Birthday of an American Industrialist Henry Ford30th July is the birthday of one of the most successful American industrialists Henry Ford. Born in 1863 to British and Belgian immigrant parents, Ford exhibited a curiosity and keenness for all things mechanical from an early age. He dismantled and reassembled timepieces for all neighbours earning the sobriquet ‘repairman’. He soon began to dabble with repairing engines, till he eventually became adept at designing them! At the age of 40, he founded the Ford Motor Company, whose total assets today exceed $250 billion. He is credited with developing the ‘assembly line technique’ that revolutionised mass production of goods. By creating the very first automobile affordable by the middle-class, and thereby transforming an extravagance into an accessible conveyance, Henry Ford greatly influenced the course of the 20th century.&nbsp;Osho says money is an art, just as anything else. To create wealth is not an easy job. It needs intelligence, inventiveness and many other qualities. Henry Ford knew the art of creating wealth. And the person who creates wealth should be respected as much as a painter, musician, poet. Painting, music and poetry cannot feed people. The man who creates wealth — a Morgan, a Rockefeller, a Carnegie — should be respected more than a Picasso, but unfortunately they are condemned. Osho says create respect for wealth, create respect for wealth-creating people, create respect for a wealth-creating system of society. Create respect for capitalism because that’s what capitalism is — a wealth-producing economic structure. Socialism is impotent.Osho relates an interesting anecdote about Henry Ford. Ford was known to reach office at 7 every morning even before the peons, clerks and manager arrived. He was also the last to leave. He was once asked why he continues to work hard, when he has already broken all records of richness? Ford replied – it’s become a habit. I know it’s not needed any more but it’s difficult to drop a life-long habit. Osho says his answer is that of a wise man; unenlightened, but certainly life had made him wise.Ignorance is our natural state, there is nothing wrong with it. Just as everybody is naked behind the clothes — however thick your clothes are, however many layers of clothes you have, your nakedness is still there. There is nothing in it to be ashamed of. Naked we are born, ignorant we are born. And it will be helpful to recognize the fact of ignorance sooner, so that you will not die ignorant. Ignorant we are born, but if we can die innocent, life has been a successful journey.And the only way to be innocent is to get rid of all your questions. Don’t hide anything, because whatever you are hiding will come up sooner or later, will surface. It is better to bring it out yourself into the open, into the light. And the function of a master is not to give you an answer, but to destroy your question. Nobody can give you the answer. The answer will arise in you, will grow in you. It will be your growth, your enlightenment. It cannot be given from outside. But questions can be destroyed.So it is good that you have started, even though you have wasted eight years unnecessarily. And that’s why your mind is continuously worried and scared of only one thing: Am I going to miss the train this time? Eight years you have been missing, every day, every moment.But there are a few people who are very expert in missing trains.I have heard that three persons, all professors of a university, were standing on the platform. The train was getting ready to leave — two had come to see one off — and they were involved in deep discussion. Suddenly, the conductor shows the flag and the train starts, and they are so absorbed that they don’t notice. They notice only when the train has almost left the platform. So they all three run to catch it — two succeed, and one fails. And the one who fails starts laughing. A crowd gathers; they say, “What is the matter?”But he is laughing so much, a belly laughter, that he cannot contain himself.He says, “Just wait a minute…. I have missed the train.”They say, “But missing a train does not mean that you have to laugh.”He said, “You don’t know the whole story — just wait: the two who have caught the train came to see me off! But in a hurry….”There are people who are always missing. Missing becomes their habit for their whole life. Each moment — you have to be alert not to miss it. But you are not there, you are somewhere else. Naturally you go on missing. You will think of this moment when it is gone. You will say, “My God, I missed that opportunity.”Henry Ford was asked by a journalist, “What is the secret of your success?” — because he was a poor man, born poor, and became the richest man in the world. Ford said, “My secret is simple, it is an open secret: I never miss an opportunity.” But the journalist said, “It still remains a mystery. Nobody wants to miss an opportunity, but people go on missing. So tell me just in a little detail how you manage — because people become aware of an opportunity only when it is gone, but by that time it is too late.” Henry Ford said, “The way not to miss an opportunity is just to keep jumping. So whenever it comes, it doesn’t matter, you will jump and ride on it. Don’t stand and wait; otherwise you will get engaged in other thoughts and other things. “I keep on jumping. Let the opportunity come whenever it comes — I am not going to miss it.”…You are afraid of missing the train. Whether you are afraid or not, everybody is missing the train. It is good that you are afraid, because that may help you to understand why you are missing.You are not in the moment. You are either in the past or in the future — both are non-existent. Neither can you do anything with the past, nor can you do anything with the future. All that you can do is with the present, and the present is such a small, split second that if you are engaged somewhere else, it simply slips by and you have missed the train.Learn to be in the present. Withdraw your energy from the past. Don’t waste your time in memories; what is gone is gone — say goodbye to it and close the chapter. What has not come yet has not come yet; don’t unnecessarily waste your time and energy in imagination, because no imagination is ever fulfilled. It is because of this that the proverb exists in every language: “Man proposes, and God disposes” — because you imagine a certain thing in the future, and it is never so.Withdrawing yourself from past and future, you will become a tremendously intense energy, focused in the present, concentrated in the present like an arrow. No train could manage to leave the platform without you. Each moment being aware, alert, watchful, in the here-now, is the way not to miss the train. Every experience needs your presence here, this moment. And this is a simple secret, but it opens the doors of existence, of all the mysteries, of all that is worth knowing, worth tasting, worth feeling, worth being.Source:Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.Discourse series: <a href="/beyond-enlightenment-05">Beyond Enlightenment Chapter #5</a>Chapter title: Questions: Exposing your way from ignorance to innocence7 October 1986 pmReferences:Osho has spoken on business magnates like Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, Rothschild etc. in the His discourses. Some of these can be referred to in the following books/discourses:<ol><li>Be Still and Know</li>

<li>The Secret</li>

<li>The Empty Boat</li>

<li>From Death to Deathlessness</li>

<li>From Misery to Enlightenment</li>

<li>From Ignorance to Innocence</li>

<li>The Path of Love</li>

<li>The Last Testament, Vol 1</li></ol><style>.footer-ad{display: none !important;}</style>