In this motivational talk, the speaker shares a personal story about seeking his father's advice on handling anger in marriage. The father rejects the common injunction to simply avoid anger and instead proposes an "additive" strategy: after a conflict, actively add positive gestures—dinner, gifts, kindness—to the relationship. The speaker recounts applying this advice, noting how the conflict became "expensive" and was diffused through generosity and forgiveness. He then expands the lesson, arguing that human minds respond more to additions than subtractions; attempts to simply forget (as illustrated by a 373‑memory exercise) fail because subtraction reinforces illusion. Using a pot‑of‑ink metaphor, he explains that adding water (positive actions) gradually dilutes the dark ink of past hurts, eventually leaving clear water. The talk concludes with a call to focus on adding constructive habits and attitudes to dissolve past grievances and achieve a happier future.
Chapters
Because people ask, I want to leave my past behind. How can I do that? Let me tell you a secret. Let me tell you the secret of the saints and how they succeeded. Let me tell you something so very ancient and so very powerful, something that helped me, something that was directly given to me by my father. You see, it's very interesting. Everybody tells never to become angry, never to become angry at all. And when I got married, I realized you cannot have a marriage without becoming angry. So I went to my father, my father being a very big saint, and I told him, Father, sometimes I get angry at my wife. What am I supposed to do? You tell me not to be angry. You know, this absolute delusions. Don't do this, don't do that. So my father said, okay, son, I'm not telling you to be angry. Let's forget about subtractions right now. Let us talk about additions. And the additions are very simple. The additions are, my son, if you fight with your wife, I want you to take her out for a nice dinner, buy her a nice gift, do something special. Add. Not subtract, add. So I listened to him, I said, okay. And the next time when we fought, I remember my father's teaching. So after the fight, I remembered that he had told me to take her out nicely, to take her out for dinner, to be very kind. So I took her for a dinner, I bought her a nice gift, and I came back home. And when I came back home, I realized that somehow this fight had become very, very expensive. So the next time she came to me, she was angry. I don't know from where a voice came from inside that, "Ishan chor chor, problem chor, both menga parega." And automatically I asked for forgiveness. And that day I learned something very, very, very beautiful about human nature. And what I learned was that we as people are not so affected by subtractions. We are really affected by additions. Because you see, when we are talking about subtractions, we add to the illusions as our mind starts to play game with us. Subtractions only lead to OCD If I tell you to leave something today, right now, it's very difficult. Let us try this. I tell you 373. Memorize this number, 373. Did you memorize it? 3-7-3. Good. Now what I want you to do is forget it. Forget 373 right now. What did I tell you to forget? Aah, the number is still there. Why? Because I am telling you to forget, to forget. In the same manner, illusions about the self cannot be forgotten, but the self can be changed. It's like you have a pot of ink. One way to clean this pot of ink is to put your hands inside, become dirty. The other way is to start adding water. And when you add water, slowly the ink will get diluted, and all that would be left after some time is crystal clear water. So what I want you to do is that if you want to break the illusions of the past, Then from today, let us start thinking about the additions that we can make in our life.
