort to secure steadiness.
14: This practice becomes well-grounded when continued with reverent devotion and without interruption over a long period of time.
15: Desirelessness towards the seen and the unseen gives the consciousness of mastery.
16: This is signified by an indifference to the three attributes, due to knowledge of the Indweller.
17: Cognitive meditation is accompanied by reasoning, discrimination, bliss and the sense of 'I am.'
18: There is another meditation which is attained by the practice of alert mental suspension until only subtle impressions remain.
19: For those beings who are formless and for those beings who are merged in unitive consciousness, the world is the cause.
20: For others, clarity is preceded by faith, energy, memory and equalminded contemplation.
21: Equalminded contemplation is nearest to those whose desire is most ardent.
22: There is further distinction on account of the mild, moderate or intense means employed.
23: Or by surrender to God.
24: God is a particular yet universal indweller, untouched by afflictions, actions, impressions and their results.
25: In God, the seed of omniscience is unsurpassed.
26: Not being conditioned by time, God is the teacher of even the ancients.
27: God's voice is Om.
28: The repetition of Om should be made with an understanding of its meaning.
29: From that is gained introspection and also the disappearance of obstacles.
30: Disease, inertia, doubt, lack of enthusiasm, laziness, sensuality, mind-wandering, missing the point, instability- these distractions of the mind are the obstacles.
31: Pain, despair, nervousness, and disordered inspiration and expiration are co-existent with these obstacles.
32: For the prevention of the obstacles, one truth should be practiced constantly.
33: By cultivating friendliness towards happiness and compassion towards misery, gladness towards virtue and indifference towards vice, the mind becomes pure.
34: Optionally, mental equanimity may be gained by the even expulsion and retention of energy.
35: Or activity of the higher senses causes mental steadiness.
36: Or the state of sorrowless Light.
37: Or the mind taking as an object of concentration those who are freed of compulsion.
38: Or depending on the knowledge of dreams and sleep.
39: Or by meditation as desired.
40: The mastery of one in Union extends from the finest atomic particle to the greatest infinity.
41: When the agitations of the mind are under control, the mind becomes like a transparent crystal and has the power of becoming whatever form is presented: knower, act of knowing, or what is known.
42: The argumentative condition is the confused mixing of the word, its right meaning, and knowledge.
43: When the memory is purified and the mind shines forth as the object alone, it is called non-argumentative.
44: In this way the meditative and the ultra-meditative having the subtle for their objects are also described.
45: The province of the subtle terminates with pure matter that has no pattern or distinguishing mark.
46: These constitute seeded contemplations.
47: On attaining the purity of the ultra-meditative state there is the pure flow of spiritual consciousness.
48: Therein is the faculty of supreme wisdom.
49: The wisdom obtained in the higher states of consciousness is different from that obtained by inference and testimony as it refers to particulars.
50: The habitual pattern of thought stands in the way of other impressions.
51: With the suppression of even that through the suspension of all modifications of the mind, contemplation without seed is attained.

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Chapter Two
Spiritual Disciplines
2:1 Austerity, the study of sacred texts, and the dedication of action to God constitute the discipline of Mystic Union.
2:2 This discipline is practised for the purpose of acquiring fixity of mind on the Lord, free from all impurities and agitations, or on One's Own Reality, and for attenuating the afflictions.
2:3 The five afflictions are ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, and the desire to cling to life.
2:4 Ignorance is the breeding place for all the others whether they are dormant or attenuated, partially overcome or fully operative
2:5 Ignorance is taking the non-eternal for the eternal, the impure for the pure, evil for good and non-self as self.
2:6 Egoism is the identification of the power that knows with the instruments of knowing.
2:7 Attachment is that magnetic pattern which clusters in pleasure and pulls one towards such experience.
2:8 Aversion is the magnetic pattern which clusters in misery and pushes one from such experience.
2:9 Flowing by its own energy, established even in the wise and in the foolish, is the unending desire for life.
2:10 These patterns when subtle may be removed by developing their contraries.
2:11 Their active afflictions are to be destroyed by meditation.
2:12 The impressions of works have their roots in afflictions and arise as experience in the present and the future births.
2:13 When the root exists, its fruition is birth, life and experience.
2:14 They have pleasure or pain as their fruit, according as their cause be virtue or vice.
2:15 All is misery to the wise because of the pains of change, anxiety, and purificatory acts.
2:16 The grief which has not yet come may be avoided.
2:17 The cause of the avoidable is the superimposition of the external world onto the unseen world.
2:18 The experienced world consists of the elements and the senses in play. It is of the nature of cognition, activity and rest, and is for the purpose of experience and realization.
2:19 The stages of the attributes effecting the experienced world are the specialized and the unspecialized, the differentiated and the undifferentiated.
2:20 The indweller is pure consciousness only, which though pure, sees through the mind and is identified by ego as being only the mind.
2:21 The very existence of the seen is for the sake of the seer.
2:22 Although Creation is discerned as not real for the one who has achieved the goal, it is yet real in that Creation remains the common experience to others.
2:23 The association of the seer with Creation is for the distinct recognition of the objective world, as well as for the recognition of the distinct nature of the seer.
2:24 The cause of the association is ignorance.
2:25 Liberation of the seer is the result of the dissassociation of the seer and the seen, with the disappearance of ignorance.
2:26 The continuous practice of discrimination is the means of attaining liberation.
2:27 Steady wisdom manifests in seven stages.
2:28 On the destruction of impurity by the sustained practice of the limbs of Union, the light of knowledge reveals the faculty of discrimination.
2:29 The eight limbs of Union are self-restraint in actions, fixed observance, posture, regulation of energy, mind-control in sense engagements, concentration, meditation, and realization.
2:30 Self-restraint in actions includes abstention from violence, from falsehoods, from stealing, from sexual engagements, and from acceptance of gifts.
2:31 These five willing abstentions are not limited by rank, place, time or circumstance and constitute the Great Vow.
2:32 The fixed observances are cleanliness, contentment, austerity, study and persevering devotion to God.
2:33 When improper thoughts disturb the mind, there should be constant pondering over the opposites.
2:34 Improper thoughts and emotions such as those of violence- whether done, caused to be done, or even approved of- indeed, any thought originating in desire, anger or delusion, whether mild medium or intense- do all result in endless pain and misery. Overcome such distractions by pondering on the opposites.
2:35 When one is confirmed in non-violence, hostility ceases in his presence.
2:36 When one is firmly established in speaking truth, the fruits of action become subservient to him.
2:37 All jewels approach him who is confirmed in honesty.
2:38 When one is confirmed in celibacy, spiritual vigor is gained.
2:39 When one is confirmed in non-possessiveness, the knowledge of the why and how of existence is attained.
2:40 From purity follows a withdrawal from enchantment over one's own body as well as a cessation of desire for physical contact with others.
2:41 As a result of contentment there is purity of mind, one-pointedness, control of the senses, and fitness for the vision of the self.
2:42 Supreme happiness is gained via contentment.
2:43 Through sanctification and the removal of impurities, there arise special powers in the body and senses.
2:44 By study comes communion with the Lord in the Form most admired.
2:45 Realization is experienced by making the Lord the motive of all actions.
2:46 The posture should be steady and comfortable.
2:47 In effortless relaxation, dwell mentally on the Endless with utter attention. 2:48 From that there is no disturbance from the dualities.
2:49 When that exists, control of incoming and outgoing energies is next.
2:50 It may be external, internal, or midway, regulated by time, place, or number, and of brief or long duration.
2:51 Energy-control which goes beyond the sphere of external and internal is the fourth level- the vital.
2:52 In this way, that which covers the light is destroyed.
2:53 Thus the mind becomes fit for concentration.
2:54 When the mind maintains awareness, yet does not mingle with the senses, nor the senses with sense impressions, then self-awareness blossoms.
2:55 In this way comes mastery over the senses.


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Chapter Three
Divine Powers
3:1 One-pointedness is steadfastness of the mind.
3:2 Unbroken continuation of that mental ability is meditation.
3:3 That same meditation when there is only consciousness of the object of meditation and not of the mind is realization.
3:4 The three appearing together are self-control.
3:5 By mastery comes wisdom.
3:6 The application of mastery is by stages.
3:7 The three are more efficacious than the restraints.
3:8 Even that is external to the seedless realization.
3:9 The significant aspect is the union of the mind with the moment of absorption, when the outgoing thought disappears and the absorptive experience appears.
3:10 From sublimation of this union comes the peaceful flow of unbroken unitive cognition.
3:11 The contemplative transformation of this is equalmindedness, witnessing the rise and destruction of distraction as well as one-pointedness itself.
3:12 The mind becomes one-pointed when the subsiding and rising thought-waves are exactly similar.
3:13 In this state, it passes beyond the changes of inherent characteristics, properties and the conditional modifications of object or sensory recognition.
3:14 The object is that which preserves the latent characteristic, the rising characteristic or the yet-to-be-named characteristic that establishes one entity as specific.
3:15 The succession of these changes in that entity is the cause of its modification.
3:16 By self-control over these three-fold changes (of property, character and condition), knowledge of the past and the future arises.
3:17 The sound of a word, the idea behind the word, and the object the idea signfies are often taken as being one thing and may be mistaken for one another. By self-control over their distinctions, understanding of all languages of all creatures arises.
3:18 By self-control on the perception of mental impressions, knowledge of previous lives arises.
3:19 By self-control on any mark of a body, the wisdom of the mind activating that body arises.
3:20 By self-control on the form of a body, by suspending perceptibility and separating effulgence therefrom, there arises invisibility and inaudibilty.
3:21 Action is of two kinds, dormant and fruitful. By self-control on such action, one portends the time of death.
3:22 By performing self-control on friendliness, the strength to grant joy arises.
3:23 By self-control over any kind of strength, such as that of the elephant, that very strength arises.
3:24 By self-control on the primal activator comes knowledge of the hidden, the subtle, and the distant.
3:25 By self-control on the Sun comes knowledge of spatial specificities.
3:26 By self-control on the Moon comes knowledge of the heavens.
3:27 By self-control on the Polestar arises knowledge of orbits.
3:28 By self-control on the navel arises knowledge of the constitution of the body.
3:29 By self-control on the pit of the throat one subdues hunger and thirst.
3:30 By self-control on the tube within the chest one acquires absolute steadiness.
3:31 By self-control on the light in the head one envisions perfected beings.
3:32 There is knowledge of everything from intuition.
3:33 Self-control on the heart brings knowledge of the mental entity.
3:34 Experience arises due to the inability of discerning the attributes of vitality from the indweller, even though they are indeed distinct from one another. Self-control brings true knowledge of the indweller by itself.
3:35 This spontaneous enlightenment results in intuitional perception of hearing, touching, seeing and smelling.
3:36 To the outward turned mind, the sensory organs are perfections, but are obstacles to realization.
3:37 When the bonds of the mind caused by action have been loosened, one may enter the body of another by knowledge of how the nerve-currents function.
3:38 By self-control of the nerve-currents utilising the lifebreath, one may levitate, walk on water, swamps, thorns, or the like.
3:39 By self-control over the maintenance of breath, one may radiate light.
3:40 By self-control on the relation of the ear to the ether one gains distant hearing.
3:41 By self-control over the relation of the body to the ether, and maintaining at the same time the thought of the lightness of cotton, one is able to pass through space.
3:42 By self-control on the mind when it is separated from the body- the state known as the Great Transcorporeal- all coverings are removed from the Light.
3:43 Mastery over the elements arises when their gross and subtle forms,as well as their essential characteristics, and the inherent attributes and experiences they produce, is examined in self-control.
3:44 Thereby one may become as tiny as an atom as well as having many other abilities, such as perfection of the body, and non-resistence to duty.
3:45 Perfection of the body consists in beauty, grace, strength and adamantine hardness.
3:46 By self-control on the changes that the sense-organs endure when contacting objects, and on the power of the sense of identity, and of the influence of the attributes, and the experience all these produce- one masters the senses.
3:47 From that come swiftness of mind, independence of perception, and mastery over primoridal matter.
3:48 To one who recognizes the distinctive relation between vitality and indweller comes omnipotence and omniscience.
3:49 Even for the destruction of the seed of bondage by desirelessness there comes absolute independence.
3:50 When invited by invisible beings one should be neither flattered nor satisfied, for there is yet a possibility of ignorance rising up.
3:51 By self-control over single moments and their succession there is wisdom born of discrimination.
3:52 From that there is recognition of two similars when that difference cannot be distinguished by class, characteristic or position.
3:53 Intuition, which is the entire discriminative knowledge, relates to all objects at all times, and is without succession.
3:54 Liberation is attained when there is equal purity between vitality and the indweller.

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Chapter Four
Realization
4:1 Psychic powers arise by birth, drugs, incantations, purificatory acts or concentrated insight.
4:2 Transformation into another state is by the directed flow of creative nature.
4:3 Creative nature is not moved into action by any incidental cause, but by the removal of obstacles, as in the case of a farmer clearing his field of stones for irrigation.
4:4 Created minds arise from egoism alone.
4:5 There being difference of interest, one mind is the director of many minds.
4:6 Of these, the mind born of concentrated insight is free from the impressions.
4:7 The impressions of unitive cognition are neither good nor bad. In the case of the others, there are three kinds of impressions.
4:8 From them proceed the development of the tendencies which bring about the fruition of actions.
4:9 Because of the magnetic qualities of habitual mental patterns and memory, a relationship of cause and effect clings even though there may be a change of embodiment by class, space and time.
4:10 The desire to live is eternal, and the thought-clusters prompting a sense of identity are beginningless.
4:11 Being held together by cause and effect, substratum and object- the tendencies themselves disappear on the dissolution of these bases.
4:12 The past and the future exist in the object itself as form and expression, there being difference in the conditions of the properties.
4:13 Whether manifested or unmanifested they are of the nature of the attributes.
4:14 Things assume reality because of the unity maintained within that modification.
4:15 Even though the external object is the same, there is a difference of cognition in regard to the object because of the difference in mentality.
4:16 And if an object known only to a single mind were not cognized by that mind, would it then exist?
4:17 An object is known or not known by the mind, depending on whether or not the mind is colored by the object.
4:18 The mutations of awareness are always known on account of the changelessness of its Lord, the indweller.
4:19 Nor is the mind self-luminous, as it can be known.
4:20 It is not possible for the mind to be both the perceived and the perceiver simultaneously.
4:21 In the case of cognition of one mind by another, we would have to assume cognition of cognition, and there would be confusion of memories.
4:22 Consciousness appears to the mind itself as intellect when in that form in which it does not pass from place to place.
4:23 The mind is said to perceive when it reflects both the indweller (the knower) and the objects of perception (the known).
4:24 Though variegated by innumerable tendencies, the mind acts not for itself but for another, for the mind is of compound substance.
4:25 For one who sees the distinction, there is no further confusing of the mind with the self.
4:26 Then the awareness begins to discriminate, and gravitates towards liberation.
4:27 Distractions arise from habitual thought patterns when practice is intermittent.
4:28 The removal of the habitual thought patterns is similar to that of the afflictions already described.
4:29 To one who remains undistracted in even the highest intellection there comes the equalminded realization known as The Cloud of Virtue. This is a result of discriminative discernment.
4:30 From this there follows freedom from cause and effect and afflictions.
4:31 The infinity of knowledge available to such a mind freed of all obscuration and property makes the universe of sensory perception seem small.
4:32 Then the sequence of change in the three attributes comes to an end, for they have fulfilled their function.
4:33 The sequence of mutation occurs in every second, yet is comprehensible only at the end of a series.
4:34 When the attributes cease mutative association with awarenessness, they resolve into dormancy in Nature, and the indweller shines forth as pure consciousness. This is absolute freedom.

business quotes

Business is a combination of war and sport.

By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

An advertising agency is 85 percent confusion and 15 percent commission.

All lasting business is built on friendship.

Men who do things without being told draw the most wages.

Mental attitude is more important than mental capacity.

Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile.

ten reasons why startups fail

Following are the ten reasons why startups fail:

1) They run out of money. They are too optimistic about when their product is going to be accepted by the market
2) Founders don’t have complete faith in each other. They fight instead of delegating, trusting and verifying.
3) CEO hires weak team members. Strong CEOs sometimes try to carry everyone with them.
4) They want to do too much. A successful startup finds a narrow niche that they can dominate and then expands.
5) They go after too small a market.
6) They don’t charge enough from their customers to survive. They often think their mentors/investors are their customers, and think that a nice sale is all they need.
7) They hire too many people up front.
8) They get unlucky. Competitors, new technologies, et al.
9) They don’t work hard enough or fast enough or smart enough. All those little decisions add up to an outcome.
10) They don’t take enough risks. Some startups think they should operate like big firms. They can never beat MS or Google at their own game. They should get creative and do things differently, even at the risk of embarrassment.

quotes

It takes your enemy and your friend, working together to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.

For many persons, law appears to be black magic--an obscure domain that can be fathomed only by the professional initiated into the mysteries.

Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity, and beauty as conspicuously as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness, and ugliness.

Praise is the hire of virtue.

Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know. One often obtains a clue to a person's nature by discovering the reasons for his or her imperviousness to certain impressions.

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.

Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.

He who devotes sixteen hours a day to hard study may become at sixty as wise as he thought himself at twenty.

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own.

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.

Memory is the mother of all wisdom.

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.

There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.

Wisdom begins at the end.

Wisdom begins in wonder.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Turn your wounds into wisdom.

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk.

Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.

Every generation has to earn its own FREEDOM.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damn fool about it.

The more you say, the less people remember.

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind has achieved the second.

silence

THE real ultimate teaching is silence. The real teaching is simply silence. It is not to utter words. Words and speech constitute a human phenomenon. Human nature and all its movements are finite and limited. They are necessarily conditioned by time and space. They are also, by their very nature of human perception, cognisance and knowing, confined within the framework of name and form.
All human speech and words are conditioned. How can you expect to express the unconditioned through a conditioned medium? Nevertheless, because speech is expected, words are spoken. Out of necessity they are spoken. Evidently it is a necessity, otherwise how to account for the voluminous scriptures of all the world’s religions? All these scriptures constitute words and language, which is a phenomenon limited by time and space, name and form. It means that words have been a necessity and evidently that necessity still continues, for new spiritual literature is being produced every day.
Innumerable are the questions that ask for a reply. Therefore language seems to have become necessary. But, it is still true that the ultimate and only teaching is silence. There can be no teaching greater than silence and that alone is able to express the truth about the ultimate Reality.
All speech implies a duality, and the ultimate Reality is supremely non-dual, absolute, one without a second. Speech being a communication between two, and thus necessarily implying duality, how can it be the ultimate and best teaching?

quotes

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted

never confuse motion with action

The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.

One today is worth two tomorrows.

Every one feels the cold according as he is clad.

One cannot be in two places at once.

Life is like a game of tennis; the player who serves well seldom loses.

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

The scientific theory I like the best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline baggage.

Marry a mountain girl and you marry the whole mountain.

No one was ever great without some portion of divine inspiration.

Most important for us is a good spiritual relationship between employees and management.

The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed - it is a process of elimination.

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.

To accept a favor is to forfeit liberty.

The best way to beat your enemy is to beat him at politeness.

Truth exists; only lies are invented.

Success is in the details.

A weapon which you don't have in your hand won't kill a snake.

Mind blowing analysis of current market situation

FUND MANAGERS CAN BECOME FARMERS Even if you are outright bearish, don’t SHORT THE MARKET. Stocks could touch crazy levels, but they may be in CURRENCIES WHICH ARE WORTHLESS. Indeed, a sovereign default and currency turmoil COULD RATTLE WORLD MARKETS in a year or two. In a chat with ET, global investor JIM ROGERS says cotton, silver and sugar can be hot picks. Read on... At one stage we were inundated with gloomy forecasts, which were further reinforced by the IMF and World Bank. And then suddenly stocks surged — something most were not prepared for. How risky is the market today? Central banks all over the world have printed huge amounts of money, and the real economy is not strong enough for all this money to be absorbed... so, it’s going into stocks and real assets such as commodities. It’s a mistake what they are doing. It’s giving short-term pleasure, but there’s long-term pain as we are going to have much higher inflation, much higher interest rates and a worse economy down the road. The American bond market is already beginning to go down dramatically as people realise that the American government has to sell huge amount of bonds, and secondly, there is going to be inflation, serious inflation, as it was always in the past when you had governments printing huge amounts of money. Stocks are rising even as fiscal deficit is widening. Somewhere it has to snap... It’s going to snap. Later this year, next year, we are going to have currency problems, maybe even a currency crisis. I don’t know with which currency — maybe with the pound sterling, maybe with the US dollar, who knows. It maybe with something none of us have at the moment. When you have a currency crisis, stocks will be affected, many things will be affected. It is not sound, what’s happening out there in the world. In the 1930s, we had a huge stock market bubble which popped. And then politicians started making many mistakes. They became protectionist. They made solvent banks take over insolvent banks and then both banks failed in the end. They are doing many of the same mistakes now. What’s different this time is that we are printing huge amounts of money which they did not print at that time. So, we are going to have inflation this time. What do you do? No politically-elected government can afford so much pain, unemployment and hardships... America could have. America just had an election. The guy was elected in November and he could have come in the beginning of a four-year term and said the guys before me were hopeless idiots. They ruined things. We have to solve this problem. We have to take some pains now. But don’t worry, we will get through this pain, and in two to three years or four years, things would be fine. And he could have been reelected. If the pain comes in 2010, 2011 or 2012, there will be nobody he can blame. Especially, if things go bad later, the opposition will say, wait a minute, 2009 looked good. The next guy is going to say you did it... But you are right. It’s very difficult for an elected government. You have a newlyelected government in India. Whenever you have a new government they can take some of the pain. You recently said that you would invest in China and Sri Lanka but not in India. Aren’t you betting on the new government in India? I was trying to make a point that if anyone wants to invest in this particular part of the world, the best place would be Sri Lanka. Because it looks like the 30-year war is coming to an end. Throughout history, if you go to a place after the war ends you usually find everything very cheap, everyone is demoralised, people are just depressed and there are enormous opportunities if you have energy. In my view, investing in Sri Lanka in May 2009 is probably a better bet than Pakistan, Bangladesh, India or some of the other countries nearby. Let’s hope the new Indian government does something. I have heard wonderful things from Indian politicians for 40 years. And rarely do they produce. It’s not the first time that the Congress party has been in the power. If they mean it, India’s going to be one of the greatest development stories in the next 20 years. But I don’t know if they mean it. What kind of reforms? Why isn’t the currency convertible, why isn’t foreign capital encouraged, why isn’t foreign expertise encouraged, why is it so protectionist? Why are farmers only allowed to own five hectares? India should be the greatest farming nation in the world. You have the soil, the weather, you have everything and yet an Indian farmer can own only five hectares. How can an Indian farmer compete with a guy in Ireland who can own 1,000 hectares or a guy in Brazil who can own 5,000 hectares? Smart people don’t become farmers. Because what’s the future? Whenever prices start going up, Indian politicians ban futures trading, as if futures trading makes prices go up. It’s the craziest and the most absurd thing in the whole world. Prices go up because there is a reason for prices to go up. Last year you were buying only Chinese stocks. Why? The market collapsed in October-November. That’s when I bought more Chinese shares. I have not bought any Chinese shares since then. I have not bought shares anywhere in the world since then. My way of participating in what’s going on now is to buy commodities. In my view, commodities are the only place where fundamentals are improving. Farmers can’t get loans for fertilisers now, even though inventories of food are the lowest in decades. Nobody can get a loan to open a mine. So, you will have supplies of everything continuing to decline. What else are you looking at while investing? There are some industries in India that would do exceedingly well in the next few years, one of which is water. You have a horrible water problem. China also has a horrible water problem. So, I bought water companies in China. There are some great opportunities if America falls off the face of the earth. China is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to solve the agricultural problem. So, I am buying agricultural stocks and water stocks in China. There are other industries in India which have a great future. I am very bullish on Indian tourism. Wherever I go for speeches around the world I tell people, if you have to go to one country in your lifetime, you should go to India. Your government is going to re-build the military, they say. So, there’s going to be great opportunities here. Also, they may build the infrastructure. So, I see many opportunities in India. The possibility of a sovereign default in the developed world could further depress sentiments. You think it’s possible? In 1918, the UK was the richest and the most powerful country in the world. Within one generation it was in shambles, within two-and-a-half generations it defaulted. The UK defaulted in 1970s and had to be bailed out by the IMF. Many of the countries in the developed world are in serious trouble right now. Iceland has already defaulted. I think there could be a currency crisis because of sovereign debt problems later this year, next year or 2011. Developed nations have defaulted before. Remember the Asian crisis. It was a default of one kind or the other. It has happened before and it will happen again. Are you worried about any particular market or region? I am glad that I have no investments in the UK. Neither long, nor short. I am convinced that it’s in trouble. I am worried about the US. I have sold nearly all of my US dollars. I always had some as I am an American citizen. But I see serious problems developing there. Those two of the big developed countries are the ones that I see with the most likely problems. But the problem is that it never works that way. Everybody is sitting here watching the UK and US and it may happen in say Portugal or some place we haven’t thought of and it will come suddenly to surprise us all. If US unemployment touches the 10%-mark, it would further impact retail sales. How bad could this be for Asia? Let’s pick on China for a minute. If you sell to Wal-Mart in the US and if you are a Chinese supplier you know there is a problem. And you are going to be suffering. Any company that deals with the West is going to have problems. On the other hand, companies that are in the water-treatment business in Asia will care less if the West disappears. They are too busy making money, too busy going to work everyday. What kind of commodities will smart money chase? Can money be made in crude? I own gold but think silver is better right now. Natural gas is cheaper than oil right now, but I own them all. If you want to buy crude, you should probably buy cotton. Because all farmers in the US are planting corn to turn into energy. That means they are not going to plant any cotton. The best way to play crude oil is to buy cotton. Right now, there are huge subsidies around the world for farmers to plant corn, maize, for instance, so that they can be converted into energy. If energy prices go higher, there will be even more of that. If everybody plants his fields with soya, corn or palm oil to turn it into oil or energy then no one is going to plant cotton. And you can make a lot more money in cotton than oil. Between oil and gold, buy cotton. Between oil and gold buy silver. The other way to invest in oil is to buy sugar as everybody is converting a lot of sugar into energy. Silver is so much cheaper on a historic basis. And gold is near its all-time high. Silver is 75% below its all-time high. So, I would suspect that silver and cotton are going to do better than gold and oil. Global population is close to its peak and genetically-modified crops will increase productivity. What makes you so bullish on agriculture? It doesn’t matter. The world has been consuming more than it produced. Food inventories are at a multi-decade low. And we haven’t had any bad weather. We had isolated cases of droughts and things. That may never happen again. But if it does, the prices of food would go through the roof. If there is climate change taking place, the best way to participate is through agriculture or through agriculture products. There are many positive things happening. Right now, there is a shortage of everything in agriculture — seeds, fertilisers, tractors, tractor tyres. We have a shortage of farmers because farming has been a horrible business for the past 30 years. What kind of a market are you witnessing now? It’s a bear market rally. I was going to say I don’t think S&P 500 will see new highs. But I have to quickly temper that by saying against the dollar because the S&P 500 could triple from here if they print enough money and the value of the US dollar collapses, then S&P could go to 50,000, Dow Jones can go to 1,00,000. Which is one reason why I am not shorting stocks right now. Because there is a possibility of this sort of a thing. There is a possibility that stocks could go through unheard of levels, but would be in worthless currency. That naturally brings us to the debate on a new international reserve currency Several countries have raised the issue once again. The US dollar is terribly flawed right now. Something has to be done to the US dollar and something will be done just as something was done about the pound sterling. After World War II, people stopped using the pound sterling and converted to the dollar for many reasons. Something’s going to be done about the dollar. We are much closer to be doing something about it or will be forced to do something about it. India was forced to change in 1991 and the world will be forced to change the currency situation in the foreseeable future. There is already an underlying fear that this mountain of cash will chase assets and eventually force central banks to mop up liquidity. How do you think this would play out? I know they all say, ‘Don’t worry, we will reverse gears and take the excess liquidity out in time.’ I don’t believe them for a minute. No one has ever done it that way. When central bankers started trying to, it caused so much pain that they quickly reversed or have got rid of that central banker and put somebody else in. I just don’t think they could do it. That’s why I am worried about the bond market and the inflation. If all central banks do it together, that’s going to lead to higher unemployment, riots in the streets, civil unrests. Your track record as an investor has been more than impressive. But in today’s market can you replicate your performance of the past 20 years? One can. I probably cannot as I am not spending enough time at it. But it can be done. There are going to be people who we will read about in 20 years having made legendary fortunes starting now. In the 1930s there were people who built huge fortunes and laid the foundations like Templeton. He started in the 1930s. He saw opportunities and took advantage. These are people who saw great advantages and opportunities in the 1930s, acted and became fantastic suc cesses. There may be somebody out there now. I don’t know who she is. Maybe she is in Brazil, China or India. What will you tell a confused fund manager who seeks your advice? Become a farmer. The world has tens of thousands of hotshot fund managers right now. If I am correct, the financial communi ty is not going to be a great place to be in for the next 30 years. We have many periods in history when financial people were in charge, we had many periods when people who produced real goods were in charge — miners, farmers, etc. The world, in my view is changing and is shifting away from the fi nancial types to producers of real goods, and this is going to last for several decades as it always has. This may sound strange but it always happens this way. Ten years from now, it may be farmers who will drive the Lamborghinis and the stock brokers will drive tractors or taxis at best. Interviewed by George Smith Alexander & Sugata Ghosh

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