Life

Life is a riddle. The more you brood over it,the more you become inquisitive. Worldly temptations like money,fame often allure one, while the conscience existing in the soul of the body whips, when one tries to take any illegal and immoral action. Time thus passes and the journey of life continues, until one day the soul leaves the body.
Shakespeare has defined life as " life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing".
The seekers of truth,saints and Fauquiers who by their auster life and severe penance reached the height of spiritualism and tested the bliss and pleasures of eternal life have prescribed methods for human beings by applying which one get over human weaknesses and achieve the target of an eternal life.
But there are pitfalls here and there. it is like the game of snakes and ladders.
I therefore find that only the Sadguru can save you and ultimately lead you to the life of bliss that is you can get " Nirvana".
(The writer is Sri Prafulla Kumar Dubey,a retired ADM)

Religion

Religion is discipline of life. From time immemorial,religious priests have been preaching for restraining from material lusts  in 'Kanchan & Kamini". Thus necessarily the imagination of reward and punishment according to good and evil deeds  of mankind were preached. A network of religions came into being and the religion became part and parcel of life. The intelligent class of people in the society wrote verses, mantras for example the Gaitri mantra that became very important.
It is really remarkable that all the religions of the world have denounced the material pleasures and have given priority to spiritual pleasures. The hermit Basistha was the Guru of King Dasaratha .If Basistha liked, he could have got all material lusts and pleasures from King Dasaratha. But instead of this , he used to live in a hut in the jungle and used to live on milk and roots of plants.
Now the question arises asto why Basistha led a life of austerity and penance.? The answer is clear. Pious and auster life used to give him communion with infinitum which in turn have a perrenial source of pleasure and that pleasure was hundreds and thousands of time more pleasant than the material pleasure. A simple example of this is seen every where. When a child is fed by the mother, the meal goes to the stomach of the child,but the mother becomes overjoyed. This is a spiritual pleasure  that is the pleasure of feelings.
By and large the concept of the Almighty God whom the Islamic religion says Allah was evolved. The writing of the four Vedas also came into being and the omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent and all pwerfulness of God was accepted by all religions. Thus it is crystal clear that religion evolved in India in contexts with spiritualism.
In Bhagwat Geeta Lord Krishna exclaims that there is no God save Him. Similar concept is also there in  other religions. According to Geeta the soul changes new clothes,the old and worn out ones are left out,the soul is immortal.
Thus if we  read Indian religious books closely we find that there is no difference among various religious sects.When there is God and only God who is all powerful,what are the various dieties like Durga, Kali etc. ?

They are only the manifestations of the all-powerful God who is both in form and without form.
Various incarnations of God like Sri Rama, Sri Krishna Sri Budha,Sri Mahavira, Sri Chaitanya and Sri Ramakrishna have from time to time preached the same concept.

Thus we find that the Indian religion has gone through the various processes of evolution and has emerged with a strong base of spiritualism.