EDUCO™

THE RICHEST MAN I EVER MET

It was January in the Canaries and the weather was just perfect, rather like a good summers’ day in Ireland. On the island of Gran Canaria, around the area of Maspalomas was where I first saw the houses. They were in the process of being built but there was one completed and it was magnificent. I was on holiday and staying with a friend who lived on the island and was intending buying a house, hence the interest.

On this particular day, after a week of house hunting, he had gone early to the beach. It was such a beautiful day that I had been taking a walk, going nowhere in particular. The show house inside was cool and smelt of fresh paint. The old man, who was obviously just holding down the fort, told me to take my time looking around but to call back in the afternoon to meet the builder. Later in the day found me back in the spot.

The Man

There was no one about but then I spotted him. He stepped forward to take my hand and in perfect English introduced himself. He towered over me and was big with it. There was something about him. It turned out he was from Sweden and spoke five or six languages fluently. During the time I was there he spoke to people in German, Spanish, English and Swedish. One immediately got the impression of a powerful shrewd man used to giving orders. Yet, there seemed to be more.

After we had looked at the house we went down to the beach which as it transpired, for quite a distance, he owned. It was a remarkable piece of property with its year round perfect climate. It is said that the sea water in this area has a higher oxygen content than anywhere else in the world. It is certainly noticeably invigorating when you go in for a swim - that, with the very clean air combined to make you feel that if you lived there you would live forever, even longer.

It seemed that he had just been made an offer by Kassoggi, who many reckon to be one of the richest men in the world, for a section of the beach. Part of the deal which made me laugh at the time, was that Kassoggi would loan him his jet for a length of time. He seemed to want to talk, so we kept on walking as he began to tell me his story.

He was born in Sweden and came from what he called an underprivileged family. Nevertheless, he was determined when the time came to go to college. It seemed that he lived some distance from the college and because he was underprivileged the state allowed him to go to college free and would also provide a taxi service. But he refused, working his way through college, walking there and back. He said it was against his philosophy. Naturally. I thought this a curious statement and asked him if he would mind telling me about his philosophy. At this point it had grown late in the evening and we were now sitting on the veranda of this house. If you can imagine the setting - the houses are up on a height overlooking the beach. In the distance can be seen the Maspalomas sand dunes which the locals claim are a continuation of the Sahara Desert. The sun is setting behind his back.

HIS PHILOSOPHY

“My Philosophy” he said “Simple! When people are down I kick them” I must have looked visibly taken aback because he laughed” You look surprised, my friend”, he said. He went on to say that he owned large estates in South America, had his own private plane and rarely stayed in one place too long, although he had residences in various countries. He described in some detail how he did business with various governments. When he saw that the shock value of his first statement had worn off he began to further outline his philosophy.

“When a person is starving you must feed them but when they are down you kick them. Then, only one of two things will happen – either they lie down altogether which means they are dead or they will get up and fight. You see, I believe there is something inside each of us – what name you give it is unimportant – for our purposes we will call it a flame. You come into the world with it and if you live properly it will grow. If it grows you will be a happy, intelligent, successful individual. It is the only thing you will be able to take with you when you die. If it goes out you are dead, at any age”.

At this point he looked into my eyes and his own seemed to blaze. “I believe”, he said “that every Government, every educational system, every society”, and he went on to list other groups, “deliberately conspire to put out your flame. In my college days, if I had taken handouts from the state, in the foolish belief that I was getting something for nothing, then I believe that I would have paid for the privilege with my life. You must take every opportunity that you get to grow your life, it is your most valuable asset. If you can get the person dependent on society, the child on its mother, on the husband or wife, that’s not love.

Real love is to grow the flame. You see we have become so dependent, so dulled, that we can be herded around like sheep.

An Individual

You saw all the people working here earlier this morning – they are glad of the work. Today, all over the globe people worked for me – I don’t believe that any one of them was an individual. There are less and less individuals in the world – the purpose of modern day society is to make them extinct, in turn them into robots, then they are harmless. People try to do two opposite things at once – to succeed and to hide. Look”, he said, and he moved forward in his chair, “from the time we are born we are looked after by the mother, wife, union, church, state, etc. We are never free”. What exactly do you mean by free?”. I asked. He relaxed and smiled. “ I think you know”, he said. “It’s like breaking a thread that becomes the rope that hangs you. Say you have a wife and she looks after your every need, it’s very comfortable. When you are away from that situation say at work, unless you stay in a comfortable position, it can seem harsh. You know there’s a song that describes it very well – “Now my working day seems longer than it ever did before and the evening breeze gets cooler day by day”! So you run home, you hide. I have a lot of experience of hiring people. Just by asking a few questions about their childhood, their home life, their religion, what they intend to do with their lives I can know with certainty if they are into hiding I can tell them they will never succeed, they will always just be cogs in the wheel”.

Again he moved forward in his chair and fixed me with those eyes. “Anytime I tried to tell them they could never understand. Only a potential individual or an individual can. If you can really understand I guarantee you will succeed. The individual is not just working for a company or even for his own material success but is growing the flame, his God-given birthright and to do this he knows he must cut loose”.

At this point I said “But most people wouldn’t ever know where to start”. He answered. “As I just said, understanding is the key. But if you don’t have the understanding you won’t even see the point of breaking out of the rut”. We both sat in silence for a while.

 Two Worlds.

“Nevertheless there is some hope”, he suddenly said. “What?”. I asked so eagerly he laughed. “Say you come home from the job and it’s not going very well but your wife gets you the good meal, then you sit at the TV. with your feet up. So, you don’t have to bother.  What if you were alone, where you would have no one to console you, sitting in your room on your own?” “You mean I can’t even have the nice wife?”. I said jokingly. “Why did you marry her?”. He shot back. “Was it love or were you hiding?” Most people would never think about it like that”. I said. “Most people never think at all. They have their thinking done for them”, he answered grimly. “Only a free man can think. To what extent depends on the height of his flame. So he must take the attitude at the beginning that it is a very fragile thing and so he puts his hands around it and blows it gently. This is done by being on your own. Even if the job is going badly you must not go into depression, inferiority – that again is just hiding. Naturally I don’t mean become antisocial or not to get married, but you have got to snap the thread to realise that there are two completely different worlds. One may seem like a warm cocoon but it’s really a rut, a tomb, yet, most people live and die without ever stepping out of it. The world is always noisy, chattering, like a  radio going on in your head all the time. You must switch it off”. Abruptly he stood up “See the beach out there”, he said , pointing, “well when I’m here I walk down it every day and switch off the radio. I do it very simply by observing, not allowing myself to think about business problems or any type of problem for that matter. I look at what I see – when I pass it, it is gone. That”, he said, jabbing his finger at me for emphasis, “is what I mean by living alone. Now listen carefully to me – make it a cardinal rule to devote five to twenty minutes in this every day. On your life, don’t fail. Do it, faithfully and soon you will awaken to the other world. All of us are supposed to make this crossover. You will no longer see through you thoughts. You will have broken away from  your mother’s (metaphorically speaking) apron strings. Even if you can’t see exactly the reason for being alone, do it. You will develop from it this extraordinary ability to see what is, rather than what you think is. This ability can be applied to anything.

 Living to Your Capacity

“Never again must you allow yourself to be trapped in total dependency”. He sat down again. “Cut the strings every day. Now, if I want to deal with a business situation. I fix my mind on it, like I’ve trained myself to observe”. Again he stared at me fixedly. “I allow no other thoughts in there except what comes to me about the immediate problem. Have you ever experienced what it is like to think a clear mind? Until you do it you won’t realise how many useless thought are stuck in there. They may be of failure, inferiority, loneliness. Say your brain had a capacity of 10 to think, look, experience. Then, have you ever noticed when you worry how tired you become? Well, a similar process is going on all the time and you may in fact be only left with a capacity of 2 with which to think etc. So you can smother your flame with useless thought, a mind that has to be filled with it because it’s afraid of being alone. But then you will never know how good you could have been. The tragedy is that most people never even get the chance because as I have already said, society is stacked against them. You know, I’m hardly ever tired and people are amazed by the amount of work I can get though. They could do the same but they are always revving their motor with the brakes on, because resident thought can sap your physical energy and negatively affect you health as stress. The reason for my good health is not just the excellent climate”.

By this time it had grown dark, a warm velvety darkness. You could hear the crickets and in the distance the water against the shore. “You understand”, he said. “I knew you would”. I reached out and took his hand. “Yes”. I said, nodding my head.

We sat there as only two people can who have crossed together. I paid him two more visits. I discovered that he was happily married with two children and was interested in diet and exercise. He also liked to go away for weekends, only instead of driving somewhere, he liked to fly his plane up to Malaga to Southern Spain. A Spanish lawyer later told me that he had very special business arrangements with governments and was well known for his integrity. I was never to see him again but he never left me. He was the richest man I ever met and he had money too!

                                                                TONY QUINN