Beware the secret agenda that exists in virtually any human interaction, business or social!

It may almost be stating the obvious, but the secret agenda is a fact of life that simply goes unheeded for most people, precisely because it is secret. Also, it frequently takes such extremely subtle and devious forms that it is almost invisible to anyone who is not alert for its presence.

So what is this secret agenda?….

It varies. We will look at a few examples and you will get the picture. The point in all of them is that for so many important interactions in life, what appears to be the motive is not the real motive. There is a hidden agenda. The true motive nearly always differs from the publicly stated one.

Let’s take estate agents. It’s often said that estate agents basically “work for the seller”, i.e. have primarily the seller’s best interests in mind. However, this is not always so. In all cases, they work for themselves and have their own interests foremost. In some instances this can actually conflict with those of the seller, and favor the buyer!

On two separate occasions, when I was selling property, I seemed to find that there were estate agents who were pricing the property lower than I thought was correct. In both instances, it turns out that I was right. But why on earth would they do that? After all, are they not also reducing their own commission on the sale? Surely - and this is what we are all led to believe - they want the property to sell for the highest price possible, so that they make the most profit?

Not necessarily so. Here is where the secret agenda comes in.

You see, for the property to sell at its fair value, particularly in a slow market, it’s going to involve the agent in a LOT more work, in terms of showing the property, paying to advertise it properly, keeping it on their books for longer, and so on. And what do they get for this?…

Typically, an estate agent earns around 2-3% per sale. Hence for every 100,000 dollars in price, they earn 2,000 to 3,000 dollars. So, let’s say a property is selling for 500,000 dollars. Their commission at 3% will be 15,000 dollars. But what if the market is slow, there aren’t many buyers, and the property may take 6 months or more to sell at that correct price?

How about if you sell a 500,000 dollar property at 400,000 dollars instead? How much does the agent lose on his commission? The answer is 3,000 dollars. However, weigh this against the fact that at a huge 20% discount, he may be able to sell that property in days or weeks, instead of 6-12 months. Consider the savings in time, effort, money, and advertising that this would involve.

For a measly loss of $3,000, you’ve taken the lion’s share of your profit, i.e. 80% of it, and sold it in an extremely short time, and now have your agents, your advertising budget, your window space and everything else, available for the NEXT property! And you can do the same there too!

Now, they won’t tell you this because that’s their secret agenda. It happens ALL the time; not with ALL agents, but with a lot of them.

The last time I sold a property, an agent told me I should put it on the market for 100,000. I eventually sold it with another agent for 105,000 - i.e. 5,000 more than the first agent advised me to BEGIN at! And that’s only because I began with the second agent at a price of 120,000! So, can you imagine what it would have sold for with the first agent, if we had started at 100,000?

Oh, and did I forget to mention… he already had a seller lined up for this, and that seller had seen a property of similar size to mine (but MUCH worse condition) sell for 85,000?!

Another example of the secret agenda…

Have you ever bought into some sort of coaching course, where you pay someone a monthly/annual fee to learn to do something? There are many such coaching courses out there, where the secret agenda is not the overt coaching course, but quietly selling you on that person’s higher priced professional services, where He/She does it all for you.

You see, overtly you are being sold on being taught how to do this thing yourself, whatever it might be. However, you may find that no matter what you do, the feedback on your work is always pretty negative. You do this wrong. It should have been that way. And so on.

The idea is to show you how difficult this task is, and how long it will take you to get even half good at it. So why bother? Why not just hire the person teaching you, and have him/her do it for you (for BIG bucks)?

A lot of people don’t want to be taught how to fish. They just want the fish! In other words, they just want to have the end result, NOT be taught how to do it (even though overtly, they may think they do). But it’s simply too blatant to approach the prospect like that. So, you come first with your consultancy or coaching service, make the initial contact that way, demonstrate clearly to the client that he/she is basically hopeless at it, AND demonstrate your own expertise at the same time, and then they hire you for big money to do it all for them!

Probably, the biggest secret agenda of all is the government, and it frankly does not matter where in the world you live. It’s a huge topic, and too much to get into here. But in brief, we can consider several aspects of this ugly story…

Most people look on their governments as essentially benign, caring and good - genuinely concerned for the welfare of its citizens. Indeed, many people who enter politics and achieve office probably believe it too. But the system as a whole does not function that way at all.

A more accurate view might be that of a sheep farm!

We are the sheep producing the wool, and the government is the sheep farmer - periodically coming along and shearing us. We produce, and he shears. And as long as that relationship is understood and followed obediently, then all will go well for us. Heck, we might even get some benefits back now and again for all the wool we’re giving away. And in a cynical sort of way, the farmer does “care” about us, but only so long as we continue to produce the wool and hand it over without resistance.

But if you ever doubt that relationship and try to alter it, beware! Your friendly jolly-faced farmer will suddenly turn into a snarling, raging madman - ready and willing to do actual physical and mental violence to you! If you doubt it, you need only try it out, and you will see in no short order how true this is.

The government’s main interest is in perpetuating itself, and its power, in increasing its wealth and influence, domestically and internationally, and keeping its sheep just happy enough that they continue to produce the wool without question for them to get their greedy hands on.

The secret agenda is much bigger than this. The reason why some people, probably unfairly, accuse the US government of direct complicity in the 9/11 attack, is because it so perfectly enabled them to proceed full speed with an agenda that they had been itching - indeed, sweating blood - to implement for many years, but had lacked the opportunity, the motive, and the justification to do prior to that terrible day.

Hence, when the opportunity was presented, they could safely unveil all their prior plans for curbing privacy and restricting freedom (and they could even institute witchhunts as an unexpected bonus) - all under the guise of safeguarding the people against Terrorism; all with the blessing of the majority of the “sheep”.

The US government in particular, closely followed by the UK government, are always seeking ways to restrict the freedom and empowerment of their own citizens. Most of the time this is all about tax, since the US government is essentially bankrupt (but they don’t want anyone to know this, or it would lead to both national and worldwide economic collapse), and they are always concerned with the increasing amounts of money that is finding its way into offshore investments. Money they regard as THEIRS! (Note to US readers: US citizens are the ONLY people in the world who are taxable on their worldwide income, EVEN IF they are not resident in the USA, and have not been for decades. That’s why most Americans regard the term “offshore” or “tax haven” as somehow illegal. For them, it basically IS).

Recent events have enabled international governments, led by the US, to clamp down on offshore tax services, overtly to counter terrorism. But the fact is that they had been burning to do this for years anyway. Now, they have the perfect excuse. And anyone who opposes them in this, or anything else they have been doing of late, can be safely labelled “liberal” or “unpatriotic”.

But the secret agenda goes wide than this. Many people justifiably claim that the last Gulf War was all about Oil. Blair and Bush scoff at the notion dismissively. But the plain facts present another picture…

If YOU are the head of an oil-guzzling nation like the US, and you know that the oil is mostly in the hands of people somewhere in the Middle East, who don’t share your religion, your culture, your language, or much of anything else, and they are often not very well disposed towards your country either, PLUS these people control the price of that precious life blood…

What would you do?…

Add to this the fact that you also know that your citizens are facing a looming and terrifying energy crisis, and that all available reserves of that precious commodity, outside of the Middle East, will essentially be dry within twenty years, thereby leading to certain social and economic collapse… again, what would YOU do?

Might it not make even a teeny bit of sense to establish a presence, at the first possible excuse, in that region where all that lovely oil lies? Make some friends there,… create a presence there,… and exert a bit of influence every now and again, perhaps? And it would certainly not hurt to have a base there for the future, just in case anyone else in the region started supporting your enemies, would it not?

Whatever may be said for the merits of democracy, the plain facts are that it is easier to do business with, and exert pressure upon, a democracy than it is a dictator.

That’s another aspect of the secret agenda. Although governments may talk about “freedom” and “democracy”, this is really the public face of the policy. This is the part that gets YOU, the public, to identify with the plight of the poor people concerned, and elicits your continued support to follow the REAL agenda. Democracies are simply better for business, better to trade with, AND MUCH easier to control and push around at the UN.

So yes, the war was all about oil. Go in, create a puppet government that’s compliant and easy to deal with, exert some major influence, and basically never completely leave the region ever again.

Actually, there may be many reasonable justifications for it, i.e. safeguarding the future for our children etc. But to claim that the Gulf War was not about Oil is just plain FALSE. But how could they admit it? What would the Arab nations make of the West essentially invading a Muslim neighbor to secure its OWN future?…

That is the secret agenda in this instance.

If you doubt it, ask yourself why nobody wants to declare war on China regarding their occupation of Tibet and merciless repression of the people there? Why are we signing trade agreements with China instead?

Why? Because the objective is already achieved - namely trade and mutual enrichment. Why is nobody liberating the Burmese people from one of the most brutal dictatorships ever - a dictatorship that annulled an official election and put the winning democratically elected party into chains? After all, we went into Iraq to promote “Freedom” and “Democracy”, did we not?

Here’s the answer. Does Burma have any oil? Is there ANYTHING to be gained from doing it… APART from the freedom of the citizens?

I have labored the political point at length, NOT to point the finger at the US government or any other, but because this discussion makes the secret agenda we have been looking at VERY clear indeed. Governments are FULL of secret agendas.

The reason Hollywood loves making conspiracy theory films about government cover ups is because there is a huge element of truth to it. Governments are nothing, if not steeped in secret agendas and filled with “plausible deniability”.

A study of history will reveal to you many disgusting facts, about the American government, the British government, and just about every ruling power throughout the history of the world. The religious institutions, e.g. the Church, don’t come out any cleaner either. What they say, is not always what they mean or what they do. The secret agenda is behind everything.

In summary, whether it be estate agents or the secrets machinations of governments, nothing is what it seems when it comes to interacting with others. This is true in ALL your interactions. You should look to see if there might be a secret agenda. In every important life situation, you can ask yourself: what does he/she/they REALLY want?

Does someone want to marry you, lend you money, move into a house with you? Is the apparent reason the REAL one? Think a bit harder before you commit your life, your money, or your resources to something.

Is this cynicism? Not really. Better to ask some searching questions first, than spend a lifetime regretting it. Discovering the secret agenda can mean the difference between selling your house for a song vs. its fair price.

It might even save your life one day.

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Asoka Selvarajah is a writer on personal growth and spirituality, and the author of “The 7 Golden Secrets To Knowing Your Higher Self”. His work helps people achieve their full potential, deepen their understanding of mystical truth, and discover their soul’s purpose.

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