Om Shanti

The essence of Hindu teachings is that everything is divine. Which means everything is perfect - every individual and all circumstances are perfect. However, our experience seems to tell us otherwise. We generally feel that our life and circumstances have so many things to be corrected and changed so that we may, perchance, one day become at least free from major suffering, if not actually become perfect. The idea that we and our circumstances, whatever they are at any point in life, is less than perfect occurs because our mind is restless.

Therefore the first (and the last) lessons of Hinduism are to make our minds restful. All of Hinduism caters to this task of making us of restful minds. Since each of us are restless in different ways, Hindu culture has an array of techniques and approaches that will lead us to the calming of our minds – from simply going to a temple and following the rituals there to getting the higher insights by reading the Upanishads or listening to spiritual masters. One day, in the midst of our spiritual pursuits, we shall wake up and see it all – how perfect everything is, has been and shall ever be. This is the promise of Hinduism. A promise given by no other religion. Hinduism alone declares we are divine.

Therefore we Hindus, who are inheritors of the greatest heritage available to man, should cherish Hinduism and find therein a technique, way, method or understanding suitable to us individually and begin our pilgrimage of awakening to our own divinity. Om Shanti.

Honouring the triumvirate of Indian nationalists

The plan by Maharashtra government to build a memorial to Chattrapathi Shivaji on the model of Statute of Liberty is a praiseworthy one. There should be an all-India effort in the matter on the model of the Vivekananda Memorial. Moreover, this is an opportunity to complete honouring the triumvirate of personages who were by all accounts the greatest saviours of the Indian nation – Adi Shankaracharya, Chattrapathi Shivaji and Swami Vivekananda. In the ideal scheme of things, Chattrapathi Shivaji’s memorial should be built in the sea facing Kolkatta and Adi Shankaracharya’s memorial in the sea facing Mumbai to complement the memorial to Swami Vivekananda on the seas of Southern India – the total effect being one of transcending geographical barriers to a united India.

What money can't buy

Even in this realistic eulogy of money, you are constrained to say, “The problem is not with money but with man.” Why does man have problems even with money? The best thing that can be said about money is that money could be an opportunity, an opportunity to get us on our feet. But once we are on our feet we need to be free from money, if we are to soar to the greater heights that money can't buy.

Locals stir

Vis-à-vis Raj Thackery’s locals stir; I feel it is not wrong for ‘locals’ to be given preference for jobs in their own area of residence. But this must be based on an all-India policy. Such a policy should ensure that there would never be any curbs on free movement of Indians to all parts of India. Also allowance must be made for free transfer of employees from all parts of India in the case of companies having branches in different parts of India. However, in the absence of a suitably qualified local candidate, there should be no bar in appointing non-local candidates and candidates so appointed should have the right continue work where appointed so long as the professional relationship of the employer and employee does not run into rough weather. That is to say, the local issue should arise only at the time of fresh appointment. Last but not least, the locals stir should not lead to agitation against those already employed upto a certain cut-off date to be decided on an all-India basis.

Allah's book

Can we say that the Quran is a book sent by God because as per Islam Allah communicated to Archangel Gabriel who passed it on in bits and pieces to Mohammad over a period of 23 years, who dictated it to various people over the same period and finally a King had it all collated into a book called Quran. A book sent by God or anyone else would be just that, a book. In the case of Quran, it only eventually became a book.


It would have to contain a statement to the effect, “I, God, am sending you this book for your reading pleasure.” But this would not be proof enough unless we are convinced of the veracity of the statement

There is nothing a book can contain to prove that it was sent by God

I take the phrase “sent by God” to mean “divinely inspired” (by divinely inspired I mean a man awake to his inner potential) and since a book can contain only words, the words in the book must convince us that it has been “sent by God.”.

I am not an atheist. The difference I may have with other theists may only be about God's location. Could your question have been born out of the frustration in not getting the atheist to accept any book as being sent by God? But how could they? They don't know of any God.

For me, if man expresses himself through words, the silence upon which his words are built is God. Any work of man that takes us to the silence within us, to our divine nature, proves that we have awoken to our divine nature, however feebly. We would then need no further proof that the particular work is the work of God. There would then be no greater proof of God. The imagery of "God sending down a book" is metaphoric.