I was influenced, when I was young, by Bertrand Russell’s classic book Why I am not a Christian. Link is below: https://www.amazon.in/s?k=why+i+am+not+a+christian+bertrand+russell&crid=2ZZJCP9CNRES5&sprefix=why+I+am+not+a%2Caps%2C988&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_5_14 Russell acknowledged that Christ was good and wise although he preferred the Buddha and Socrates over him. But Russell also criticized Christ as portrayed in the New Testament. One of the passages containing […]
Author Archives: nikhilmg
A Necessary Part Of Your Education
I used to absolutely love James Michener novels. Here is the list of bestselling authors whose books I used to read repeatedly when I was young: I have always been a loner and controversial. As such I had to do something to keep myself entertained. And reading the books written by the authors above was […]
Career Advice from the Buddha
What career advice can you expect to get from the Buddha. In my opinion all that you need to know to master a profession – or any money making skill – is summarized in the following few verses: We are what we thinkAll that we are arises with our thoughts,With our thoughts we make the […]
On Learned Leisure
One of my earliest memories when I was young was being taught the virtue of hard work. My family and society emphasized working for the upliftment of the poor and downtrodden. I am thinking in particular of my grandparents who lived through the Indian struggle for independence led by Mahatma Gandhi. My grandparents were very […]
Psychological reasons
In this blog I will try to explain the psychological factors that may be preventing people with extreme views (example Islamists and Maoists) to understand any point of view other than their own. Specifically I would like the extremists to understand the points I made in my blog below: I will start by stating the […]
How to prevent a Nuclear Holocaust
Now you might think that I am off my rocker. Here I am with no experience in government, politics or managing people and I am saying I can help avoid a nuclear conflict. But if there is even one chance in a million that I have something worthwhile to say it makes sense to read […]
Why I got robbed and what you can learn from it
What follows below is my personal experience: A person whom I thought was my friend kidnapped me and forced me to sign away a large part of my savings which were held in the form of equity shares traded on the stock exchange. I had made the mistake of boasting about my shareholdings to this […]
How to make a Powerful Impression on People
You will notice that I have said, a powerful impression, not necessarily a good impression. If that does not deter you read on. The best way to impress people is by not giving a damn what they think of you. Quoting from Emerson’s essay on Self Reliance: Honor is venerable to us because it is […]
Reading for Self Cultivation
Following is a paragraph from Gurcharan Das’s book, The Difficulty of Being Good. Mr. Das had taken early retirement from a successful corporate career and decided to take an academic holiday in which he did a lot of reading and thinking and discovered for himself the meaning of life. Here is how he went about […]
Why War is good
There is reason to think that war is not only inevitable but also desirable. What do I mean by that? I read chapter 2 of Osho’s book on Jesus’ teachings recently. The name of the book is The Mustard Seed and it is considered by some people to be a classic. Link is below. The […]