These people have said many great things, but the truth is that this village boy Govind, from a small village with a population of 700, had schools from first to fourth grade. In seventh grade, I was out of school, and that was the first time I wore shorts. It was a custom in the whole village, but I didn't. I wore shorts in seventh grade. For 11 years, I didn't even see sandals on my feet. In the 12th grade, I got sandals for the first time in my life. I lived a life like an Adivasi. Now, I don't call it an Adivasi life because a friend of mine told me, 'We are not Adivasi, we are Ujaliya.' So we don't call ourselves Adivasi anywhere now, but we lived a life like an Adivasi.
We go to Dang every year for a medical camp. It's been 31 years now. In one camp, after seven or eight years, there were about 100 doctors, and we were about 10 people. 300 people would go, and it was like a picnic. We would see 2000-3000 patients, and all the operable cases were brought to Surat. No one else had such a system.
A four or five-year-old boy came. There were only two boys standing there, and one of them had bumps on his head. I stopped him. My friends and I were going out in a car, so I stopped the boy. My friends said, 'This is what Govind Kaka does, he can't help it.' The boy had bumps on his head, so he came to show them to the doctor. I told him, 'Stay here. This is Govind Kaka. Govind Kaka was just like this when he was your age.' Because in our village, there was no custom of bathing before age seven. So I said, 'He is wearing shorts, but Govind Kaka didn't. That's the only difference. This is the same life.'
So, the real introduction you get from all these people, they give you so much. I studied only up to the seventh grade because I studied from first to fourth in the village, then walked six kilometers to the taluka district school. I studied for three years but didn't take the seventh-grade exam because my elder brother came from Surat to bring my sister-in-law. He told me, 'Come to Surat.' I said, 'I have to take my exam.' He said, 'You don't want to study anymore, so what's the use of the exam?' So I left without taking the exam on April 1st and reached Surat at 1:30 PM on April 2nd. Seeing the red lights, I thought, 'These Kathiawadi people have fallen into a trap.' We came via Viramgam. It's been 60 years since that second of April. Surat's population was then about 750,000, and now it's 8.4 million. It has tripled in 60 years. When I came to Surat, there were 200 diamond workers. Now there are 10 lakh. I am a witness to all of it. I started my factory in 1970 and entered the business in 1977. Then, as they say, 'Dharm badhe to dhan badhe, dhan badhe to man badhe, man badhe to maan badhe.' It keeps growing.
If people are religious, it shouldn't be for show, but from the heart. Many are religious just to deceive others. They go to the temple daily, meet everyone, and take advantage of the emotional and gullible people. That's not what I'm talking about. Religion, for me, is humanity. It's not about Hinduism or any other religion. Religion is about being human. We say 'manas thay' (become human), that's it. If religion grows, then wealth grows. If wealth grows, then the mind grows. Because from religion comes money, and when money comes, the mind grows. The desire to give to others arises. If you don't have it, you don't have it. But if you have it, you want to donate. You want to help 1000 people, but you should help the needy. So, as religion grows, wealth grows. As wealth grows, the mind grows. And as the mind grows, self-respect grows. Because when we donate or support someone, our self-respect increases. It keeps growing and growing in life.
Today, our company's turnover is 1.8 billion, which is about 13,000-14,000 crore. Now, let's come to the main point. My story is complete. We will cover everything in the Q&A session. The main message I want to give you is: why should you join BNI? So that our business progresses and grows. Why do we need to grow our business? Many people think it's to get more money, to become big, and to do many things in the world. But I have come to give you a message. As Dungaram Maharaj said, 'There is no greater lie than the idea that money brings happiness.' The biggest lie is that money brings happiness. Happiness comes from understanding. Think about it. Sometimes, if you look at the condition of a millionaire, it might be very sorrowful. He might be unhappy in a thousand ways. But a small man who comes home in the evening after hard work, sits with his parents, wife, and children for a meal, even if there's just one vegetable dish, they all eat together with a smile. That is true happiness. That is the address of happiness.
So, we do business for satisfaction. Because money comes and goes, but satisfaction must be important in our life. This is my English, my English without grammar, because I couldn't learn ABCD in my school. I didn't learn ABCD in my school, but I have only practical English. But you see, my English is valid around the rest of the two crore people. British and India, because British have grammar, and India has the largest English speakers in the world. So they need grammar. But if you go to Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, Japan, people there think, 'This brother knows a lot, we don't.' It's all practical. When I first gave a lecture at IIM, those students asked me, 'You have the entire Gita by heart, we saw it online on YouTube, is that true?' I said, 'Yes, I have it by heart, but in Gujarati.' They said, 'Our second question is, someone who has the entire Gita by heart is never an industrialist, and an industrialist never has the entire Gita by heart. So how did you get both?' I said, 'That's a difficult question with a difficult answer. Now you have to listen.' Because I believe in past lives. I don't believe by reading in a village. My belief is practical. When I was 10 years old, in a small Swaminarayan temple in Dudhala, a 10x10 room, the boys were playing marbles. While playing, they went into the temple, opened a cupboard, and the Gita came into my hands. I went into a trance. I didn't know it then, but now I know it was a trance. I immediately sat down with the Gita and started reading. I read the entire Gita. My friends came and went, I didn't know. I didn't even know I was reading the Gita. Because a village boy in fourth or fifth grade wouldn't know about Rasa, Vairagya, or anything. So I didn't know what I was reading, but I had an attachment. It was a past life attachment. So I thought, 'I want to memorize this.' At the age of 10 or 11, I started memorizing it, and by the age of 16, in my state of ignorance, the entire Gita was memorized orally. Who did it? If there are no past lives, then who did it?
