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Give Up Your Rights: Mooji

Give Up Your Rights: Mooji

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It is not a habit for me to share things I find online, but this was just too beautiful not so share. I found this message by Mooji on facebook recently. Such a beautiful, profound message. Read on.

I am going to tell you something now that you don’t hear very often in the world, and I use myself as an example for you.
If you want to go all the way, give up the sense that you have any rights in life.
Have no right at all. Have no rights for anything.
Then everything is a gift.
When you don’t deserve anything, everything is a gift.
Just try.
Just for you. Okay?

This is not a political decision.
Give up this sense that you have rights, that life owes you something, and feel the space that remains. Maybe, initially, you will feel vulnerability like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t stand up for my rights. I will be abused.’ But go beyond this feeling.
Sacrifice it for a greater truth.
You must begin to think with your God-mind.
God does not have rights.
God does not need any rights.
You have to be like God.
Give up this sense you have rights.
You wish to go all the way?
Give up pride also.
Give up future too.
If you give up future, you give up past also.
Just for you. You don’t have to tell anybody.

And give up this dependency, ‘Who will be here for me?’
And give up projections such as, ‘Yes, in two years time
I will be in a solid relationship and I will own my own apartment.’
There is nothing so great about that.
It just keeps you being a sucker.
You don’t want to be a sucker.
There is greater than this to come.
You miss the full adventure and power
that comes from the Holy spirit if you start to choose for yourself.
If you feel to choose for yourself, He will leave you to choose for yourself.
But as soon as you give up this sense of rights; if you say,
‘You give me the sense of choice. You are my choice,’
then something else will happen.
In the world nobody tells you this.
There you have to be proud and say, ‘Listen, I have rights!’
When I have rights, the world has done me a lot of wrongs.

Give up pride.
Pride in being a woman.
Pride in being beautiful.
Pride in being accomplished in something.
Pride that you are a certain race, religion or nation.
Give up all of these things.
They belong to the devil.
They don’t belong to you.
And experience what remains.

A great space will open inside your Heart.
Huge humility.
Huge acceptance, love, wisdom and freedom as you experience integration with the cosmic being.
And no force on earth can manipulate or bind you, because you have made yourself empty of all that makes a ‘person’.
Why think it is so great to be a person?
For a while we have to taste that state of personhood, but there must come a time when you return to purity.
Come back to your purity, your original being!
You ask, ‘How?’
Collapse at God’s feet. This is no ordinary fall.
It is not falling down.
It is falling upwards into the embrace of the Living God.

~ Mooji

The Five Chapters

The Five Chapters

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Last weekend, Kiara Windrider shared with us this wonderful story, the Five Chapters, telling the tale of a soul’s journey. This is the story of every soul. It touched me very deeply, so I write about it now.

The First Chapter

You’re walking along the path of life, unconscious, unaware of the big hole up ahead. You fall into the hole. You’re upset at everyone, angry that there was no warning, that the hold hasn’t been repaired. It is everyone else’s fault. 

This is where much of the world is at. We’re deeply conditioned to give our power away. Everything is someone else’s fault. We believe that people or incidents hurt us, and not that we chose to get hurt. Being a victim gives us the freedom to be upset without having to do anything about it.

The Second Chapter

You’ve now become aware that there is a hole on the path and are afraid of falling into it. You fall into it anyway. This time you take responsibility for the fall, not blaming anyone else for it. But you hate yourself for the blunder, beating yourself up over making the same mistake over and over again.

This happens when we first turn our attention inward. We realise that the choices are ours to make. But we’re trapped into patterns by years of conditioning and habit, and make the same mistakes again. We haven’t learned to accept life and ourselves, so the anger that was once turned towards the world now turns inwards.

The Third Chapter

You’re now aware that this is a habit, and there is a possibility of falling into the hole. So when it happens, you are not surprised. You are in acceptance, so there is no blaming or judging, merely a focus on getting out of the hole. 

Once we become more accepting of life and people, much of the pain disappears. Difficult situations are just a happening, an old pattern waiting to drop off. And until that happens, we patients navigate through it the best we can. This means we allow ourselves and others the space to make mistakes without making an issue out of it.

The Fourth Chapter

You are walking. You see the hole. You walk around it. 

When an old pattern drops off, life might still present us with similar situations. But when we are in awareness, we catch ourselves before we repeat old patterns, and instead of reacting unconsciously, we now respond in awareness.

The Fifth Chapter

You choose another road, there is no hole.

Once we’ve transcended the need for the drama, the need for learning new lessons, life brings a shift. We now have greater space in our lives for beauty and peace, we can dance through life. The difficulties drop away and learning comes through love and harmony instead of hard knocks.

Every aspect of our life moves at a different pace. So while say, we might be at chapter 5 with our anger issues, we might still be at chapter 1 with forgiveness. There is a time and place for everything, so of course, we may not shift from chapter 1 to 5 overnight. But awareness, awareness, awareness is the key!

Here’s a video of Kiara narrating the story.

Positive, Negative & Beyond

Positive, Negative & Beyond

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Today’s version of spirituality is largely just playing out one side of duality. ‘Spiritual’ to most people, indicates a state where one is always happy, positive and unaffected by everything around them.

This of course, sounds better than being negative. Ordinarily, a person faced with problems is weighed down by them, and unpleasant incidents float around in the mind, causing agony and frustration. Not a pleasant place to be.

So, once these people have gathered enough strength, or enough frustration, whatever the case, they switch to being positive. They refuse to be bothered by situations or people. They choose to be grateful for everything they have in life, and focus on only those things that bring a smile to their face. Sounds good, right? But is it?

Life is like a pendulum. You can spend some time on one extreme, but sooner or later you are going to swing to the other end. It is only a matter of time. That is why, people who become ‘positive’, always smiling and full of life, eventually have to come face to face with their own darkness.

The problem with positivity is that it is not all inclusive – it lives in denial of darkness, which means one lives a lie. Positive people eventually start having big problems with all the ‘negative’ people in their lives. In extreme cases, they pick up the diseased energies of everyone around them. Crowds are a nightmare.

Then they get together with other positive people and try to figure out how to throw the toxic people out of their lives. But that never happens, because it is through these people that life is trying to show them a mirror.

Both positive and negative people are just trying to solve the same problems, in different ways. Both are making the same mistake – assuming that there is a problem. Because, there isn’t.

As I mentioned, life is like a pendulum. We all swing from one side to another. Either you can live life experiencing intense emotions on both sides, or you can settle in the center with very little or no movement, experiencing neither misery nor ecstasy. It is your choice, both are ok.

It only becomes a problem when we reject what is happening. When we resist the flow, then we either need a positive or negative way of thinking to make sense of what is happening to us. This resistance creates either mental disturbance, physical disease, or both.

To truly transcend a life situation it is important to look at, acknowledge and accept every aspect of our selves, and of our lives. It is as it is. This is part of your story, a story that you wrote yourself before your birth because you had some lessons in mind.

Every emotion you experience is important and needs all of your attention. Every situation in life is important and needs all of you, so that you can get the most out of it. Life is not about ‘not getting affected’. It is about getting affected with abandon. Because in reality, you are that which fire cannot burn and water cannot drown, you are that which was never born and will never die. You are just playing. Might as well play it right, right?

Dancing with Life

Dancing with Life

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Put your heart and soul into dancing with life

It seems like another lifetime when I learned Reiki. Life then used to be slow, almost a crawling pace. It all seemed under control, and lessons were learned one at a time. Things started speeding up 2010 onwards, and suddenly what people took a decade to experience, they were experiencing within a year. Those who were prepared, faced a little less trouble than others, but we all faced the music anyway. We’re still facing the music, most of us, aren’t we? Question is, are you just listening, or are you dancing to it?

There cannot be pleasure without pain
Every time I heard the above statement, I knew that it must be true, but I couldn’t really ‘get’ it. So here’s an idea that helped me understand.

Take the example of a dancer. To be a dancer does not mean that you will never fall or never hurt yourself. And yet, a true dancer gives every move his everything, If every dancer occupied his or her time with the pain that dancing brought, or the frustration of it’s rigor, there would be no joy, no pleasure in the dance. A dancer lives in joy because she knows that pain is natural. So is the bliss.

You are in this body (and mind) because the universe wants to experience what it is like, to be YOU. To experience what it feels like, to be happy, sad, angry, calm, frustrated, pleased, ecstatic, desolate, and everything else – as you.

So participate in every moment life brings your way. It may be a tough move, but give it your best and dance anyway. You may not be graceful yet, or the best dancer around, but you’ll learn. And the best part is, you’ll enjoy every moment of it.

Are You Cancer?

Are You Cancer?

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Cancer is one of the worst diseases to have afflicted mankind. It isn’t just about affecting one person, and the ordeal doesn’t end when the disease ends. The family goes through intense suffering through physical exertion, multiple visits to the hospitals, the constant fear of losing a loved one, and guilt for not being able to do enough. And even after the disease is cured, IF it is cured, there is the terror of what each follow up check will reveal. It brings up emotions of hatred towards the disease, fear, anger, and what not.

Cancer is a disease, right? It’s something gone awfully wrong, in nature? But have we ever looked at life from the perspective of a cancerous cell? Just imagine. In a body where every cell is bound by it’s duty to the whole body, here’s a cell that decides to break free, to do what it wants. It puts it’s own needs ahead of the needs of the organism.

In the beginning, this is just about freedom, of multiplying it’s own kind. With every subsequent generation, these cells forget that they belong to the organism, and that the health of the organism is critical to their own survival. So very quickly priorities change, and now they start using the organism for their own growth. They now start feeding on the resources meant for other cells. Eventually, they multiply so far and wide, that they choke the free flow of nutrients in the body, damage other organs, and eventually cause death – of the organism, as well as themselves.

Yes.. have we ever looked at life from the perspective of a cancer cell? Now that we see it more clearly, I wonder, have we ever had any other perspective in our own lives? When the organism earth was healthy, every element, every molecule on this planet worked towards the ultimate good of the planet itself. And then one cancerous cell arrived. One human being decided that it was his own needs that were important, and others followed. With every generation, they forgot that they belonged to the earth, and the earth merely became something to own, something to use.

They started feeding on the resources meant for other beings, other parts of earth. Homes of millions of other beings were destroyed, leaving them homeless, to be domesticated, captured or killed if they ventured into human territory.

They have disrupted and polluted the circulation of vital nutrients – rivers have been killed, dammed or redirected to suit the whims and fancies of this species. Oceans have been polluted beyond recognition. Even outer space has not been spared. They care only about themselves, and about furthering their own clan, extending their own life span. Because to them, that is all that matters.

We look at a cancer patient and want to cry, wondering why nature would mete out a punishment this harsh to a soul this gentle. But what if WE are the cancer cell? What if we are the ones growing out of bounds, inching closer everyday to killing a beautiful, divine creation of God?

Cancer is a mere manifestation of the disease that is ripping the planet apart. A few gentle beings reflect this disease in a vain attempt to remind humanity of the disease it has become. If you study the human body carefully, you start to realise that every cell is important, every cell matters. And in this organism, this beautiful, divine earth, you matter. We can sit and ruminate about how mankind has gone haywire, but the critical question remains just this – ARE YOU A CANCER CELL TOO?

From the Heart

From the Heart

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It was a while ago, that I decided that I would only write about what I was learning, on facebook as well as here. Not about what I felt others needed to learn. I understand this has its downside; many have been asking me to say something for a while, and everytime I sit down to write something, I realise I have nothing to say. But, it is as it is.

So, I finally have something to say; this is personal, and I’m going to keep it that way. I pray that you find the guidance or help you seek, as you read through it.

I realise now, how I’ve been chasing for a long time. Having been brought up in a spiritual household, chasing was never a good thing, it was always looked down upon. We were still chasing, just in a much subtler way. Chasing money or material wealth was out of question, we had seen beyond that. Family was always the focus. I believe this is how it is anyway, for a lot of Indians – we value families and relationships.

But I see now, how a chase is still just a chase. Doesn’t matter what you are running after, it will leave you gasping and breathless after a while. The material chase is very common all over the world. People are chasing money and power in the blind conviction that it will solve all their problems. They laugh at the ‘lazy’ ones, those who don’t have enough drive to build two houses and buy two cars. The ‘lazy’ ones laugh back at them, because they see through the futility of that chase. You can earn all you like, but no one will cry when you die. All that matters in life is love, friendships and relationships. So that is what they chase, in the belief that if they invested enough in loved ones, they will be happy.

Then there are people who have seen through all of this. Yes, money does not make you happy, and yes, all people are selfish, and it is pointless to expect beyond an extent, from relationships. So they’d rather just chase God. Surely God, or the universe, or whatever else people call it – has the power to make them happy?

I had started seeing already that the spiritual path is not rosy and difficulties lie at every turn. But this one was still an eyeopener. The ‘spiritual’ ones just seem happier because the things that affect ‘normal’ people don’t affect them anymore. But they are still chasing, and they have their own share of disappointments, frustrations and tragedies.

Here’s what I have learned – nothing is going to make you happy forever. And I don’t mean this in a fatalistic way, with a sense of foreboding, the way I have heard it before. It just is as it is. This is life. Some days are going to be happy, some days are going to be sad. Some days you’re going to be wise, some days you’re going to be a complete idiot. Buddhi bhrasht, (messed up head) as we say in our family – a state we always prayed to God to protect us against. It’s all the same, in the end. No state is better than the other. Everything just is. Of course, this is not completely internalised for me yet, but I’m starting to learn.

Eventually all you can do is just surrender – not just to events, many of us do that already, in a bid to ‘not be affected’ by the circumstances – but also to the feelings. We need to feel what we are feeling. Whether we express it or not should still lie with our better judgment as far as possible, but again, if we mess up, it is as it is. There is nowhere to go, nothing to achieve. Things will happen anyway, life moves on and so do we.

Here’s a compilation of the lessons I’ve learned, from a practical perspective.
Stay in the present: Meditation isn’t about sitting for half an hour trying not to think. It is a moment-to-moment state of being. That half hour practice is great too, but it is just as important to remain vigilant towards our selves throughout the day. What am I thinking, what am I feeling? One thought or feeling isn’t better than the other, they are all just there and will pass.

Remember to feel what you’re feeling: Feelings are just feelings. They don’t make you a good or bad person. Every situation in life brings associated emotions with it, and it is ok to feel whatever you are feeling, whether it is wanting to eat that extra laddu or wanting to kill someone. Separate feeling from expression. It is ok to feel. Expression brings consequences. Feel. Express if it makes sense to you.

These are tough times, stay in the heart: Breathe the energies in and out of the heart as much as possible. Do it when things go wrong, do it as a meditation, whatever you like. But keep your attention on the heart at all times.

Really Letting Go

Really Letting Go

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When I first learned Reiki, every thing was about problem solving. We’d request Reiki to help us make everything go our way – get well soon, get that score/ promotion/ job we wanted, let that nasty person stay away, or even something as simple as being able to eat gulab jamuns soon. But problems are a part of life. Get rid of one, and another takes it’s place. A desire for a problem-free life is a futile dream. We realised that life wasn’t about making things go your way, it was about learning to accept things as they are. So then we’d request Reiki to help us accept the situation as it was. It seemed we’d made great progress!

We know that happiness starts to seep in when we remain in the present moment. Chasing anything – money, power, fame, stability, a state of oneness in relationships, better marks, an award, give us temporary pleasure during the chase when we imagine our besotted future, and another few moments if we achieve it. Then we’re faced with the void again, and we need to chase something soon before we go insane. The only way to be free from this loop is to accept the present as it is.

This is where the catch comes in. While accepting things as they are is a beautiful endeavor, most of us forget that the desire to accept things as they are often comes from a desire to be at peace. Which is a sign that you are NOT accepting your present emotions as they are. So there is a big difference between really embracing things as they were, and the desire to accept things – because the latter is again a chase, and not in the present moment at all.

When a friend told me recently that he had been focused on being a better human being ever since he was little, I asked him why. Startled, he realised that the only reason he wanted to be better was because he didn’t accept himself for who he really was. We’re going to get better anyway, whether we like it or not. There may be short stints where we go crazy and appear like we’re regressing, but that is all part of the growth, and will happen even if we make growth the agenda of our lives. It is natural to grow. But if that drive – to be a better human being is replaced by a deep acceptance of ourselves with all our flaws, it will allow us to really experience peace, and to really love ourselves and others.

So love and peace are not a chase, they are in this moment, right now. All we need to do is completely relax into the present moment, no matter how uncomfortable it seems. Kind of like when we’re learning to swim for the first time, and the water terrifies us, and then we realise that we can trust the water, and slowly start to loosen up. We can trust life, we can slowly start to loosen up, slowly start to embrace what is, all the flaws included. Right Now.

QnA: Assessment Vs Judgment

QnA: Assessment Vs Judgment

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Are you passing judgments without giving them the benefit of doubt?

I just love it when someone asks me a nice, sensible question! Here’s another lovely question from a lovely student.

Question:

Hi Ashwita,
I was following this recent post of yours about extrovert and introverts which went a little offtrack, and you mentioned, we are not comparing, and judging. That got me thinking, and I have been wondering – Is Judging a wrong thing to do ? Isnt judging someone a mere reflection of our own image ? and if judging is wrong, why is everyone doing it all the time ? Isnt it more spontaneous ? It need not come out vocally, but isnt it a thought ? and is that not involuntary ? How can we stop our thoughts from judging or not judging a person , as we are trained in our mind to do so.

How to identify from what is judging, and what is expressing concern or expressing opinion? I want a clear thought, Can you please help me with this?

Ashwita:

To say that judging is wrong, would be a judgment in itself 🙂 But yes, judging is not a productive process and usually tends to cause pain to the person judging as well as the person being judged.

We only judge others with parameters we use on ourselves, so being aware of the judgments we make on others can be a huge learning experience if we want to understand our own minds.

However, it is possible that you have confused assessment and judgment. The former is required, the other is quite dispensable. You are right though, that judgment has become quite natural to our behaviour – but i believe that that is not because it is really natural, but because it is a very early learned behaviour – one of the first things our parents do is judge us, so we learn it quite quickly. You can let go of this behaviour just like you would let go of any other habit – by observation and acceptance.

So what is the difference between judgment and assessment? Assessment is observing and making notes about the characteristics of a person. For example, if you notice that a friend of yours lied, you might make a mental note of that, and then take her words with a pinch of salt when she talks the next time. A good assessment is hugely beneficial in protecting oneself against possible harm.

Judgment on the other hand, is assessment + opinion. Now once you realise that this friend lies, if you jump to the conclusion that she is mean and horrible, then that would be a judgment. This would affect your behaviour around her, no matter how you tried, and eventually it might lead to problems in the relationship. The biggest problem in judgment is that it doesn’t take into account the fact that your assessment might be wrong. Maybe that wasn’t a lie at all, maybe it was said because of really dire circumstances, or maybe she’s honest only with you – you never know.

Assessment would be awareness of the other person’s flaws without getting emotional about it. It is based in the broad belief that human beings have flaws and it is perfectly natural to be flawed – it allows us to accept ourselves and others completely and allows us to love more wholly. When we are very judgmental, we tend to lie to ourselves about our shortcomings, because we have an image to live up to. This prevents real growth.

And I’ve just used a small example of lying but we know things can get a lot more serious than that. We’re a very judgmental society and we judge everyone from dark skinned people to introverts, unmarried people to divorcees, and even rich and poor people. We forget that our opinion really doesn’t matter at all to anyone except ourselves.

Ofcourse I know that you’re aware by now that judgments you apply on others, you also apply on yourself, so when you do the same thing you’re judging another about, this is how your own image of yourself will also look – and that will make it that much harder for you to love yourself. And when we make judgment, from my experience I know that we have to go through those situations eventually, in this life or next, to understand what that person was really going through.

I hope that answers your question 🙂

Sympathy Vs Empathy

Sympathy Vs Empathy

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Are you helping them up or pushing them down?

 We have grown up in a society where one is allowed, or even expected, to feel sorry for someone in trouble. To be worried for a loved one is seen as a normal thing, as a sign of concern, affection or love.

But when we sympathise, what are we really expressing, and where is it coming from? When a loved one is in pain, it is quite natural to feel disturbed, and many of us find it hard to see them in that situation, and try our best to pull them out of it. Does this truly pull them out of their mess?

Sympathy and empathy are quite different, and while the latter can help someone quite dramatically, the former can, despite the best intentions, crush a tired soul.

Believe it or not, sympathy is an ego-driven emotion. It is based in the belief that we are somehow superior to the troubled one by the virtue of not being in trouble or having been through it already. It is also based in the need to be needed – a sympathetic person subconsciously believes that the troubled one is not strong enough to handle the problem on his/ her own and needs his/her help to resolve the issue. Therefore the desperation to help the other out, even if the other hasn’t asked for help.

Think about it – if you saw an old man and a teenager fall down simultaneously, whom would you rush to help first? Obviously the old man, because you’d reason that the teen can help himself, but the old man may not be able to. When you believe that a person is incapable of helping himself, you tend to rush to help, irrespective of whether the person has asked for help or not. And in this process, you are subconsciously telling them that you don’t think they are strong enough to handle the problem on their own. Consider the impact of a belief like that on one who is already crumbling under the weight of problems.

Empathy stems from an underlying belief that the other person is completely capable of handling the problem. One would offer to help but not force advice down the person’s throat. An empathetic person would spend much more time listening to the problem, and much less time offering advice. An empathetic person would also be less judgmental, thereby aiding healing, since the other person would be encouraged to feel more self-love and judge himself less harshly.

Here are a few typical statements:
Sympathy: “I know exactly what you’re feeling!”
Empathy: “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re going through right now”
What is really going on: We tend to feel sympathetic when we see a person facing a problem which we internally believe we could not have handled ourselves. That is why we get so disturbed when we see them in it. No matter what the problem is, even if you have been through a similar problem in the past, it is still not identical to the problem being described – the circumstances are totally different. A sympathetic person projects his own problems onto the person, and therefore believes strongly that he knows exactly what the person is talking about. An empathetic person on the other hand, can see clearly that the situation is something he or she has not been through before, so it would be hard to know exactly what the person is going through right now.

Sympathy: “I’m sure if you do this your problem will be solved”
Empathy: “What do you think is the best way to tackle this? Have you tried ?”
What is really going on: Since the sympathetic person believes that the other is incapable of handling his own problems, he takes it upon himself to solve the other’s problems. Solutions are offered one after the other, and this problem takes up much of his time and energy. Even after the other person has finished sharing the problem and gone home, the sympathetic person continues to pace and worry, making his problems his own. What he’s really doing, subconsciously, is asking himself what he would have done, had he been in the same situation. It has nothing to do with the other person.

An empathetic person would stay somewhat outside the picture, being able to see and show the larger perspective, maybe thus offering a larger scope for solutions. It can be compared to a person drowning. A sympathetic person would jump right in, only to realise that he can’t swim either, pulling the other person down with him. An empathetic person would stay out of the water and see if there is any way he can help from outside.

Sympathy: “I just can’t see you like this!”/ “You’re not thinking straight!”
Empathy: “You’re strong, you’ll see this through, just have patience/ faith”
What is really going on: Again, this sympathetic statement is stemming from the internal belief that the person is incapable and not strong enough. The empathetic statement directly conveys confidence and strength, and helps the person have more faith and confidence in himself.

How to be more empathetic
The first step would obviously be identifying when we are being sympathetic, which would require self-observation. Deep listening also helps quite a bit in this process. Once this is done, it is important to understand that we are trying to solve the problem for ourselves, out of our own fears, and not out of genuine concern for the other person. The last step would be to consciously remind ourselves that this person is completely capable of handling the problem on his or her own, and let our thoughts and words follow accordingly.

Of Duality and Lessons

Of Duality and Lessons

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As I sipped on my cucumber juice, chatting up with two very wise people at a cafe in Tiru, we watched a bunch of foreigners smoke.  I was perplexed.

“Wouldn’t a spiritual aspirant at least first aim to get rid of addictions before seeking higher levels?” I asked.

“None of this is real anyway”, my friend winked at me, and then added “Ram says that Swami Chinmayananda used to smoke too, and eat crappy food… He had 3 bypass surgeries.”

We were just back from a very intense talk by Ramji, who had strongly suggested that so many things we do, including praying, are not going to lead to enlightenment. “Must we stop doing them then?” someone asked. “No. As long as you’re still stuck in this duality, you’ve got to follow it’s rules.”

Isn’t this exactly where so many of us get stuck? Some wise person says or does something and we blindly believe or follow it, unaware that it isn’t relevant to us at all. We’ve got to know and follow our personal truths first.

Swami Chinmayananda, for instance, ate unhealthy food all the time, because he liked it. He knew first hand, that none of this was real anyway. He also knew that the pain and the surgeries weren’t real. Do you?

This is somewhat akin to a high school student declaring that he wouldn’t ever use history as he aims to be a scientist, so studying it would be a waste of time. Now this attitude would affect his grades and in the very least, make it harder for him to become a scientist.

Are you failing any history tests in life?