Every one of us is pre-programmed, in accordance with the culture, family, society or religion we are born into and grow up with. Most of us are indifferent to the fact that we operate with little awareness. So we end up living in a self-made prison.

We have to learn the art of inner separation and not allow inner thoughts and attitudes of negativity to eat into our lives. Negative, ignorant, addictive, narrow, foolish 'I's eat our life forces just as rats eat crops. Some 'I's in us are our friends and some, our enemies. To recognise and de-identify ourselves with the negative 'I's is 'inner separation'.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: A Prison of Our Own Making

Bhakti is not kamayamana or desire-driven; it is nirodh , a check on desire. When attained, bhakti makes a person into siddha , perfect and trupta , satisfied. Such a person thereafter has neither desire nor worry, hate, pleasure or excitement. Does it imply dullness? No, it implies fulfilment born of antar-aarama or inner harmony, which could so suffuse the mind as to make the bhakta look inebriated or matta . Does attaining such a state imply stagnation?

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Bhakti as a Way of Daily Life

The one principle that should be at the core of any religious belief is ahimsa or non-violence - not to hurt any life, human or otherwise.

Killing is not right. Killing animals to eat them is not a civilised thing to do, but carnivores exist in nature and in many places, humans have to subsist on non-vegetarian food for reasons beyond their control. But wherever possible, vegetarianism must be practised.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: An Agnostic's View Of Life and Death

There's this story of a young boy whose dialogue with death is as fascinating as it is exploratory, coursing down the six chapters of the Katha Upanishad.

Sage Vajasravasa, to get divine recognition, performed a sacrificial rite which required him to give up all his possessions and pleasures. But he gifted away only those cows which were diseased, old and lame, keeping the good ones for himself.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: For the Living From The Realm of Death

Karma is the accumulated impression of past activity, either of thought, emotion or physical action. The quality of the karma that you gather is not necessarily in terms of action alone; it is also in terms of the volition with which action is performed.

This moment, the very way you think, feel, understand and act, is a deep conditioning of past activity. That's karma.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Ways to Overcome Bondage of Karma

It is believed that the entire creation was manifested with the sound of Om, the Nada Brahman. Om is a combination of So and Ham. This sound vibrates every moment of our life till there is life in our body, till life continues to flow through the Kundalini.

When the sound travels through the various bodies it gets refined and the vibration ultimately merges in Om. It is constantly chanted within us and is thus called the highest mantra, the Mantra Maheshwara. Ham beejam, says the Guru Gita, which means the sound of Ham is the seed of the entire consciousness which pervades us.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Science of Life - Soham or Hamsa

In literature, art and cinema, death has been almost always depicted as a terrible thing, the final end, although in reality it is merely a release from the burden of the physical body.

Every religious tradition recognises that to reach the final truth, one must pass through death. This is the meaning behind Aanea's descent to the underworld in Virgil, of Dante's descent into hell in the Divine Comedy and the Christian baptism: “You were baptised into the death of Christ”.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Finality of Death Is a Myth

Non-dualism is the highest Vedantic truth. Only Brahman exists. The pluralistic world as we experience it is merely a figment of the imagination. An illusion.

At the highest level Vedanta does not encourage any discussion on the nature of the world and its cause. That would merely be emphasising the reality of something which does not exist. It focuses on the direct experience of Reality.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Illusion And Reality

"Why are we here?" asked a boy of his mother. "Why, to help others, of course," she replied. "And what are the others here for?" asked the boy. The mother had no answer.

The others, especially the needy, are there so that we can extend to them a helping hand. One day, as William Gladstone was preparing a speech he was to deliver in parliament, he was called to visit a dying boy. When he returned to the writing of his speech, he said: "That speech may fail or not; but in helping that boy I have tasted exquisite joy."

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Activate the Cycle Of Good Karma

"Hey, I'm in Nirvana!" We talk like this when we feel good. But what is it like to actually attain nirvana, otherwise known as moksha or self-realisation?

Self-realisation is the goal of life. Vedic rishis found that everything in the world that blooms is also subject to ultimate decay. Are we here just to live a brief life and then pass away? They reasoned that life cannot be devoid of some higher purpose.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: In Search of the Real 'Me'

If you really want the best deal in life, stop making deals. Yet, your very demeanour should be such that your client is simply bowled over. This is not a trick.

The deal will happen if it's necessary; it won't happen if it's not. It is for the well-being of both parties, so it must be needed by both of you. Once we're in this world, there are transactions, personal or otherwise.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: There's More to Life Than Striking Deals

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances...” wrote William Shakespeare, one of the greatest dramatists of all time. Shakespeare saw the world as a large theatre. If all the world is indeed a stage, and life is a play, and all of us are mere actors, then this view leads to some interesting corollaries.

Who is the author and the director of this play?

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: The World Is A Stage

Krishna asserts that action cannot be avoided, and should be performed without consideration of the "fruit of action". Progression on the ladder of karma was associated with good action: one who did good things in life moved up the ladder.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Discover The Truth, Set Yourself Free

Destiny and the dynamics of living often remove us from the place we belong to, from what we refer to as our hometown. Living away, we tend to get "hometown-sick".

We split ourselves, and suffer a 'body here, mind there' syndrome. Interestingly, this can happen not just to an individual or a family, but even collectively to a whole people.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Freedom From Exile  

The elephant captured in Chhattisgarh was a victim, not just of an over-eager, insensitive agency that was ironically set up for the specific purpose of protecting endangered pachyderms. The poor animal was first forced to leave the forests of neighbouring states frightened by miners and rendered homeless by human-induced forest degradation. And then, when it tried to survive, looking for food, it was chased, caught, and made to die a slow death. Whatever happened to our tradition of respecting all life forms?

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Kaliyug Death of A Vishnu-bhakt

The enormity of death is felt by people when they lose someone close to them. Knowledge and spirituality are often the light at the end of the tunnel in such moments of sadness. A human being who has died, is like a torch extinguished.

However, the flame of his life burns in his children, friends, work, and in his ideas. He has enriched the earth on which he has walked, the rivers in which he has bathed, and the living beings with whom he has been in communion.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Incredible Journey To Immortality

Often what you call success is judged by others as failure. This was G D Birla's philosophical reply to reporters who asked him to comment on his success in building one of the largest business houses in the country.

When you look back and attempt to analyse what you really achieved in life and whether you could call yourself successful, you will find that you are unable to define "success". That's because with every new stage in life, your perception of success changes.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Assess Success With Internal Auditing

There are two key Indian myths: Moksha and Maya. Within these two spheres the whole invisible world of gods, heroes, quests, and powers are contained.

Moksha speaks to the primacy of consciousness as the stuff from which all reality is created. Maya is the distraction that keeps us constantly in search of truth. Paleo-linguists tell us that the word 'maya' is not correctly understood as "illusion" but as "measurement", and from this we get the terms matter, meter, mother, mata, matrix, matrika, music and myth itself.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Great Indian Myths: Moksha and Maya

Vedanta literally means culmination of knowledge. Veda means knowledge, anta means end. You are aware of the body, mind and intellect, but not your real Self. Vedanta helps you discover the true nature of your inherent Being.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Liberating Role of Vedantic Thought

Whatever we are today is the direct consequence of choices we made and decisions we took. Our karma cannot be shared. It is non-transferable. Leadership, and indeed life itself, is primarily about making decisions.

Events such as the recent Indo-Pak goodwill cricket series bring into focus the indivisibility of leadership decisions and its consequences thereof.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Leadership is About Taking Decisions

As a teenager I always carried some cotton, antiseptic and a bandage in my pocket. After all, someone could get hurt. One day, I was in a bus. A fellow passenger got hurt. Here was my chance to become a hero, I thought excitedly. Out came my kit. I applied some antiseptic on her bruise and bandaged it.

Another passenger looked at me and said: "Do you know, you have caused this bruise - indirectly." I was taken aback. He continued: "You waited for someone to fall and get hurt so that you could use your medical kit." My take on nishkaama karma, selfless action, had failed.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Do Good Naturally, Not Out of Duty