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many times you say yes -- increase that quota. And by and by you will see just a slight change in the degrees of yes and no, and your personality is changing basically. Watch how many times you say no where yes would have been easier; there was no need really to say no. How many times you could have said yes, but either you said no or you kept quiet.
Whenever you say yes, it goes against the ego. The ego cannot eat yes; it feeds itself on no's. Say: No! No! No! and within yourself arises great ego.
Just go to the railway station: you may be alone at the window to purchase a ticket, but the clerk will start doing something, he will not look at you. He is trying to say, "No." He will at least make you wait. He will pretend that he is very busy, he will look into this register and that. He will force you to wait. That gives a feeling of power, that he is no ordinary clerk -- he can make anybody wait.
It happened just in the beginning days of Soviet Russia, when Leon Trotsky was the war minister there. He was very strict with rules, discipline, this and that. There was going to be a great meeting of the Communist Party, and he was in charge to issue passes. He completely forgot that he also needed a pass to enter the hall. When he went there the policeman who was standing at the gate stopped him. He said, "Where is your pass?"
Leon Trotsky said, "Don't you recognize me?"
He said, "I recognize you perfectly well -- you are our war minister. But where is your pass?"
Trotsky said, "Look at the other passes you are holding in your hands. They are signed by me."
The policeman said, "Maybe, but this is the rule, that nobody can enter without a pass. So go back home and find a pass."
Leon Trotsky has written in his diary, "I could see how powerful he was feeling that day -- saying no to the war minister, making him feel tiny."
People go on saying no. The child says to the mother: Can I go outside and play? and immediately, without thinking for a single moment, she says: No! Politics! What is wrong in being outside, going outside and playing? And the child is going to go; the child will insist, and he will go into
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