We can change our destiny and that of whole mankind for better, because we all have it within our power the capacity to make a better world than it is today. we all have the capacity to do justice, show mercy,  treat others with dignity and respect and  rise above what  divides us and come together to meet the challenges  of  life. we cannot achieve the goal of making  our society  a safe , peaceful and prosperous place to live in, if each  one lives in his own sweet will and accord .  What is required is the efforts of humanity as a whole. Each person should change himself rather than trying to change others. .Let us rededicate ourselves to a new life – a life of conscience. We may not agree on everything, but we can disagree without being disagreeable.

We can pool our strengths to make heaven on earth. Heaven or hell far away in an unknown place, to which, it is believed, that the souls   ascend to after shedding the mortal coils , with virtuous life is  the one conceived to chastise the conduct of man on this very earth , while he is living . Living with heavenly joy is possible in this world itself. we make our world hell by our evil actions, by being slaves to our passions and raw instincts and negative emotions .Each one us carry two selves –  Aham or true self or  higher self and false self or lowest self or Ego  or Ahamkara . Ahamkara is the feeling that world moves around us and we are so powerful that we can command anything on this earth. It was Ahamkara or arrogance on the part of legendary Ravana that led him to his doom, in spite of his extraordinary powers achieved through contemplation upon Lord Siva. we are always at the mercy of the supreme power .when we get stuck with a mortal disease , we  realize the limitations of our body and ourselves . With Ego , we do everything which spells our disaster , under the false belief that all that we do,  do good to us .Unknowingly we  shorten the life span allotted to us and move to silent death  .Ahamkara prompts to lead life of extravagance and ruthlessness ,the life of demons portrayed in our epics and Puranas . Demons had immeasurable strength due to their capacity for performing long penance and austerities and as a result of boons, they received from Devas . Demons first turned against the very divine source from whom they received the power, the height of being ungrateful and act of betrayal. Their strength turned to be liabilities. We should give up demonic qualities and emulate devas or Gods. Our worship of God is real, only if it helps to weed out the vices from us and plant the virtues in its place. So a true God fearing man will be man of virtues, God blesses those whose thoughts, feelings and actions are pure and not contaminated. We are under the illusion that we can live for ourselves, even at the cost of others. What ultimately succeeds loving every living being and giving everyone his due share, as all creations are the reflections of the same light .Company of good people make the evil doers reform themselves. That is the reason ‘satsang ‘or being in the company of virtuous people is recommended as a step to achieve the grace of God. When we are with good company, sudden realization of our pitfalls comes up .The great saint Valmiki was none other than a robber. He looted   property of those who passed through the forest. When he stopped the three saints to loot their possessions, they asked him why he was committing the sin of robbing the people. He replied that it was all done for the sake of supporting his wife and son .  The saints asked him that as he does heinous act for his family, he should go and ask them whether they would share the burden of sins committed by him. He was confident that they, whom he thought as most loving to him, would readily agree to share part of the sins. But when he asked his wife she refused point blank. He thought that at least his loving son would agree. He also refused instantly and told that who so ever commits the sins should bear the punishments single handed. This incident opened the eyes of robber. He understood the great truth that  relations such as that of husband to wife or that of father to son and so on are mere illusions or deceptive and that it was due to his blind attachment  to them that drove  him to commit inhuman acts . When he returned to the forest, he saw saints waiting there for an answer. He had a sudden flash of illumination in his mind that the world is mithya or illusion or is projection of unreal, just like we feel that the moon is quivering, when we look at its image in the moving waves of the stream . He prostrated before them, learned brahmavidya or spiritual knowledge and went on meditation. He was under the spell of meditation for years, oblivious of the surroundings.. Meanwhile an ant hill had formed covering him.  When the saints passed that way after a long time, they overheard the sound of recitation ‘Rama, Rama emanating from the ant hill. They found it was from the robber whom they met earlier. He turned into a great saint called Valmiki , meaning seen in valmikam means ant hill,  who is the author of great epic Ramayana, one   of the greatest epics ever written . His transformation was instant and complete. Even Dasagreeva or 10 headed monsters Ravana, who was epitome of all vices, realized his mistakes just before his death in the hands of Lord Srirama. It was not a case of mere death in the case of Ravana,it was a case of realialisation of his true divine nature , which he had attained with strenuous meditation .One should  realize one’s good nature even without waiting for  any calamity to befall on him.   . We should be able to rid of avidhya or ignorance with awakening of vidya or jnana or knowledge. We need not burn our finger to know the heat of the stove.  We need not leap into deep water to test  whether we can swim .we can know by insight ,  which only human beings are endowed with.

Our mind is like a plot we have prepared for sowing seeds. Good thoughts or bad thoughts could be seeds. just like we select good  seeds or seeds  which are not infected  for sowing , we should sow good  thoughts and nurture them so that they grow  fully and give out fruits in plenty or blossom  into flowers which spreads  their sweet fragrance. Of course before the seedlings get firmly implanted, weeds or other plants which might eat away the nutrients meant for the cultivated plants may grow, without us planting them. Those are to be weeded out. Similarly, due to pressures of the modern stressful world, weeds of wicked thoughts might crop up and compete with good thoughts for their survival. Those thoughts are to be nipped in the bud. From thoughts arise emotions and feelings. The emotions could again be positive or negative. Positive emotions are love, compassion and negative emotions are anger, vengeance, jealousy, covertness and so on. Music, worship, meditation, dhyana, japa, keerthana and so on help us to experience positive emotions, where as deafening sound of thunder or quarrels between people  generates negative emotions. Emotions or feelings give power to or fuel thoughts. In other words, they fuel thoughts to transform into action .Stronger the feelings, stronger they fuel thoughts to action and vice versa. Wrong thoughts fuelled by negative emotions lead to wicked actions. Thus thoughts and emotions are ultimately deciding factors for action. We cannot stop our action directly. We can control our actions make it good or bad only by manipulating our thoughts and feelings. So the best way to assure good action is to make our thoughts good and emotions positive, then automatically our actions will also be good. When same actions are repeated, it becomes habits. When habits are accumulated, it becomes our life style .our life style is like a clothe or tapestry made of treads woven. Threads are thoughts and emotions. The quality and the color of clothe depends upon the quality of threads and their color used for weaving. Similarly our life style is determined by our thoughts and feelings .our life style determines how we spend our lives, usefully or not. Holy thoughts and feelings give physical and mental strength. They even delay aging process and ward of diseases .A sick person recovers or recuperates from illness and respond to treatment much faster, when he is well disposed or when his mind is filled with good thoughts or when he is in a good mood than when he is brooding and worrying . Good thoughts rejuvenate our system.  Many times, natural cure too happens.

Man is basically created with good or sublime thoughts and feelings. However those are hidden deep within ourselves, just like pearls are   at the bottom of the sea and other mean creatures are on the surface . Similarly unholy thoughts and feelings are in the upper layers of human mind and those exert much force on our behavior than holy thoughts . When our mind is topsy-turvy or imbalanced due to  our wrong ways of reacting to the turbulent nature of the outside world, the chances of our lower impulses exerting their influence on our conduct are much more than that of holy impulses , just as   the outer layer of the oceans  are easily accessible. The way for having healthy control of the mind is to make the mind still by being a spectator of the outside side world and not being an active participant and also by constant practice silencing the mind by   meditation or withdrawing the mind towards oneself  away from outside world  and thus allow it to settle down in calmness. we may be easily tempted to do a bad thing . It is reported that even Lord Srirama   was enchanted by demon Thadaka  , seeing   her  beauty.  But because of divinity he could control the passion no sooner than it was aroused.  If that is so , what to talk off in the case of mortals . Is there any wonder when we see them chasing the so called pleasures of the world?  What is required is Strong will and constant vigil on our part to maintain our uprightness.  What we achieved by the way of greatness, we may lose with in split second with our thoughtless action. We have heard the great saint Durvasa lost all his powers he achieved through his hard and long  thapsus or meditation , when he lost his temper for a second or when he became slave of his anger . Anger spurred by the moment spells disaster .Anger or aggression gets accumulated in our minds in small doses and it flares up all on a sudden even when the situation is non-provocative.  we should never allow to get it accumulated. We should give went to our emotions in a positive ways. Our anger could be directed usefully to attack a difficult target say to  work hard on a physically demanding work  Even thumbing on the desk is tolerable than hitting  or attempting to hit a person .  whenever we  are likely to get provoked , we should withdraw our mind  towards inside and away from the objects  perceived to be provocative. It helps to control anger and return composed. We should get in touch without inner self by  keeping away angry feelings from the mind and remaining calm and at the same  and if possible  revoking some happy memories of the past  .Then the anger dies away . When we are angry we lose all sense of proportions and sense of what is right and what is wrong . We make mountains out of mole hills. Anger is the worst enemy of man.  Weapons themselves are powerless; irrespective of how much lethal they are, unless there is an angry man to use them.  So the best way to control armament is to conquer the anger in man. Anger is like raging wild fire which destroys everything that comes in its way or it is like hissing cobra. It can make man commit any heinous crime. It can make the sanest man insane. A person with inflated ego or being pretentious gets provoked easily. It is actually the weak or ulcerated mind or due to feelings of insecurity   that one gets provoked easily.  Developing humility is another way to get away from anger, which also has innumerable other benefits. Only a person who has self- confidence or who is sure of himself or who has positive image of himself or who has what is called’ self-esteem’’ and who  is capable can be humble and gentle in behavior .
Seeking pleasure and happiness is the birthright of all living beings including man.   There is absolutely no harm in it. But the questions are: what is pleasure and what is happiness? Is both the same experience or are they different kinds of experiences? Where do we seek them? Are their sources under our control?  Or can we make them happen at our will or with our capacities? These are often mute questions. Most people do not know the answers to those questions nor do they bother to know. They blindly search joy. Both pleasure and happiness are our mental or psychic experiences. It is a feeling of well being as opposed to tension, experience of pain, monotony etc   Pleasure is the feeling we get when we enjoy the objects  of pleasure which lie outside . In other words, it is due to stimulation from outside sources to which we are conditioned. For instance we get pepped up when we drink a cup of tea. The alcholoids in the tea stimulates our brain and feel pleasure.  The pleasurable feeling   largely depend upon outside sources which we interpret as sources of pleasure rather than being objective reality.  That is the reason for the feelings of pleasure for one man is not the feelings of pleasure for other. For instance, smokers enjoy smoking. It gives pleasure to them. To non-smokers, it does not. It is largely because of the way our mind is conditioned .so it is in our mind and that again false sense of pleasure. It is a illusion. We run after pleasures of outside world, just like moth goes to flirt with flame, being attracted by it and destroy itself. Icelanders have a novel way of catching seals or sea lions.  They coat sharp knife with blood of some animals and leave on the shore .Seals mistake it to be their prey and start licking them.  . They keep on licking till their tongue is ruptured and blood starts oozing out. Still it thinks that the blood is from its prey and keeps licking the sharp edge hard till it dies.  There is a parallel between our behavior and the behavior of seals in our search for pleasures outside.  We dig our grave, while chasing outside pleasures .The feelings of pleasure lasts, only so long as outside stimulation lasts. The moment outside stimuli ceases, the feelings of pleasure too stops. Another drawback of seeking outside sources of pleasure is that  there is diminishing returns . It means that  the quantum or intensity of  outside stimulation  required to generate a particular level of pleasure increases in geometrical proportion . For instance , a person who takes drink for the first time gets tipsy , with one drink . Later he goes for more than one drink to get the same level of feeling. Our biological system gets used or adapted to  a level .and the threshold  level for  stimulus for evoking response increases .This phenomenon happens in the case of all aspects of human behavior .   With such diminishing effect, there  is tendency on the part of the person to seek more and more pleasure and  he gets trapped in the pleasures of outside world .  Village folks use a clever method to trap monkeys. They keep nuts in a pot with narrow mouth. Monkeys put their hands inside the pot and grasp the nuts. Once they hold on to the nuts , their hands cannot come out of the pot .  . Monkeys try hard to pull out their hands from the pot with firm grip on nuts, in vain . At that time they care trapped. Similar is the condition facing by man who is intoxicated with outside pleasures who finds he is in  their firm grip .  He becomes addicted to objects of pleasure .He loses all controls over himself. He may do anything whether lawful or not, whether moral or immoral to attain pleasure. He would seek pleasure at any cost, which would spell his disaster.   Happiness is on the other hand more permanent or lasting compared to pleasure. Even for happiness, though our sense organs have to come in  contact with objects of pleasure , the experience of happiness we get out of it ,  does not solely  depend upon outside stimulation , but it is moderated  by  our inner forces such as contentment or gratification .Happiness is also experienced when we   set our  mind on higher goals such as virtuous living , selfless service to the needy , engaging in creative pursuits ,and when we are aware that the supreme power  which is the life force in everything is the eternal and the same in every being and living according to such divine principles . Pleasure can be called extrinsic and happiness is intrinsic. we can  chose such outside sources  of pleasure which are beneficial rather than harmful. For instance, we can choose watching T.V most of the time or reading good literature.  To some people touring and seeing different places are important.There are other sources  such as working for some higher purposes , developing oneself, perfecting oneself in one’s conduct and character. Contentment   which is a mental state can help us to experience real happiness. Contentment is satisfaction with the experience of happiness with outside comforts which are within our each. It does not depend upon availability of outside. Contentment is the happiness we have with whatever we have.  It is the will  or habit which we can develop. If we develop the feeling that what we have is precious  and that  it is much better than a condition  of deprivation , we feel contentment .Otherwise , as proverb says we may try to catch  birds which are flying ,leaving the birds we have in our hands or a bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

In our day to day life we often make comparisons between ourselves and significant others. For instance we are happy if we possess some new or costly  thing, which our neighbors do not possess and unhappy if don’t have something , which  our neighbor is having . we vie with each other in possessing material things to show off our status .We  devalue what we have , when we find someone else is having the same. Thus we are not happy with whatever we have. we should not go for status value or exhibitionism .People flaunt their wealth by spending mostly  their ill-gotten or tainted money lavishly on many superfluous things, When we have tendency to project ourselves. Thrust for power, position and opulence is akin to attraction of moth to flame, due to evil thrust for power and position, people  go all out to  amass wealth by hook or crook. This is the reason for the malignant growth of so called black money. Even those who are not rich  become ostentatious   on the plea that position in the society should be maintained and become indebted .Social positions should not be determined by such wasteful practices .The best practice is thrift, simplicity  utility and elegance. It is false prestige which is the garb of ego which prompts such action. We should give spirit behind every action more importance than to rituals and practices.

We should be action- oriented or ready for action or for putting in our labor, both physical and intellectual rather than leading a  passive or sedentary life . An action meticulously planned   does not materialize without the required effort in the right direction .we cannot live in the blue print of a building plan  ,how ever well it is drawn . We have translate it into action that is, converting the plan into a solid building   to stay . same hold good to all our  ideas .Similarly actions without backed by planning tantamount to firing  shots at  random and which miss targets  and which is wasting bullets .There is a beautiful story which demonstrates the value of  hard and sustained work and undergoing hardships to reap the consequent joy that comes out of it .A lump of clay asked her colleague a clay pot that how was it that he  became smart and  could enjoy dancing on the foreheads of damsels ? , while he lay inert  wanting by nobody .( young beautiful village  women carry  decorated mud pots on their heads  carrying water from the wells) The pot answered that he  was very much like him just a lump of clay . .  Potter dug him with his spade, crushed him to shape up and put him in the flame  for setting. During all those processes he had to bear excruciating pain. After all that processes he came out as strong, tuff and attractive one as he looked.  He was then put on exhibition for sale. Customers came and knocked at his head to find out the quality. He had to suffer that pain too silently. At last customer picked his up and women started using him to carry water.  . In other words he attained enviable position after undergoing long trail of pain and hardships .This applies to every one’s life .Fruits come only out of hard labor. We enjoy the fruits better when it is the result of our hard labor. We enjoy life better with the wealth we earned  by honest means  , meaning  by putting hard labor . we don’t enjoy those which comes to us easy .   At the end of day of our hard work, we enjoy our meals well, enjoy our leisure well and sleep well. It is said that children should not be pampered by offering them a cozy life. , as they would not know the value of money and hard work. They tend to be good for nothing. It is said that what we achieve is the result of 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration, which is true .Self-sufficiency or self -reliance is laudable, dependency on others or living on other’s charity is to be decried.

Now the question is how to be action-oriented or develop readiness to act as opposed to being lethargic. Leading physically and mentally active life is the way to develop action readiness.  We should engage ourselves in physical activities  such as walking, doing  household wok, developing readiness to work with our hands etc similarly we should engage our mind in reading , thinking , writing, speaking etc. we should put all our sense  organs and motor organs  to work as much use as we can comfortably can ., thus we are able to lead a dynamic life as opposed to sedentary life . Let us say we want to move mountain. To start with if we feel strongly that we want to move the mountain, it provides thrust to our effort. It is quite possible that we might be able to move. On the other hand, right in the beginning if we feel that it is impossible, even if it possible, it will prove to be impossible. So the initial set of our mind is important. The saying that “if we feel we can, we can ; if we feel we cannot ,we cannot  ,is true .we should see an opportunity or challenge or chance to prove our capacity when occasion demands rather than thinking that it is a problem. It is purely our mental set which has nothing to do with objective situation. A person who feels that he can  is called as optimist and he who thinks cannot is called a pessimist .Optimism and pessimism  are our mental tendencies or predispositions ,which  we develop consciously or unconsciously. we can develop optimism by undertaking  difficult tasks, completing them well and celebrating  the success . or tasting the success, with out getting deterred by the failures on the way . If we get stuck by failures which we invariably face in  solving problems , get discouraged and retreat , we develop proclivity for pessimism. Small successes in life accumulate  like drops of water makes ocean .