FROM MAULANA'S DESK

FROM MAULANA’S DESK 1. The World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims 2012, Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, Jordan. Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, born in 1925, in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, is an Islamic spiritual scholar who is well-versed in both classical Islamic learning and modern disciplines. The mission of his life has been the establishment of worldwide peace. He has received the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honour in India, and the Demiurgus Peace International Award. He has been called ’Islam’s spiritual ambassador to the world’ and is recognised as one of its most influential Muslims1. His books have been translated into sixteen languages and are part of university curricula in six countries. He is the founder of the Centre for Peace and Spirituality based in New Delhi I F you are able to be happy with what you already have, then you can achieve happiness. If your happiness involves certain conditions, then you can never achieve happiness. Happiness is not a destination; it is a state of mind. No material good can give you happiness. If you have a list of material things in your mind and you believe that only by obtaining all the things on this list, you can live in happiness, it is impossible for you to attain happiness. The fact is that this material list has an end on the paper on which you write it down, but it won’t have any end in your mind! One should learn how to be content, otherwise your mind will keep adding new things to its wish-list. And then, you will always live with unsatisfied desires. If you want to live with happiness, then learn the difference between need and desire. Our real needs are actually very limited. There is always a full-stop in the list of real needs, but the wish-list based on desire has no full-stop. It has only commas. Every day, you add a new comma to this list, and this will continue endlessly till your death. The Prophet of Islam has said that if a man were given two mountains of gold, he will ask for a third one (Musnad Ahmad). This means that man THE KEY TO HAPPINESS