Your choices drive your life

It does not matter whether people choose to like you or whether they choose to hate you. It does not even matter whether they pray for you or whether they curse you. These things probably make no difference whatsoever in your life. The most important things, and the ones that make the greatest difference, are the choices you make for yourself without allowing people or events to control your life.

Experiencing Your Destiny On A Daily Basis

Every event, including every person that crosses our paths, in the journey of life gives each of us a unique opportunity to experience our destinies on a daily basis. That is why they say "destiny is not a destination but a journey." To become aware of this is to develop the habit of finding something positive out of every event in our lives.

THE SUNDAY TRADING DEBATE

In a circular world, it is hard to win a debate on the spiritual benefits of Sunday Trading based on religious teaching. But I know where I stand on the health and social benefits of working for just six days a week and spending the seventh resting, reflecting and refreshing the body ready for the following week. This is the wisdom of the sages passed on through the ages and it makes a lot of common sense to me.

Rights must go with responsibility

As the title of this article suggests, rights must go with responsibility. Individual must be ready to take direct responsibility for his or her actions.

This leads me to the recent Ecuador's decision to grant Julian Assange an asylum to stop him from being extradited to Sweden where he is wanted for an alleged rape.

I sincerely do not think any country has the moral right to prevent an individual from accepting their responsibility.

I believe Julian Assange has two chances to proof his moral integrity and ethical credentials within the international publishing community. First, as the founder and publisher of Wiki leaks and second, for the said rape allegation.

I believe Sweden has one of the best human right records in the world. Assange therefore has nothing to fear if he truly beliefs he is innocent of the alleged rape crime.

More importantly, I belief that if his reason for putting sensitive information about other countries in the public domain, is driven by his high personal moral and ethical standards, and not for his personal ego, he will be vindicated in any trial.

I am a great supporter of freedom of information. I therefore support the fundamental rights of any publishing outfit to publish any information at their disposal which they consider to be of public interest. However, every publisher must match such rights with the same level of personal responsibility.

Ecuador should give Julian Assange the opportunity to clear his name.

Pain and pleasure have no colour. Happiness and suffering have to rac

Once upon a time in the history of South Africa, it was white killing black to maintain law and order. Today, it is black killing black to achieve the same goal.

This teaches me that our real challenges as human beings have nothing to do with the differences in the colour of our skins. Our real problem, according to HH the Dalai Lama, is the lack of deep awareness of three things; (a) our common

 human desires for happiness and avoiding suffering, (b) our connections with one another and (c) the oneness of our beings through our common biological makeup.

Pain and pleasure have no colour. Happiness and suffering have to race.

We are all the same. We need each other. The world would be a much better place to live in if only we all understand this simple but natural principle of our common existence.

What's Making you Happy?

“What’s making you happy?”

When you begin to experience inner happiness, friends or foes will be asking, “What’s making you happy?” This type of question will become more compelling when they look at your physical or emotional situation and see nothing for you to be happy about. When they are expecting you to be sad, you feel happy. When they are waiting for you to be sorry for yourself, you are showing gratitude.

When they are anticipating that you respond angrily to a situation, you show equanimity. When they are expecting you to take a retaliatory measure against someone that has just hurt you, you show forgiveness. It is not the time for you to explain anything to anybody. They will not understand. It is not the time for you to defend or justify your action. You cannot win the argument.

So, whenever you are experiencing inner joy and happiness, and the people around you seem to be perplexed and want to know why you are happy, you just look at them in the face, smile for them, gently nod your head and say, “Everything.”

Happiness: The natural Healing Balm

Happiness is a healing balm. It has enormous health benefits. This was why the sages of old chose to master the art of happiness. They insisted on finding something to be happy about even in turbulent times. You too can learn to be happy. It only needs for you to be ready, and your teacher will step in.

Happiness is infectious

The nature of happiness is that it is highly infectious. If you doubt this, try the following experiment.

Show a feeling of happiness to the person next to you.

This could be just humming a popular spiritual chorus, a love song, a gentle smile of affection or anything you normally do or say whenever you feel happy or in a good mood.

Watch his or her response. My personal experiences have be been magical.

Neuroscience has helped us to begin to gain some understanding of the part of our brains that is responsible for this natural phenomenon. They call it, "Mirror neuron."

Thanks to this new knowledge in human behaviour. It is now possible to learn how to be happy and share our happiness with others.

It just requires that we become more self-aware of the need to be happy even when it seems we have nothing to be happy about.