Dr. Abraham George
speaker
275 appearances
5 recordings
2 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Jan 2025
Dr. Abraham George’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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I mean, people who came to him, the tribal people. He lived in the middle of the midst of animals and everything else. And I thought it was very fascinating and romantic to be living like that, especially the tribes. And another book I had read
which had an impact on me, apart from Albert Schweitzer, I'm just trying to remember the name, and in which the author says that there is nothing right about the book. It is what is left. And I said, by God, what is left? By which he meant, of course, that who is alive? Russell, Bertrand Russell, he's a great philosopher of modern times. He's passed away.
Bertrand Russell's book also I happened to read. At that time, and a few days later, not a few days, a few months later, I... was blown up in one of those dynamite blasts.
Only because the fuse wires the military was giving had to be cut short because we were running out of fuse wires, and their eyes took up the job of blasting, lighting the wires, and I didn't notice that the wire had already lighted. And suddenly it was near the the dynamite and I turned around and jumped, but it was a little too late and I was injured.
And then I realized that there must be some reason why I was spared. And that's when I decided that I'll devote a good part of my life after I have a chance to make some money into serving other people, the people who were suffering. And that was my way of paying back.
I left the army soon after, but I managed to get out and come to the United States. And to start from the beginning, studying college, I went to NYU and spent seven years doing my master's and doctorate and all that. And I joined a bank. And my goal was to make sufficient money that I can do this, what I'm doing today. And I realized that as much as I work hard for it, that's not enough.
I must have the means to do it. And so that's what I did for the next 25 years. But then I realized that I hadn't fulfilled my own promise to myself that I will do service. And so before I turned 50, I said, here it is. I sold my company. Got out of everything and somebody told me to come to Bangalore, which is a city close by here where I am. I'm in a village.
My connections are not the greatest. It's a remote place. And I started a foundation and got myself going with that. And ever since for the last 30 years, I've been living here and a couple of months, I come back to the United States and spend some time and then come back here. So I'm living right now in the midst of a lot of children and a lot of people in the village.
And I'm surrounded by poor people in the remote villages.
I thought I could make sufficient money in 10 years. It became 20 years. And then finally it became almost 30 years. And I said, this is it. Whatever money I've made, that's enough. I'm going with it. So the defining point was my feeling that I have now, I got to get started. Otherwise I'll be too old.
And secondly, the money I've made by selling my company would be sufficient to establish what I have done.
Well, unless you are a very rich person with billions of dollars, I suppose you'll never have enough money. You've got to get started and you have to put your foot in. And then you show to the world outside that you mean what you're doing and you are committed to it. And then you reach out to others to help you. That's what I did after 15, 18 years. I started fundraising.
By then I had established the infrastructure. The children were here in the school that I started and a couple of other projects. And I could tell my story to others and they could see that I have, I mean business, I mean what I was trying to preach. And so once people saw what I was doing was sincere, They came forward to help me.
So then this, the last 15 years or so, the foundation is funded, not just by my money, but by hundreds, hundreds of donors, both in the United States and a few in India, actually the biggest donors are in America.
a lot of individuals in fact if i am not mistaken maybe close to 500 or more the donors individuals not corporations individuals in america they come forward with small amounts and large amounts those who can afford they give more so we are able to do it so the answer to your question is You can't keep on waiting. At some point, you have to say, okay, this is what I have. This is what I can do.
And then I will demonstrate that to others and convince them that I can be their agent.
That's where I was born. That's where I was born, Trivandrum.
The three oceans converge close by. The Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea, they are all coming to that tip of India, very close to Trivandrum, yes.
That is correct. According to the statistics, 70% of the people are classified as some form of lower caste. The caste system exists in India, even though you are not allowed to discriminate. But people's minds, yes. The government asks for your caste in the application form. So the caste exists.
and 70% of them are so-called lower-caste, out of which I would say more than half the people of India live less than $5 a day for a family. And what you witnessed outside of the city, outside of Trivandrum, in the villages, is exactly what you see elsewhere. In fact, the state you went to is Kerala, and that state is actually a little more prosperous than some of the other states.
Showing 41–60 of 275 · page 3 of 14
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