The cornerstone of Great Wealth Pillar in Mahatman is the abundance of Time. While the world is going frantic about time running out, I say to you – that is an illusion; instead there is an abundance of time, if you only know how to create it and manage it. Indeed Time as a tool actually sets apart humans from other space since no other creature can think about the future like we do. At the same time, not all humans know how to use Time effectively. Mahatman believes that the really wealthy people are only those who have the abundance of Time and use it to create Great Wealth in the quintessential Mahatman sense.

Right from birth we are taught to believe in the outside objective world. But what we don’t realize that in many significant matters, reality is actually subjective. Love, duty, pain, pleasure, solitude, intelligence and a host of other such concepts cannot lay claim to any single meaning – they are all experienced in different ways by different individuals and so have subjective meanings. Likewise, it is with Time. The person whose beloved has left for a month to another city considers it equal to years while another, a patient who has thirty days to live, feels a month going by like sand running through his fingers. Thus Time is an illusion. For people with differing priorities, in varied circumstances and inhabiting different personalities, Time will rarely mean the exact same duration. Reality of time like the reality of love, good and evil is constructed in the mind – it is the result of individual interpretations of sensory inputs and hence subjective.

Who is the really wealthy person, in the Mahatman sense? Is it he who owns private islands and flies all over the world in personal jets? Or is it she who controls dictators, generals and world leaders and thereby holds the fate of millions of people in her hands? Neither – the truly wealthy person is one who has an abundance of time. Ask the multi-billionaire on his deathbed what he wishes – he will not say I want another trillion dollars in my bank; rather he is most likely to beg for another day to live – to see the sun rise and a smile lighten up the face of his dear child. This is not to say justify inaction by saying that wastrels and lazy buggers who have enough time to while away are wealthy – just the opposite really. Abundance of time that is used to create abundant wealth, which in turn leads to more time, is the true meaning of being wealthy in the Mahatman way.

I have already discussed that being wealthy in the Mahatman sense means owning an abundance of time. Now let me show you a few practical ways that will help you create more time so that you can use every bit to further your programme of Self Actualization.

The first is Automation – Even now in many parts of the world, automation is perceived as anti-human and anti-livelihood. Dig deeper in such contexts and you will find a whole nexus of corrupt and greedy stakeholders misleading people at the grassroots level by shouting that machines are going to eat up their jobs. It is exactly the opposite that happens in the long run – greater automation actually up skills people and makes for better jobs and higher quality of lives. In the Mahatman scheme of things, automation takes over the drudgery and in return frees you up to create, design and innovate. In this way it creates time for the really important things so that you can push full steam ahead to your Self-Actualization.

The second way to create more time is through Delegation. Learn to distribute work to the right people. Clearly outline goals and processes, establish norms and guidelines, specify the deliverables and then leave people to do their job. If you keep peeking over their shoulder and cross-checking their progress every minute, you are actually wasting your own time rather than creating it, which was the whole point of delegation in the first place. That you are also reducing the efficiency of other people by constant interference goes without saying which eventually means that work remains undone despite the investment of your own time and everyone else’s – a criminal waste of time!

The number one enemy of time creation is the habit of Procrastination. The more you put off work, the more difficult it becomes to pick it up later. The loss to your personal productivity is of course directly proportional to the importance of the undone job – for example, putting off making a presentation will earn you a rebuke from your boss but putting off a crucial medical test – may be because you are afraid of what it will reveal – could mean the difference between life and death for you. Equally significant is the long term damage to your self-esteem and self-image – the more you keep putting off things to do, the lower you are sinking in your own estimation. So where Time is concerned, the injunction to mental practices applies equally well – Use it or Lose it!

The most powerful tool of creating more Time is Prioritization. More likely than not, procrastination or the inability to delegate is not holding you back on the daily level – it is a difficulty in deciding what to do first and then the next. On your journey to Greatness, it is only natural that you will be dealing with multiple commitments and goals – since the Self Actualized Soul is a 360 degree, well-rounded persona. But in this journey if you lose focus on what is really important, you might get bogged down by the mundane and non-essential. So prioritize your goals and you will find more Time on your hands.

Finally use the infinite powers of the Human Mind to feel an abundance of Time. I have already discussed how mind is the real creator of your own reality – so train your mind to think that you have an abundance of Time at your disposal. You can do this by seeking out silent spaces marked by privacy and the beauty of nature. When you are immersed in such environs, you almost lose track of time and enjoy being in the flow of your work. This is one of the reasons why great people and companies reserve their really important work for retreats and sabbaticals. Another way to perceive an abundance of time is by maximizing your efficiency. The more you are able to do in a limited span, the more time you are left with on your hands which of course is, in accordance with the Mahatman principle of Wealth, is best reinvested in the journey of your self towards actualization.