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There are two ways to deal with the life. One way is to believe that everything is planned by God and we are mere pawns in His hand. The other approach of life is that there is no God and we have to take responsibility of our life. Some people believe in both and so they are confused lifelong. They are always wondering if they are responsible for their life or God! ��Our Scriptures reinforce the belief that everything is destined.��
Yudhishtra blames himself for the loss of lives in the Kurukshetra war and goes to Bhishma for advice. Bhishma tells Yudhishtra a story to illustrate our lack of control over some things that happen in life.
‘The six-year-old son of a lady called Gautami is bitten by a snake and dies. A hunter captures the snake and tells Gautami that it deserves to be killed. The snake argues that it is not to be blamed. Gautami says that killing the snake will not bring back her son to life, and that she will not be vengeful. Moreover, punishment can be handed down only by a ruler��. The god of death, Yama, comes there, and he says that he too is helpless in the matter of taking a life. That is decided by the Supreme One- Lord Vishnu.
Bhishma thus shows Yudishtra using this story that those who died in the Kurukshetra war were destined to die and he should not blame himself for their deaths.����We Indians often leave everything to God and destiny.�� The recent instance of the death of 14 women after sterilization surgeries in Chhattisgarh is one such recent example. It now appears that medicines past their expiry date were given to the patients and the surgeries were conducted in an extremely unhygienic place.��
Dr RK Gupta, who conducted 83 laparoscopic surgeries in just five hours, was arrested and he shifted the blame to the poor quality of medicines. He had been doing the similar things from a long time and the Raman Singh government had awarded him on January 26 this year for conducting a record number of female sterilizations. ��He must have been doing the operations in the same way for long, but none was killed earlier with the grace of God. This time, however, God did not save the poor women, perhaps because they were predestined to die. In all likelihood, nothing much would happen to the doctor and his team and we would again wake up when next such incident occurs in future.So much so that even the security of Prime Minister of India is left to God. During the recent visit of PM Narendra Modi to Varanasi, it was found that many CCTV were not working. I am sure that those CCTV would not be working even now after the security lapse was discovered and an IB investigation was ordered. ����Just a few days ago, a major security breach took place, when an unauthorized person was found sitting on the dais right next to PM and many other Chief Ministers during the swearing-in-ceremony of the Chief Minsiter.�� Anything could have been happened that day but ‘with the grace of God��, nothing happened.Even if something would have happened, we could have blamed destiny for the accident. ��We could have also argued against giving harsh punishment to the erring officers as punishing him would not bring back the dead person. What was argued by Gautami many thousand years ago in the Mahabharatha, continues to guide us even today in the twenty-first century.

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It is not uncommon for criminals, smugglers and fly-by-night operators to change their address soon after committing a crime. They know that after their crime is revealed, the law enforcement agencies would find out their declared address from Bank, PAN Card details or other documents. Hence before the law enforcement agencies swing into action, they shift their house to another location without telling any of his neighbours about their new whereabouts.I remember an interesting incident that happened around 15 years ago. There was a fellow, who has committed a major fraud of Customs duty. When our team reached to the address of the smuggler early morning, they discovered that the person has shifted to some unknown address a few months back. We tried our best to ascertain his new address by inquiring from his neighbors, but no one knew his current whereabouts.

Suddenly an idea popped up in my mind. My experience in Delhi has taught me a valuable lesson that it is easy to change your house but very difficult to get admission of your children in a new school in Delhi. So we inquired from their neighbours the name of the school where his children used to study. They happily gave us the details. Then we asked one of his neighbours if he can identify the kid. He said yes.�� So we requested him to accompany us to the school to identify the kid, when the kids were coming out of school. So we went to the school and waited outside the gate, expecting the child to come. Soon we noticed that the wife of the smuggler had come to receive the children in her car. We followed the lady and soon reached to the new house. We immediately raided the house and recovered large number of incriminating documents and later also recovered the duty evaded by the smuggler.This is a simple trick which may be used by you to locate anyone who has changed his address without letting you know his latest whereabouts.

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We all desire to be healthy and if possible never fall sick even for a day.�� There are many experts who have written books on healthy lifestyle. I am personally a vegetarian, nonsmoker and teetotaler; and like many people I believe that meat products, smoking and alcohol are harmful to health. I also take a regular walk and do some exercises to maintain my weight and keep myself fit. Yet I know in my heart that even the healthiest lifestyle can’t ensure good health. I know many people how suffer poor health even though they follow all good habits and there are many who follow all wrong habits and still maintain good health and live longer.�� One such glaring example that comes to my mind is that of Winston Churchill who defied all rules of healthy living. He was a chain-smoker, alcoholic and obese. He religiously followed his un-healthy lifestyle. On one occasion, Churchill hosted a luncheon for King Ibn Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia, who did not allow smoking or drinking in his presence. Rather than submit to the king's wishes, Churchill pointed out that "my rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them." The king was convinced.’��
Churchill was quite proud of his drinking habits as following anecdote from his life seems to suggest.
It was towards the close of World War II, and Churchill was visited by a delegation of the Temperance League. And one of the ladies there firmly chastised him, saying, ‘Mr Prime Minister, I’ve heard of all the brandy you have drunk since the war began, and heard that if it were poured into this room, it would come up all the way to your waist.��
And Churchill looked dolefully down at the floor, and then at his waist, then up to the ceiling and said, ‘Ah, yes madam, so much accomplished and so much more left to do.��
Yet Churchill was extremely healthy. He became the oldest Prime Minster of United Kingdom at the age of almost eighty years and lived upto ninety years of age. ��He wrote ‘The Second World War�� in six volumes in his seventies and awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 at the age of 80 years.I always wondered how Churchill defied all scientific formula of good health and lived so long. Perhaps the secret of good health of Churchill was that he always followed his conscious. There was no contradiction between what he thought, what he said and what he did. This harmony perhaps gave him good health and long life. Many people may be following all right habits but they may not be true to their conscious and that may make them sick and even kill them early.�� ��It may be difficult to prove the deep connection between health and consciousness, but we all know that it is true.

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Dharma is the most common term in all Indian religions which is often defined as ‘the eternal law of the cosmos, inherent in the very nature of things��. The word dharma comes from the root ‘dhṛ�� meaning�� (the law) "to hold, maintain, keep" (the cosmos). In Hinduism, dharma signifies behaviors that are considered to be in accord with ‘rta��, the order that makes life and universe possible, and includes duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and ‘‘right way of living’��.However, unlike any other laws of science or mathematics (Newton’s law, Gravitation Law,�� Phythogorous Theorem),�� Dharma has no universal definition. The laws of science and mathematics are same for any part of the world and do not change with time, space, culture, faith and religion. However, the laws of ‘Dharma�� are quite subjective and not same even for two people of the same family or even for the same person at different time. The spiritual leaders have tried to give many laws of dharma-often called moral and ethics in Western world, but none seems to have any universal application. For every law of dharma, you can find just the opposite law, which is also claimed to be an equally good dharma, often in the same religion and even the same Scripture.The Illusion of the laws of DharmaOne of the most popular laws of dharma in Hinduism is “Ahimsa Paramo Dharma�� (Nonviolence is the Greatest Religion/Dharma). This law is quite popular all over the world, thanks of Gandhi. But we also find equally opposite law of violence in Hinduism as all Incarnations of God on this world had been there to kill the people who followed the path of so called Adharma.�� Who does not know the following sloka of Gita�� ‘Whenever there is decay of righteousness, O Bharata and there is exaltation of unrighteousness, then I Myself come forth for the protection of the good, for the destruction of evil-doers. For the sake of firmly establishing righteousness, I am born from age to age��. You also don’t know if nonviolence is applicable only for human beings of violence against all animals are prohibited.�� Even the greatest votaries of nonviolence like Jesus Christ and Buddha did not prohibit killing of animals and meat eating. Dharma can mean different thing to different people. One on side, you have the laws of Karma, which stipulates that you can make your own destiny by doing the good or evil karma without any interference from God. However, on the other side there are millions of people visiting temples of Tirupati, Sai Baba, Vashno Devi or taking bath in holy rivers in the hope that they can please God and overcome their evil karma by these rituals and prayers. If millions of Hindus and Buddhism perform Idol worship, it is a greatest sin in Judaism and Islam—punishable by death.�� If God is One in Judaism and Islam, God is ‘Three�� is Christianity and there are 330 million in Hinduism. What is right and who is wrong?The result is that no one can really define what dharma is, as a universal concept or law. Yet the believer often believes that their dharma is universal and that everyone must follow the dharma. However, you can’t change the reality by assumptions and presumptions. If you only open your eyes to the wider reality, you are bound to notice that there is an equal and opposite law of dharma—which is considered to be equally universal by another group of believers. It is for this reason, religion has become the greatest source of conflict in the present world—because no one is willing to see the ‘other side��, and understand the futility of sticking to their dharma.The Share Market SpeculationThe reality is that for every law of dharma, there is just an opposite law of dharma. Let us try to understand why such opposite laws of dharma exists in the world by understanding the concept of share market. Nowadays most major companies in the world are not owned by any individual but are owned by large number of people (shareholders), who hold ‘shares�� of the company. Unlike the value of currency, which is well defined, the value of share is quite speculative. The value of share depends not only on the profit of the company making now and giving dividend based on the current income, but also based on the future prospect of the company.�� It is difficult to know the future of any company, but everyone has an opinion about the future prospect.Since, most of us are not aware of the internal structure of a company; we are often dependent upon the so called market experts to know the future of the company.�� There are so many experts in the share market, who all wish the share prices to rise so that all the share holders (including themselves) make good profit all the time. Hence, in order to motivate the investors to buy more, they always present a much rosier picture of the company, economy of the country and the world.�� However, when more people believe on the optimistic forecasts of the experts, there are less sellers and more buyers that increases the share prices to more and more leading to the ‘bull run�� till such point when you have less and less buyers left in the market. This level is much higher than the actual value of the stock.�� However, the reality can’t be changed by wishful thinking and optimistic forecasts. When the illusion of optimism reduces and people start seeing the reality, they understand that they have purchased the shares at higher prices and then everyone wishes to get rid of the shares and the opposite trend , the ‘bear run�� starts and the shares start sliding. The bottom of this bear run is much lesser than the actual value of the stock.Share Market and DharmaPeople invest in share market, because they are not satisfied with the assured returns on their investments in the form of fixed deposits, and wish to multiply their money much more rapidly by investing in the share market. They wish to become rich very soon. There is virtually no advertisement for the fixed deposits while there are numerous business channels and millions of marketing executives working for investment bankers and mutual funds, who are there to convince you that investing in share is far more profitable. Of course, these marketing executives are not convincing you for charity or in your interest—but because they are paid enormous salary, commission and bonuses for making you invest in the shares instruments. ��Like the investment bankers, many clever people found it profitable to convince the people to follow a path which is convenient by promising them unrealistic benefits. It is only when people followed their advice, they found that the promises were not genuine and then they got totally disillusioned. Let us accept that human beings are not divine but the spiritual Gurus try to convince the humanity to become divine by following what they called the path of dharma. When you follow the path of dharma, you start losing in the world and you are forced to follow the opposite path. Take the case of nonviolence, which is often said to be the greatest of the dharma. Who can argue that we should resort to violence? But what do you do when you face violence by others. Jesus said, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well��. However, we know that the next step of the evil person would be to throw you out of your house and take all your wealth, possession and even your wife and children.�� If all member of a society or a nation follow complete nonviolence, they can be defeated and made slave by a small number of violent people. The history of India is full of such instances when a minuscule number of violent people conquered the entire country and ruled for hundreds of years. What do you do when you are thrown out of your house and all your possessions taken? Can you still remain nonviolent? Can you still love your enemy?In such situation, the opposite principle of Dharma—eye for eye and tooth for tooth, become the cry of the society. We can see the illusion of all principles, rituals and theories which are considered to be sacrosanct and Gospel Truth. We have been told that God loves unconditionally and forgive all our sins. Yet we know that there are so much suffering, crime and evil in this world, which can’t be explained, if God is indeed all loving and forgiving. Hence we have to invent the principle of Karma and Justice of God to explain the pain and misery.There is no Universal DharmaThere seems to be no universal law of dharma which can have universal applicability. Our actions depend on the action of others. All the concepts of dharma, virtues, ethics and moral, which try to artificially lift the humanity of man also causes the man to fall below subhuman level by doing inhuman acts.

Yet the average human behaviour is improving gradually but slowly over the years due to change of its values over time just as the average share prices are increasing the over a period of time as represented in this graph of share market NIFTY in the figure.
Just like a bear market is inbuilt in every bull market and universal bull market is impossible, the unrealistic standards of dharma are also impossible.�� A bear market gives birth to bull market and a bull market gives birth to a bear market. When violence increases, the need of nonviolence become paramount and when nonviolence become intolerable, the time for violence has come.�� Everyone is free to choose his own dharma for his own life based on his nature and need of time—without expecting everyone to follow the same dharma. What has worked for one person may not work for other person.

��It is difficult to understand life. People study scriptures, sciences, arts and philosophies to understand life but they rarely succeed. When they succeed in achieving their objectives in life, they gain confidence that they have understood life. Yet they lose all the confidence as soon as they encounter defeat and find that their understanding of life was totally wrong, and their confidence was quite misplaced.Let us try to understand this mystery of life with a few examples. One of the most important learning from all scriptures and sciences is the law of cause and effect or Karma, which means that everyone has to reap what he has sown. Therefore, a person doing good karma must be rewarded and a person doing evil karma must be punished. Yet we find people leading happy and successful life even after doing many evil deeds, while there are many people who, despite doing all good deeds, lead a life of pain and misery.Some of us believe that God is all powerful and one can get what we desire by praying to God. Yet there are millions of believers who lead a miserable life despite praying to God everyday. There are also millions of people who lead a happy life despite ignoring and even condemning God. Every believer, therefore, often wonders, if there is any benefit at all in payers, and often doubts the existence of God itself?�� People often follow a life of honesty and integrity as they believe that honesty is the best policy. Yet they get frustrated when they see a large number of dishonest people succeeding in life.The Game of CardsYou might have played the game of cards sometime in your life. The mystery of life seems to closely resemble the game of cards. There is no way one can be absolutely sure about his victory in the game of cards. Even if a person has just learned to play the game and he is pitted against an expert of the game, he can still defeat the expert, if he gets the best cards.�� Experts have given it a name also—��The beginner’s luck��.
In life, like a game of cards, the winning or losing depends on luck as well as skill. It is not a game of ‘pure luck�� or ‘randomness��, but also a game of intelligence, techniques and skill developed with practice and experience.If a person pays close attention to all the matches he has won or lost, he starts noticing the trends and hidden knowledge in the game of cards. For example, he closely monitors the cards played by other players and understands from his calculations what is otherwise unknown—‘which cards have been exhausted by the opponents�� or ‘which cards are with which player��?�� He can guess the cards of the opponents from the moves made by them, from their facial expressions and the body-language. Imagine somehow you can know all the cards of all your competitors by some supernatural power—you have hardly any chance to lose.�� It is for this reason that people try to peep into the cards of others which can give them fair idea of the strength of the opponents and help them devise their strategy. Since everyone tries to conceal his cards keeping them close to their chests, an intelligent player tries to get such inputs of information from logic, reasoning and intuition.The Art of Card PlayingWhen each player knows the cards of others, nobody is in a position of advantage, and the game of cards loses its charm, as then it becomes a game of mind like the game of chess. The challenge is to know the cards of others without letting them know your cards.In real life, everyone tries to keep his cards a secret and you have to only make a guess of how the other person is going to move. In this venture, logic and reasoning help only a bit and there are a large number of possible cards that your opponents may have, which can be played in thousands of ways.Therefore, you have to also understand the mind of your opponents to predict their moves and thus plan your moves accordingly. Good players try to learn the thoughts of opponents through their facial expressions and their past records. Yet, when you are playing with experts, everyone is trying to do the same. Hence you have to often conceal your thoughts by hiding your expressions or even by giving a false expression to mislead your opponents.Thus winning a game of cards is not purely a matter of luck. It is also not pure science based on logic and reasoning. It is a mix of chance, skill and knowledge. It is an art as we must understand the mind of others from our own mind. A good card player must have a logical and reasoning mind with strong intuition to know the thoughts of others. It is by these skills that he can win even in an adverse situation or at least minimize his loss in the event of defeat.Winning the Game of LifeNo player of cards can ensure wining all games, as there is always a factor of luck and randomness in getting the cards. No person can ensure his victory in life purely by intelligence or intuition. Every person must, therefore, be prepared to lose some games in life. Yet one must never forget to learn the lessons from his defeat.�� If one learns all the lessons and he pays due attention during the game, he improves his chances of winning in the game as well as in his life. As such, at the end of life, we come victorious even after suffering many defeats as our gains are more than our losses.

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Ms J Jayalalithaa��, the Chief Minister of the State of Tamil Nadu, India was convicted on 27thSeptember 2014 under the Prevention of Corruption Act and sentenced to four years in prison for accumulating wealth disproportionate to her known sources of income in an 18-year-old corruption case.�� Consequent upon the decision is that she has been send to the jail and she shall not be able to fight an election for next ten years.��
Ironically, it was only four months ago, that her party AIADMK has made unprecedented victory of 37 seats out of 39 seats in Tamil Nadu and routed their rival party DMK completely. She was convicted for a case booked in 1996 when during raid the DMK government, ��800kg silver, 28kg gold, 750 pairs of shoes, 10,500 sarees, 91 watches and other items that were seized from her residence.�� Jayalalitha then swore that she would not wear jewelry again. It was only in 2012 that after her massive electoral comeback, she wore a small ear studs, that too because, she said, party workers asked her to, some even threatening to kill themselves if she didn't acquiesce.While the politicians are issuing predictable statements based on their party affiliations, the people are divided.�� Many people have welcomed the decision of the Court but the voters and supporters are AIADMK are highly disappointed and they have even attempted self-immolation. The mute question is that in a democracy, whether the judgment of the Court is superior to the judgment of the people? The Principle of KarmaKarma is one of the most sacred principles of all Indian religions. It is believed that our destiny is decided based on our karma. There is a ‘karmic account�� of every person,�� where all good and evil deeds are stored and we are awarded or punished based on our accumulated karma (Sanchit karma). It is said that even our next birth is dependent on our accumulated karma at the time of our death.The principles of karma state that it is possible to overcome the effect of our evil karma by performing more positive karma, which can neutralize our negative karma.However, in the modern judicial system, there is no effect of good deeds on our evil deeds. Even if you performed thousand good deeds, they can’t overcome the effect of one evil deed. A man is judged not by his good deeds but by his evil deeds. It is no body’s case the Ms J Jayalalitha performed quite well as Chief Minister in recent years, which resulted in historic victory of her party in 2014 General Election. She has done many good works in last two decades, yet all such good deeds can’t overcome the effect of her evil karma conducted more than twenty years ago. She is not judged for what she is now, but punished for what she was two decades ago. He vows to not wear any jewelry and to provide a clean government subsequently, shows that she learned her lessons and attempted to improve herself. ��Is it not better that we take a holistic view of all the good and evil deeds of a person and award punishment only when his evil deeds are in excess of the good? If a person realizes his mistake after doing the evil deeds and try to overcome the evil by performing many-fold more deeds, should he not be awarded for the numerous good deeds rather than being punished for few evil deeds?In chapter “Crime and Punishment�� of the book Prophet by Khalil Gibran, the following words of wisdom were said:-And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve?Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pygmy-self and the day of his god-self,And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.Crime and CriminalIt may be an error to consider crime and criminal as one. There is lot of wisdom in the words of Gandhi—‘love the sinner but hate the sin��. It is because every sinner has a future and every saint has a past.�� If a person commits a sin, he does not become sinner—which implies that he does only sin. The same sinner can become a saint once he realizes his mistake. Who can forget the story of the Valmiki, a bandit, who became a great saint once he understood the truth? Thousands of years ago, there was a bandit in a jungle who used to loot people passing through the jungle. Once, a few sages were going that way when the bandit stopped them and asked them to surrender whatever possessions they had. A sage asked the bandit, ‘Why are you doing this? Don’t you know it is a sin to loot others�� wealth?’‘I know it is a sin. However, I am doing it to feed my family,�� the bandit replied.‘But you are making a big mistake,�� said the saint. ‘As you are doing it through the act of looting, you have to carry all the burden of this sin.�� He then asked the bandit, ‘Your family may be sharing the loot, but will they also share your sin?’‘Surely they will,�� said the bandit confidently. ‘When they share my loot, why shall they not share my sin?’‘Please go and ask your family members,�� replied the saint. ‘If they are willing, please take all we have.’The bandit went home and asked each member of his family if they were willing to share his sin. However, all the members replied that since he was the one committing those sins, only he must bear their burden. They showed their unwillingness to be a party to his sins.Shocked, the bandit realised his mistake and came back to the saints. He fell on their feet and sought their forgiveness. ‘Only God can forgive you,�� they said. ‘Please go and pray to God and He will forgive you and give you light.’The bandit did penance and prayed for many years and sought light from God. Finally, he gained enlightenment and became one of the greatest saints of India. He later went on to write the most famous Indian epic, Ramayana—the story of Rama—and earned eternal fame.Purpose of PunishmentWhat should be the purpose of punishment? Is it to reform the person or to punish him for his evil deeds? If the purpose is to reform, why should one be punished if he has already reformed and not committed the same mistake for years?If the purpose is to punish, should we not consider all the good deeds also and then make a judgment if the good deeds were more or evil?While many of us would be celebrating for the punishment for a powerful CM and believe that it shall send the right signal to all corrupt politicians, it is difficult to believe that corruptions at high places would stop by her conviction unless a system is created where people can become successful politicians without engaging in any corrupt activity. While we are celebrating the imprisonment of Jayalalitha, we must also introspect if we are ourselves clean. Let us not forget the words of Jesus Christ in Bible.

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?�� They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.�� Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”“No one, sir,�� she said.“Then neither do I condemn you,�� Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”While Ms J Jayalalitha has to suffer the punishment given to her by the Court of Law, we need not to condemn her without taking the holistic view of her good and evil deeds. We must also think of creating a justice system which can take the holistic view of the good and evil deeds of a person while awarding the punishment. Perhaps the verdict of the people is better than the verdict of the Courts because people can forgive and judge the person as more holistically they now are--rather than deciding based on ‘what they had been�� using the law that refuses to recognize the reformation of the person and the effect of thousand good deeds.

The maintenance of weight to obtain health and fitness is today a trillion dollar industry worldwide. According the Media Awareness Network, "It is estimated that the diet industry alone is worth $100 billion a year." The greater problem in the people of developed world is not malnutrition but obesity, which is affecting not only their health but also their personality. Who wish to be fat? People are willing to do anything even undergoing ‘bariatric surgery�� involving risk of life to reduce weight and look smart. We know quite well that the ideal weight of healthy body means neither being underweight, nor being overweight, but maintain a weight somewhere between of the two extremes as shown in the Figure.��
Have you ever thought this stupidly of man to spend money first to buy food and then spend money on reducing weight, which can be done free of cost.The main reason for obesity is consumption of high calorie diet, overeating and lack of physical activity. You can, therefore, reduce your weigh simply by:-
��Reducing ��the consumption of high calorie/junk food,�� Reducing quantity of your food intake��Doing more physical work
We can do all three above without spending a single penny, if we have control of mind to avoid instant pleasure of high-calorie food and develop a healthy lifestyle. The high calorie/junk food is always costlier than the low calorie simple food and hence it would save money to eat simpler food. When you eat less, again you save money. Finally, the activities of walking, jogging, exercising, yoga, meditation or doing your job is completely free and cost you nothing. Yet most people can’t reduce the weight voluntarily but would do so only when advised by a dietician or fitness expert—after paying them their heard earned money. Yet the reality is before our eyes. Most people fail to maintain the right weight even when they spend lots of money on dieting and torture their body, mind and soul.Now come to think of religion, which has become a matter of great controversy in the present world. The rationalist and intellectual people think that religious people are fanatic and it is stupid to believe n God and be religious. They often claim that religion is the opium of masses because it intoxicates people and keep them poor. Let us imagine a world without religion—a world of atheists and rationalists. What would be the purpose of life in such people? In absence of any spiritual purpose of life, people tend to become materialistic and live to make more money, enjoy more pleasures and/or to become more powerful. However, this is a mindless chase because there is no limit to either of the three. According to Forbes list of 2014, the ranks of the world’s billionaires have swelled to a record 1,645 including 268 newcomers—with an aggregate net worth of $6.4 trillion, up from $5.4 trillion a year ago. Yet these rich people are not happy since they still have small wealth as compared to Bill Gates whose wealth surpasses $75 Billion. Who is more powerful than the President of United States of America, but still, he can’t get his way through and prevent an American citizen being killed by ISIS. He would surely like to have more power. There is also no end of pleasure seeking as the more you satisfy your senses, they more desire is born in your heart.Have you ever thought--
Why do you need so much money, when you can manage with much lesser money?Why do you need so much power, when power always gives you greater responsibility and invite hatred from people against whom you use power?Why do you run after pleasure, which can never be satisfied?
Most people are unhappy because of the lack of the fulfillment of these three desires. Hence, people are slogging day and night to fulfill these desires, till their last day of life. People don’t ask the question as to why they need so much. It is mad rush of material goals which has become the purpose of life for civilized and rationalist people. They have to win the race by becoming rich, powerful and get more pleasure in life.However, just like the food, without which we can’t even survive, become harmful, when consumed in excess, the mindless fulfillment of these material desires harm the mind, body and soul of the person. It is impossible for everyone to become the richest, most powerful and also have the ability to enjoy pleasures of life. When you get one, you often lose other. Hence, it is impossible to achieve happiness by following material pursuits. The mindless chase of materialism is checked by religion, whose tenets are just the opposite. Instead of worshiping wealth, power and pleasure, all religions teach people to shun them as Jesus said—‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God��. When the world teaches us that might is right, Jesus advices people to be meek—‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth��. He said emphatically —��"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money��. All religions provide a simple way to live life. You can see the same truth in Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. Instead of earning, religions ask people to give. Instead of acquiring power, religions ask people to serve. Religions, thus, provides hope to people who are not winners. Since there are always more losers than winners, religions shall be needed by the society. Yet religion alone can’t bring happiness, because you have to earn before you can give. You have to engage with the world to earn reasonable wealth to make your living. A man with blind faith without reason is similar to an underweight person. A fanatic is as unhappy as an atheist as shown in Figure below.
Hence, we must understand that the need of religion has arisen due to the values of our civilization which has created differentiation between people and engaged them in the mad race of worldly pursuits. The true happiness lies in the balance of your rational and spiritual mind just like your good health is the result of balancing the body weight between the two extremes—which is scientific fact. ����No wonder dieting is part of every religion—‘believers�� call it fasting.

I recently came across an interesting discussion on ŷ������: ‘Would you rather live in a world without religion…or a world without science?�� The popular view of the participants is that religion is a greater evil than science and the world would be better off without religion. In any case, no one can argue today that it is possible to live without science as our life depends so much on the scientific inventions and technological development. The question is thus�� Is it possible to live without religion?Religion seems to be a source of conflict in the world nowadays. The brutal killings by ISIS militants in Arab world, in the name of Islam, have shaken the conscious of world. The terrorist activities in the name of religion like 9/11, has led many people to believe that the world would be better without religion. Atheists and rationalists often find the faith in God absurd and the stories of the Scriptures and Mythologies nothing but figment of imagination. Yet the truth is that more than 90% of the people in the world believe in God and follow their religion.Atheists deny the existence of God because there is no proof of God. They, therefore, refuse to follow any religion. ��It is important to understand that religion is more than God. Every religion creates a culture which is based on a set of values (in the name of God) that helps people live with each other and cope with the problems of life. ��There is a natural bonding between people who have similar belief—be it religion or integrity, love, compassion etc. There is also a bonding between evil people as an old proverb in India says—all thieves are like cousins (Chor chor mausere bhai). Religion created many institutions like marriage which binds men and women with each other for life faithfully, thus giving stability and security to the young children. The countries which have discarded religion are finding it difficult to convince the couples to remain married and be faithful to each other. Many human values like nonviolence, faithfulness, respect to elders, equality of all human beings or justice find their roots in religion. Some religions prohibit the use of alcohol, smoking, meat-eating which helps people to live healthy and peaceful life. Religions are our legacy and societies have developed around religion. While atheists discard God and religion, they fail to provide a positive set of values for the world to follow and hence atheism can never be a substitute for religion.While it is easy to blame religion for terrorism and senseless killing by some fundamentalists but it is factually incorrect to say that only religion is responsible for homicides. Even in Iraq, majority of the people killed are Muslims only and it is evident that religion is used as an excuse to further the objective of militant to achieve their goal of establishing rule over Iraq. ��Clever people can use any excuse to kill the weak as this story of Aesop’s fable teaches us-
Once upon a time a Wolf was lapping at a spring on a hillside, when, looking up, what should he see but a Lamb just beginning to drink a little lower down. "There's my supper," thought he, "if only I can find some excuse to seize it." Then he called out to the Lamb, "How dare you muddle the water from which I am drinking?""Nay, master, nay," said Lambikin; "if the water be muddy up there, I cannot be the cause of it, for it runs down from you to me.""Well, then," said the Wolf, "why did you call me bad names this time last year?""That cannot be," said the Lamb; "I am only six months old.""I don't care," snarled the Wolf; "if it was not you it was your father;" and with that he rushed upon the poor little Lamb and ate her all up. But before she died she gasped out: "Any excuse will serve a tyrant."It is unfair to blame religion for the ills of the society and the cause of all conflicts in the world. ��Every year, hundreds of thousand people are murdered and mostly in the places where religion fanatics is not there. For example, the highest rate of homicide per 100,000 people took place in America and lowest is Asia as per the latest UNODC statistics.
The people who are hungry of power can use any excuse to rule over others. The two World Wars were fought not on the issue of religion as almost all participants were Christians. The issue was Imperialism, Nazism and Fascism in the world wars and not religion. The half a century cold war between America and Russia also has nothing to do with religion. ��Let us not blame religion for the problems, if it is used by the power hungry people to serve their own interest. Science, which deals only with facts, cannot replace religion, which governs the moral behaviour of men. Religion deals with heart while science deals with head—and you must have both to live your life. ��Einstein said wisely: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind��.Science and religion must stay together in this world like left and right side of human brain. They are not opposite to each other but they complement each other.

Reference: 1.������������ The Wolf and the Lamb URL:

Religion is nowadays quite often associated with conflicts and intolerance. The war between Israel and Philistine and extreme violence exhibited by ISIS militants against other religions and even against some sects of Muslims are drawing the attention of the world towards the negative side of religion.
Recently, Mr. Ram Gopal Verma, the Film Producer of Bollywood, created sensation as he tweeted about Lord Ganesha: ‘The guy who couldn't save his own head from being cut , how he will save others heads is my question? But Happy Ganpathi day to morons!��
His remark has evoked expected reactions from people cutting across all political affiliations. While Shaina of the BJP called it "blasphemous and insensitive", Congress' former MP from Mumbai Sanjay Nirupam demanded police action against him for violating the law of the land and hurting the sentiments of Hindus. If he is still not behind bars, it is because he is a Hindu and he has criticized his own God. Can you imagine the reaction of people, if he would have been a Muslim or Christian? Such extreme reactions of people in the matter of religion often make some people ask, ‘if the world would be better without religion?�� Can we not live by scientific truths rather than believing on something which is devoid of any scientific evidence?I think that science and religion has to coexist together even though they seem contradictory to each other. Science tells us only the facts-- 'what it is', while religions and other ideologies tell us about our desires and aspirations--'what it should be'. Science tells us where we are but only religion or ideology can tell us where we should go in our life. If there is no religion or ideology, men would not know where to go and that would lead to chaos and conflict of different kind –between individuals.

The common theme of all religion is to create a society that follows a value system which can serve the interest of the group of the followers of the religion. Religions unite people under one roof just like the concept of nation unites people within a geographical area.

No religion is universal as it is created for the purpose of forming a group within a larger group. It usually has double standards: ��one set of values for the members of their group and different (often opposite) for the rest (nonbelievers). All religions do not subscribe to the same set of values. That is why conflicts between different religions and often within same religion between different sects. The same double standards are followed by modern secularists and atheists when they define believe in other man-made ideals like "nationalism" --where people justifies all actions in the national interest while the same actions are criticized when followed by others. As an example, if few thousand (innocent) people are killed in 9/11, Islamic countries and ideologies are blamed, but when the Allied forces killed many times more (innocent) people in Islamic countries, it was considered to be logical and justified. The fact is that in both cases many innocents died.Can You Live Without Faith?
Man is a social animal and he wishes to live in groups. When you join a group, you have to adopt the values of the group (religion, nationalism, communism etc.). Religious values are often inculcated in our mind since your childhood and these thoughts go into our subconscious mind as we grow. Hence even when you are grown up, such thoughts become your personality and identity. You can't challenge them as they have become part of you. Hence anyone who questions that faith, you get angry and agitated.While it is easy for the secular people to get agitated for the irrational behaviour of religious people, they also do the same when it comes to their beliefs about the sanctity of their –isms. We have seen tremendous hostile reaction when Saina Mirza chose to marry an Pakistani man of the same religion by the ‘nationalists��. All –ISMS unite people under one umbrella but also segregate them from other people. Thus all faiths one side provide us protection and security, they also make us vulnerable to other �� isms. Thus the good and evil of religion and faith can’t be separated. When you choose one end, you also choose the other end. ����Only when you follow no –ism, you become universal. However, that is always a personal choice as you have to in turn sacrifice the security of the group.

Recently, a nine year boy floored the most powerful person of the world, the President of United States—Barack Obama, when he asked him–‘Why do people hate you?�� The president was caught off guard and did not know what to say. He, however, replied –‘First of all, I did get elected, so not everybody hates me now. I got a whole lot of votes.�� He admitted: ‘If you’re watching TV lately, it seems like everybody’s just getting mad all the time.�� But he said: ‘You’ve got to take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just what’s called politics.’��
The incident reminds us of an old story ‘The Emperor’s New Clothe�� by Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75) which is summarized as:��Many years ago there lived an Emperor who was so exceedingly fond of fine new clothes that he spent vast sums of money on dress. One fine day two swindlers, calling themselves weavers, arrived. They declared that they could make the most magnificent cloth that one could imagine. Further, the clothes made by them had the special power of being invisible to everyone who was stupid or not fit for his post.�� ��‘What a splendid idea’�� thought the Emperor. ‘What useful clothes to have. If I had such a suit of clothes I could know at once who of my people is stupid or unfit for his post.’��So the Emperor gave the swindlers large sums of money and the two weavers set up their looms in the palace. They demanded the finest thread of the best silk and the finest gold and they pretended to work at their looms. But they put nothing on the looms. The frames stood empty. The silk and gold thread they stuffed into their bags. So they sat pretending to weave, and continued to work at the empty loom till late into the night. The king sent one minister after another to confirm making of the new cloth and all confirmed that the cloths were splendid as they did not want the king to know that they were stupid or not fit for their posts . When the king himself could not see the cloth, he thought: ‘This is terrible. Am I so stupid? Am I not fit to be Emperor? This is disastrous. So he too said–‘Oh! ��the cloth is perfectly wonderful. It has a splendid pattern and such charming colors!’��Finally, the Emperor laid aside his clothes and the swindlers pretended to help him piece by piece into the new ones they were supposed to have made. The courtiers who were to carry the train knelt about on the ground pretending to lift it: they walked on solemnly pretending to be carrying it. Nothing would have persuaded them to admit they could not see the clothes, for fear they would be thought stupid or unfit for their posts.��And so the Emperor set off under the high canopy, at the head of the great procession. It was a great success. All the people standing by and at the windows cheered and cried–‘Oh, how splendid are the Emperor’s new clothes. What a magnificent train! How well the clothes fit!�� No one dared to admit that he couldn’t see anything, for who would want it to be known that he was either stupid or unfit for his post? ��But among the crowds a little child suddenly gasped out–‘But he hasn’t got anything on.’��And the people began to whisper to one another what the child had said.��‘He hasn’t got anything on.�� There’s a little child saying he hasn’t got anything on. Till everyone was saying–‘But he hasn’t got anything on.�� The Emperor himself had the uncomfortable feeling that what they were whispering was only too true. ‘But I will have to go through with the procession’–he said to himself.��So he drew himself up and walked boldly on holding his head higher than before, and the courtiers held on to the train that wasn’t there at all.In this case also, a boy alone could have the courage to ask what everyone already knew but dared not ask. Not only Barak Obama, but any American President, has to be the most hated person of the world simply because he is the most powerful person of the world. The people in power are not necessarily bad people, but they have to suffer the curse of hatred. The only problem is the people, who surround the powerful, can’t dare to say that the President is hated.The Paradigm of PowerPower is the biggest intoxicant that elevates the mind of the person to the highest level. All powerful people have the illusion of being God—who can do anything. The more is the power, the higher is the intoxication. The people in power think that they are the smartest and cleverest without actually realizing that they have actually been duped. They are so intoxicated by the illusion of power that they kill their soul for the sake of their masters or for those who have granted or elected them to power, giving them the authority to rule. They have actually underestimated the cleverness of the people, who have used them rather than being used.��In reality, a powerful man is not a master but the greatest and meanest servant, who has been elected by millions of people to serve them. His burden is far more than the burden of an ordinary domestic servant who has to serve only a few people of the family. The people cleverly elect a person as their leader called President or Prime Minister and expect him or her to solve their entire problem, while they do what they want to do. They think that their responsibility is over just by electing a faithful servant whose duty is to solve their entire problem, without questioning their way of thinking and doing.��While the elected leaders think that they have become masters of their people, in reality, the people expect them to be their servants. They curse and abuse these leaders when they try to exercise their authority, or fail to deliver their promises.��The elected servants—leaders - are supposed to fight against all their enemies without causing any harm to them. For example, when 9/11 happened in USA, there was an overwhelming opinion in USA that the terrorists must be fought and defeated. George Bush only followed the wish of the people, when he launched attack on Afghanistan and Iraq. He made the entire Muslim world his personal enemy without even pleasing his own countrymen. After a few years of war, Americans were extremely unhappy with him—his popularity was reduced to the lowest level, and his party’s representative was defeated in the next Presidential election. Mr. George Bush, a devout Christian, has now to suffer the burden of the sin of the murder of thousands of people, which he did as the President of America—not for his own sake but for the sake of the same American people who have now discarded him and dissociated themselves with his decisions, which was actually their own calling.Barack Obama was elected as President in the time of economic meltdown and amid the negative perception of USA as a bully. He ideally suited the change of image of the country as he was the first African American President who also had Muslim parentage and upbringing. He was elected as President with huge margin. However, his ratings have already declined to less than 45% despite getting Nobel Peace Prize recently.��The Curse of PowerObama is not alone in suffering hatred from the people, whom they chose to lead or to serve. All powerful people have met with the same fate in the history of mankind. In the recent past, Hitler, the most powerful person of the twentieth century, is undoubtedly the most hated person of the world. He is hated even by the same German people for whom he sacrificed his life. Stalin and Mussolini too suffered the hatred of their own people for whom they fought all their lives.��Nothing in this world creates as much hatred as power which allows a man to rule over others. We all know this simple truth, since none of us wishes to be ruled by any one. We all wish to live the life in our own way, and anyone who tells us to live in any other way becomes our enemy and we hate him. Yet we elect the leaders for the very business of ruling the people—except us. When they do their job effectively, we hate them as soon as their decisions adversely affect us. When they don’t do anything; we curse them for not doing their duty. Exercise of power needs ruthlessness, which numb the senses and kills the soul. Soon the leaders lose their capacity to connect with the soul of the powerless people. It is only by shunning power and wealth that a man can rise spiritually as said by Jesus Christ in his sermon: ��‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.Power Produces HatredThe inevitable truth of life is �� power always produces hatred. There has been no powerful person in the history of mankind, who has been loved either during his lifetime or after his death, by all people. Therefore, only if one is prepared to suffer a great deal of hatred from millions of known and unknown people, one should think of acquiring power. All powerful people must know the answer when someone asks–‘Why people hate you?�� The right answer is always the same–‘Because I am powerful��.

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