Subject: Peace of Mind Money is a consequence of effort to achieve your life goal. It is not a worthy cause to dedicate your life to. If you make the right effort, money will come as a result. And satisfaction is what makes you sleep well at night. Satisfaction is an inner thing. It is a state of being of the spirit. That is why Allah said: Ala bi dhikrillahi tat'maninnul quloob: Verily the peace of the Qalb (peace of mind) is in the Remembrance of Allah. People who try to find satisfaction of the soul (peace of mind) in material possessions are like someone who tries to fill his belly by looking at pictures of Triple Sundaes. Try it and see if it works. Same logic for trying to find peace of mind or satisfaction by buying more possessions; jewellery, cars, houses, dogs or whatever. Futile and foolish. There was a one hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the world, and who has donated $31 billion to charity. (For those of you who want to calculate the Rupee value of this: 1 billion is 1000 million. 1 million is 10 laks. 1 US$ is Rs. 45. So $31 billion is: 100,000 x 10 x 1000 x 31 x 45. Happy calculating. And remember, the man gave this away. And he is not standing with a pan on the pavement in New York either. And of course you will ask, "What about the Muslims on whom charity has been made compulsory?" Well, I don't know about all the Muslims of course, but in Hyderabad according to the Deccan Chronicle, they are very busy having ostentatious weddings. We had one just this week with allegedly 12,000 guests daily. The Hyderabad Chronicle reported it complete with pictures of the bride and her sisters and brothers. Amazing variety of food, it said. And of course in India food is never wasted as it is all eventually eaten by someone or the other. What generosity!! Masha'Allah. Amazing how anyone can criticize this, eh!! Especially those who go and eat at these weddings. Talk about true namak haraami, eh!! Now you will ask me if it is appropriate that just after the Sachar committee report was published which put the Muslims as second to none in terms of poverty, ignorance, sickness and crime, how can someone have a wedding of this nature? Well, I will tell you that poverty, ignorance, sickness and crime have many faces. So there is no contradiction with the report. In all this, it may be interesting to remind yourself that Warren Buffet alone can buy and sell all the rich Muslims of Hyderabad daily and will still not know the difference. However the poor fool lives in a small 3 bedroom house in Omaha, does not fly in a private jet, does not drive a Mercedes, has no driver or security guards, drives his own car and when asked why he still lives in the same house for 50 years, says, "All I need is here. I don't need anything else." And finally an interesting anecdote: When they asked Warren Buffet why he donated $31 billion to charity he said, "My wife told me, the shroud has no pockets." Read on.................... Here are some very interesting aspects of Warren Buffet's life: 1) He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late! 2) He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers. 3) He still lives in the same small 3 bedroom house in mid-town Omaha that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a fence. 4) He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him. 5) He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's largest private jet company. 6) His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of these companies, giving them goals for the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis. 7) He has given his CEO's only two rules. Rule number 1: Do not lose any of your share holder's money. Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1. 8) He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His past time after he gets home is to make himself some pop corn and watch television. 9) Bill Gates, the world's richest man met him for the first time only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half an hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffet. 10) Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk. 11) His advice to young people: Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself. Courtesy: Muhammad Akram [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
