Awdhesh Singh

It is said in the Upanishads: __ am the Universe._ If you ask a hundred people as to how they find the world, they are all likely to give different answers. For some, the world is beautiful and the people are good, while for others, the world is extremely bad, and the people are treacherous and sinful. Why the same world is different for different people? It is so, because the outer world is the projection of our inner world. Therefore, the only way to improve the world outside is to improve the world within. While we may not have any control over the outside world, we can change our world within and thus change the world outside.

Scriptures exhorted men to shun evil and become good__hich seems to be an impossible task__ince as soon as we try to add goodness in us, evil too gets added in us without our effort__lmost automatically.

Evil is termed as sin because it has the power to attract the mind. It acts upon our mind and heart to do what nature desires, even when such acts are prohibited by the laws of society. We feel guilty doing things that nature has designed as perfectly natural.

The very concept of evil challenges the wisdom of God because He would never create anything that is not desirable or not needed. Everything has been created in this world with a purpose.

The purpose of evil is to complement the good. If there is no hatred in this world, there can__ be any love too. While love is a positive emotion, hatred is a negative emotion. Yet the feeling of love can__ exist in a person without invoking hatred. The more you are capable of loving, the more you are capable of hating, since the source of love and hatred is the same _ passion. A man without passion can experience neither love nor hatred.

The key to a good life is to balance the good and evil rather than trying to get rid of all evils because if you get rid of all your evils, you would also lose all your desire and ability to do good. In other words, you become neutral like neutron and become useless for the self and the society.

As per the Indian philosophy of the Upanishads, the source of evil is one__ ego-sense __hankara__hich differentiates oneself from the other selves. A person, who visualizes himself independent of others, tries to guard or please himself at the cost of others. Evil is thus the tendency of a person to live a life that is not __n harmony_ with the rest of the world, but __n opposition_ to it or at best __n indifference_ to it. The good is to discover the unity in the diversity of __ll selves_ and beings. Once unity in diversity is realized, every being becomes our own self and good deeds follow automatically

Everything in this world seems to be created in pairs. If there is a man, there is a woman__n almost equal numbers. In the same way, there is pleasure with pain, love with hatred, wisdom with ignorance, passion with repulsion, ecstasy with depression, and so on. The world seems to have been divided into two attributes__ood and evil. Even God seems to be divided--God Himself and His counterpart__he Devil.

The mystery of the world is revealed only to the person who can look upon the material world with his physical eyes and simultaneously has the spiritual vision necessary to see the unseen spiritual world. One who knows both Matter and Spirit is thus the true knower, and is a spiritually intelligent being.

When a desire is deep, it reaches the subconscious mind and calls for cultivation of qualities that will help fulfill desires, and this is what transforms an ordinary person into a great leader.

If integrity is considered a virtue, it may be because most people lack integrity. Also, as only a few succeed in their pursuits, some may link failure with a lack of integrity. But this is not fully true. When you reason it out, you might conclude that honest people are more likely to fail and the dishonest rise faster.

A saint or monk can afford to be compassionate to all, but a leader or boss cannot always be kind. He may soon be without a job himself if he is unduly compassionate, and chances are, no one would show him any compassion then.

The knowledge of the Spirit is the true secret of creativity, leadership and happiness. It is spiritual intelligence that makes an ordinary person a genius. When a genius loses his spiritual intelligence, he becomes quite ordinary.

Even if you do nothing, say nothing and be nothing, there will still be many who will criticise you. It is much better to be criticised for success than be condemned for failures because success rids you of the many miseries of life.

Most people hate successful people for their small little faults rather than appreciating them for their great strengths.

Every faith has logic even though people after developing faith forget the logic behind the faith. There is a strong logic behind the creation of religion__he greatest symbol of human faith__hat has provided a common code of conduct and belief, and brought millions or even billions of people together. Religion has benefited man even materialistically, as it reduced the conflict between individuals and ushered in a long era of peace and prosperity.

Love can be simply stated to be the desire of the human being to integrate oneself with other selves in such a way that one starts feeling the pain and pleasure of another person as if of one__ own.

Even if you do nothing, say nothing and be nothing, there will still be many who will criticize you. It is much better to be criticized for success than be condemned for failures because success rids you of the many miseries of life.