The other evening, some relatives were holding a wake in the neighbourhood for a deceased elderly relative. Mourners poured into the tent set up. No sooner had Dr Anand stepped in than one of them, who had not seen him for a while remarked how bald he had gone. Embarrassed as he was in front of everybody, the witty doctor replied he had better lose his hair than his mind.

The doctor?s clever reply provoked laughter. He added that his mind was all his wealth, his greatest gift from God; so what if he had no hair at all - what is essential is that the mind remains sharp. Yet, while the mind can be one?s most loyal friend, it can also be one?s deadliest enemy.

At any stage of life, especially when you have to take an important decision, your mind is indeed your best friend. Sometimes in life nobody else, except yourself, will have to decide what to do and not to do. Your mind is then your friend as long as your decision is good for you and those around. The idea has to be clear in the mind and how you can translate it into action. Remember the world is interested in the end result and not in details or words. This is a cruel world. If you are always willing to help, people will follow you; friends and relatives will cluster around you; otherwise, they will forget you - out of sight, out of mind. Let your mind be strong to advise you even in hardships and opposition. Soon the time will come for New Year resolutions 2006. Your mind will have to figure out things for you to achieve and rise above the horizon.

However, the mind can be your enemy. Like free will, when it is out of control, it can lead to obsession, prejudice or crime, which can change your whole life. The body is like a vehicle with the mind as driver. It remains motionless without the driver?s move. But if the driver starts the vehicle when drunk, he/she is likely to lose control and eventually come to grief. Likewise, when the mind gets carried away and is overcome by outbursts of violent feelings - vaulting ambition, envy, hatred, passion, rage, etc, the outcome is always negative. Whoever one is - whether a high-flying student, a top-notch professional, a high-ranking officer, the CEO of an organisation or even a minister frequently considered next to God - one has to suffer and is punished. This is when the mind stops differentiating between right and wrong, good and evil, charity and malice.

Even an evil-doer sees good, says the Buddha; it is only when evil ripens that the evil-doer sees it. It may perhaps be too late because the weight of sin has already fallen on him. As the person could not follow its dictates at the right time, he/she looks upon the mind as an enemy. But the mind will not take the blame upon itself and retorts saying, ?I told you so!?

The seeker knows peace is within oneself, within one?s own mind through one?s actions and nowhere else. Still, there are people who after all sorts of foul play and fraud, visit places of pilgrimage, make donations to charitable institutions to appease the wrath of God and satisfy their guilty consciences. No matter what they do, they are at war with themselves, their families are in disarray. Peace always eludes them. What these people have stored up from last generations perhaps cannot give them peace. They take sleeping- pills for a good night?s sleep but that also does not work. Whether at personal, family, country, or international level, the whole solution lies in the mind. Lord Attlee stated that since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that defences of peace must be constructed.

The mind is man?s greatest asset. With a tough mind, a person?s life can be a true rags-to-riches story. History is full of such examples. Heaven and hell have no geographical locations as we sometimes think. Both heaven and hell are in our state of mind. John Milton writes: ?The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.?

When you use your mind positively, it becomes your most reliable friend. But when used the wrong way, the same mind can create hell everywhere; the mind is thus your enemy. The decision is yours to make. Let the New Year 2006 be a great year on all counts.

Kaviraj SOHUR