This blogpost is an attempt to figure out some unknown and not so famous facts during the era Nazi Germany which boasted of reigning for 1000 years but ended in the late 1945 when Adolf Hitler, their leader shot a bullet through his mouth and killed himself thereby “killing” the era of Nazism.

A bit of caution dear reader, do not try to get on my head seeing the randomness and difference in time where the following happened, the stuff written below are some reads I found interesting and may seem random at times, so take it with a pinch of salt.

Mein Kampf – Hitler’s Autobiography

There isn’t any book which captures the mind of Adolf Hitler more deeply that the book written by himself- “Mein Kampf” and to put it in perspective, Mein Kampf is considered as the Bible of National Socialism a.k.a Nazism.

While “Mein Kampf” simply means “My Struggle”,Adolf Hitler initially thought of naming his book as Viereinhalb Jahre (des Kampfes) gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit when translated to English is “Four and a Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice”.

But his Business minded Nazi Publisher Max Amann thought it was a bad idea.

Max Amann was the then manager who looked onto Nazi Publications and later set up the biggest publishing house in Germany solely by the proceeds received from the of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Hitler and friends at Landsberg Prison, the fancy little Bavarian castle where he dictated Mein Kampf.Image Caption and Image Source – Reddit (u/lhommeduweed)

Max Amann simply felt the long title to be “Unsalable” and later persuaded Hitler to change the title to “Mein Kampf” which was felt more short and compelling.

Mein Kampf was a blockbuster during the Nazi regime, Only the bible could hold up with the sales of Mein Kampf .

While it seems that Mein Kampf had a perfect run,It did not.

Max Amann during the first year of sales exaggerated that the book was sold well over 23000 times.

It was later found to be an exaggeration after the Allied forces found out the Royalty statement of the book in 1945 (The same year Hitler did the best thing he ever did in his life–Shooting himself in hie head)

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It was later on revealed that the book could just sell over 9400 copies in it first year and dropping to as low as 7600 in 1929–which was considered fairly low for a book which despised the word “unsuccessful” although the book sales plummeted to One million when Hitler took over the country in 1933 making him the most prosperous author in Germany (Basically JK Rowling of his time).

And when the World War II broke out,Mein Kampf sold over 6 million copies in Germany.

Another interesting stuff was that it became a routine to present a copy of Mein Kampf to the bride and groom at their wedding, and every children was presented a copy of Mein Kampf after their graduation.

Many prominent leaders do not have their own writings condensed into a book and hence we simply can’t know what their true intentions were.

With “Mein Kampf” we can simply learn that Adolf Hitler was not an insane man,But he was a man who simply was so intelligently cruel that would make Satan run for his mondey

GODWIN’S LAW

Godwin’s Law is an internet adage asserting that

 “As an online discussion grows longer, The probability of comparison involving Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches the probability of 1”

In simple terms,”if you mention Adolf Hitler or Nazis within a discussion thread, you’ve automatically ended whatever discussion you were taking part in.”
ORIGIN OF GODWIN’S LAW-

The Godwin’s Law was formulated by the American attorney and author Mike Godwin in 1990.

Mike Godwin initially refered it to Usenet NewsGroup Discussions.(For those who don’t Know What Usernet is,It is simply a forum almost similar to reddit)

In 2012,The Term “Godwin’s Law” was added to the Oxford Dictionary.

So,Is the Godwin’s Law True?,I found out Mike Godwin’s answer which was published on 2014,It was as Follows-

Although Godwin’s Law is framed as a probability statement, its purpose is to make people think twice before following the rhetorical line of least resistance and escalating their arguments to comparisons that trivialize the impact of the Nazis and the Holocaust. In short, its purpose is to trigger (insistently) a reader’s historical awareness and perspective, especially in contexts where perspective has otherwise been lost. So why frame it as a kind of statistical or natural law? Because the kinds of people who reflexively bring up Hitler or Nazis in order to trash the argument or opponent du jour hate to discover that they’re merely instantiating a lazy intellectual tendency so common that it seems like a natural law — they would rather think of themselves as free-willed, independent thinkers

Hitler, Nazi’s and their love for animals.

On 1934, The Reich Hunting Law was enacted which limited hunting. The act also created the German Hunting Society with a mission to educate the hunting community in ethical hunting.

Nazi Germany was also the first state in the world to place the wolf under protection.

IMAGE-Hitler tending a young fawn

In Nazi Germany, people who mistreated their pets could be sentenced to two years in jail. The Nazis banned docking the ears and tails of dogs without anesthesia.

Hitler was said to be a vegetarian throughout his life, There is no real reason to why he became a vegetarian. (maybe because he hated killing, lol).

In 1942, he self-identified as a vegetarian (Some modern-day analyses have speculated that Hitler’s vegetarianism may have been for health reasons)

Göring (Hitler’s main man) banned commercial animal trapping and imposed severe restrictions on hunting.

He prohibited boiling of lobsters and crabs. In one incident, he sent a fisherman to a concentration camp for cutting up a bait frog.

Nazi Germany enacted another law called Reich Animal Protection Act. This law prohibited the use of animals for film-making or any such activities which could cause mental or physical pain to animals.

In 1936, a special law was passed regarding the correct way of dispatching lobsters and crabs and thus mitigating their painful deaths.

When the Nazi’s were busy killing Jew’s in the concentration camp’s, They made laws to protect the suffering of lobsters which were killed for food in Berlin hotels. Pretty ironic..

The Luftwaffe and Big Ben

During World War Two, BBC News was broadcast to Nazi-occupied Europe. Each news programme opened with a live broadcast of The Big Ben tolling the hour — the magical sound of freedom. 

The Genius German physicists found a way to determine the weather conditions in London based on tiny differences in the tone of the broadcast ding-dongs.

This information offered invaluable help to the Luftwaffe.

Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It was also the official name for the Nazi air force founded in 1935. Led by Hermann Goering, it became the largest and most powerful in Europe by the start of World War Two.

Image-The Luftwaffe soaring above the grounds during WW2.

The Luftwaffe could now use the information of the weather in London to make valuable decisions in the war. When the British Secret Service discovered this, they replaced the live broadcast with a set recording of the famous clock.

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Well the title is not be taken as an exaggeration, You will experience it yourself as you read on Josef Mengele, most (in)famously known as the Angel Of Death.

Josef Mengele used the Auschwitz camp for his medical experiments and Auschwitz was fairly a good place for him, considering its location and railways which had a stop there from all directions of Europe.

The scariest part was that he loved this job more than anything else.

On the first day of his visit, He sent 1035 Gypsies directly to the Gas Chambers. He also saw the new arrivals at the camp and almost 80 percent of them were killed immediately after their arrival.

On Important Jewish Days he would send 1000’s of Jews to be gasses just to satisfy his sadistic pleasure. All children below the age of 14 as well as the old were killed instantly under the demand of Mengele.

He was reported to have said the following words- “Here the Jews enter through the doors and leave trough the chimneys”

He also had the passion for scientific research and loved to do experiments on the prisoners of Auschwitz. He ordered his guards to find people who were midgets, deformed, lame etc.

The most prized objects Josef Mengele considered were twins (especially if they were children).From his earliest days in his institution he had an obsession for twins. He believed that by studying twins he could discover the secrets to genetic manipulations.

It is said that he would often stand near the railways to lookout for twins among the new arrivals to the camps. At his time in Auschwitz he managed to find almost 1500 pairs of twins that were used for experiments, Out of this 1500 pairs, Only a 100 Pairs survived.

The newly arrived twins would be marched to the living quarters at Birkenau about 2 miles from the camp. There they lived in a very gruesome and horrendous conditions surrounded by starving people and rotting corpses.

After a while the were made to answer some questions regarding their name ethnic background as well as any health problems. These children then would be personally interviewed by Mengele himself would often take notes on what they had to say and he also kept a unique file for each of the children.

For the experimentation the children were bathed and dressed properly in pajamas and then taken to one of Mengele’s research laboratories. Here basic tests such as x-rays were taken (At this stage he made sure no child was mistreated and often was given sweets and talked reassuringly. This was done to gain the trust of the Children.

In other labs, experiments were taking place and no anesthesia was even given to the children. The pain inflicted on them were unimaginable (some experiments included removal of limbs, injecting dyes to the eyes, sterilization of girls and castration of boys without anesthesia.)

One Victim Quoted-“Mengele once supervised an operation where two gypsy twins were sewn together to make Siamese twins. Their hands became badly infected where the veins had been resected.”

Another surviving teen said-

“In another experiment pair of them and more than 100 other twins were given injections of bacteria that cause Noma disease – an infection of the mouth or genitals, which causes boils and often turns gangrenous. Some twins became feverish, and some died.”

He also conducted the cruel endurance test. In this the child would be subjected to high voltage electricity until they passed out unconscious went into comma or died.

As soon as one of the twins dies, the other twin would be immediately killed in order to provide comparative data for study.

Pregnant ladies were often gassed in the chambers, On some occasions he personally delivered the babies only later to send them- both mother and child to be gassed.

On some occasions he would deliver the baby and tape the mothers breasts so that she couldn’t feed her baby and would helplessly cry while her baby slowly died of starvation.

Image- “Selection” of Hungarian Jews on the ramp at Birkenau, May/June 1944

Just when you think how can a human go to more extreme cruelty, Mengele created more depressing and cruel method to kill children. Mengele once dug a pit at Birkenau and lit a fire and made 300 children (all under the age of 5) to be thrown into the pit.

What’s more scary is that unlike other Nazi’s, He did not drug himself using alcohol or any other substances to perform such horrendous crimes. He was conscious while performing such inhumane acts. (He was reported to be enthusiastic to afflict these cruel deeds.)

There is no scientific explanation for any of this horrendous crimes he did in the name of Science. Some doctors who assisted Mengele with these experiments later recalled that he did this out of pure sadism.

The most depressing part I feel is that he got to live out his life in peace in Brazil. Mengele is (in my opinion),The most cruel of all the Nazi’s and he literally got the easiest way out at the end and lived a good life in his terms.

Even if he was caught what would be the punishment which could be given to him that can be compared to all the horrendous crimes he did?

While we often talk about many characters in the WW2,There are some people like Käthe Heusermann who requires some light into her life. Ans it is wise to try to know more about Käthe Heusermann so that she never falls behind the shadows and be lost on history forever.

1945,May 1.

The battle by the Soviet’s is bearing fruits, They have almost succeeded in capturing Berlin as the Germans have still not surrendered.

Soon they reach the Fuhrer’s bunker ,Their main goal was to capture Hitler himself. USSR knew Hitler was the main fish to catch.

But the soldiers of the Soviet Union could see just 6 Children’s dead bodies.

Dead Bodies of 5 little girls and a small Boy. They were  the children of Joseph Goebbels ,the  Nazi Propaganda Minister. 

Soon Goebbels body was also found.

But Where was Hitler’s body?

Hitler’s body was burned already due to Petrol. Only the teeth became the most important way to identify the remains. It was almost impossible to recognize Hitler’s body

But 2 woman made it possible to identify Hitler’s remains.

One was Elena Kagan who was a Russian Jew .(She later changed her name to Elena Rzhevskaya)

She was appointed by the Soviets for her skills with the German language. 

Hitler’s gold bridge and lower jaw were put in a box and given to Elena for safekeeping mostly because she was trustworthy.

                         Adolf Hitler’s teeth. (Russian State Archives)

Elena Rzhevskaya was just 25 years old in  1945 when she carried a box of the Nazi dictator’s teeth around war-torn Berlin in search of an expert who could confirm that the teeth had belonged to Hitler.

The team comprising of USSR officers and Elena herself tracked down Hitler’s personal dentist, Dr. Hugo Blaschke and his assistant, Käthe Heusermann.

Hitler’s persona dentist Hugo Blaschke was not available at that time,So Kathe Heusermann was interviewed many times because she was present at all times when Hitler visited the clinic.

She was able to identify Hitler from his teeth because he had had extensive dental work.

(By the end of his life, Hitler had very few of his own teeth left, and most of them had crowns. The remaining teeth were prosthetic and were held together with bridges.)

Read about The 14 Human Species that lived on earth

She was made to draw the sketch on how Hitler’s teeth looked.

And Guess What?

The drawings perfectly matched to the tooth remains Elena had.

The sketch of Hitler‘s teeth, drawn from memory by dental assistant Käthe Heusermann,

The above image was taken from Yelena Rzhevskaya’s book Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter: From the Battle for Moscow to Hitler’s Bunker.

Dental crowns, bridges, and teeth of Adolf Hitler.

 P. CHARLIER ET AL., FIGURE 1, EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INTERNAL MEDICINE

Stalin  never disclosed the death of Hitler to the Allies.

He never disclosed it because he never trusted the West in the first place. 

Moreover, A secret is always advantageous. Stalin knew what other major leaders of the globe at that time did not know.

And hence Soviet leader Joseph Stalin decided that Hitler’s suicide and the story about how his body was discovered should be a military secret.

In Elena Rzhevskaya memoirs, she writes: “I was absolutely convinced that we, along with all gathered information and key witnesses, will be sent to Moscow”. “I was sure that in a few days, the whole world will know that we had found Hitler’s corpse”.

 However, Stalin decided otherwise. Viktor Abakumov, the chief of SMERSH, later told Gorbushin that Stalin became familiar with the circumstances of the case and decided not to publicize anything. “We remain in capitalist encirclement,” he stated. Rzhevskaya and the other collaborators were told by Gorbushin: “Forget what you just heard”.

Hence Käthe Heusermann was deported to the Soviet Union in July, 1945, and after interrogation in Lubyanka and Lefortovo prisons, she was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. 

According to the decision of the court: “… by her participation in Hitler’s dental treatment, she voluntarily helped a bourgeois state prolong the war“.

 Käthe Heusermann was sent to the gulag, where she spent 10 years, including six years in solitary confinement.

Why was she sent to the Gulags?

Her fault was that she was a witness of Hitler’s death and that was a secret.As written above ,Stalin did not want the truth that Hitler died to be let out in the world.

The Soviets also told her that by helping to fix Hitler’s teeth she contributed to the continuation of the war, and that she should have hit him on the head with a bottle.

But the reason for sending Käthe Heusermann to the Gulags was,as written above, The secret should be protected at all costs.

The Gulag life was a hell for Käthe Heusermann like everyone else.

She was loaded into a cattle truck for the 2,800-mile trip to a labor camp in central Siberia. 

Years in solitary made Käthe Heusermann too weak to meet her work quota and therefore her food rations were cut. She got food only during the mid-days. 

Käthe Heusermann barely survived.

By 1955, Stalin had died and West Germany negotiated the return of German prisoners .Käthe Heusermann went home to Berlin. 

Her soldier fiancé had married in her absence. She went back into dentistry and died in 1993.

Käthe Heusermann

Elena Rzhevskaya published several books about her wartime experiences. But it took her 50 years of research in the USSR’s secret archives to uncover the monstrous truth of what her nation had done to her star witness — Käthe Heusermann and to reveal that Stalin had deliberately hidden the proof of Hitler’s death.

Elena in her book Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter: From the Battle for Moscow to Hitler’s Bunker quotes “If we had not found Käthe … Hitler, as Stalin wanted, would have remained a myth and a mystery,” .“But what suffering we had unwittingly doomed Käthe Heusermann to endure.”

Käthe Heusermann had to suffer for years in prison,Lost her Husband and almost died in the Gulags.

On the other hand Elena Rzhevskaya resided in Moscow where she continued her career as a writer. She was allowed to publish her memoirs in the 1960s. In 2018 Greenhill Books published the first English language edition of her memoirs.

She died on 25 April 2017, aged 97.

Elena Rzhevskaya (Courtesy Liubov Summ)

Sapiens is one of the best book I have ever read and I seriously think there won’t be any other book which would keep me hooked as sapiens did.

The book Sapiens is a Treasure trove of knowledge and attempting to summarize the book in one single post is a tedious task.

Before diving into the summary let’s first look about the magical hands who wrote this book Yuval Noah Harari.

Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli  historian and a professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is also the author of the popular science bestsellers Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

The simple Outline of the book Sapiens is simply this-

Atleast 6 humans  inhabited the earth. Yet Sapiens only survived. Humans were also at the middle of the food chain years back. Soon it reached the top. How did humans really reach at the top of the chain? and How Humans used thoughts and actions in power to be the most powerful animal on earth?. The Book also talks about the future of humans and about what’s in store for us humans in the future.

SAPIENS SUMMARY

An animal of no significance

About 13.5 billion years ago matter energy and time came into existence and about 70,000 years ago Homo sapiens began to start out complex structures. Homo sapiens in its definition means “wise man”.

While we used to think that we were the only human species, archeology proved us wrong by discovering various species of humans such as homo erectus which lived for 2 million years on this planet making it the most durable human species.

Yuval Noah Harari points out that Homo sapiens won’t survive for another 1000 years let alone a million.

The 3 major revolutions

There has been 3 major revolutions which shaped us human beings.

1.Cognitive revolution

2.Scientific revolution 

3.Agriculture revolution

While most of us think that different human species lived on different timelines is totally absurd as many human species existed simultaneously in this planet at one point of time.

Complexity Of The Human Brain

Yuval Noah Harari details us about the complexity of the brain showing that it accounts for 3 percent of the body size but still used 25 percent of the energy intake.

All the animals in the top of the food chain made it up to the top only after millions of years in a gradual and slow manner, But Homo sapiens reached that place in a rapid pace.

Humans were actually in the middle of the food chain until about 400,000 years ago and they reached the at the top of the food chain just before 100000 years.

The Discovery of Fire

The discovery of fire by the sapiens increased the pace of us ruling the food chain, Humans used it at start for warming themselves and cooking food and slowly they used it to burn entire forests down after they started knowing the true power of fire.

The advent of fire also caused humans to evolve and have smaller intestinal track and larger brains.

The Two Theories on How Other Humans Evolved

There are two theories on how Homo sapiens evolved. They are-

1.Interbreeding theory

2.Replacement theory

Interbreeding theory

The interbreeding theory tells us about how sapiens mingled and had sexual with other human species such as Neanderthals. The Neanderthals were large and muscular when compared to sapiens and sapiens merged with them when they spread out to the lands of Neanderthals.

If that’s the case most of the people in this world are not pure sapiens but a combination of the above two.

The Replacement Theory

It is altogether a different story which is more bloodier and genocidal, The sapiens might have found Neanderthals to be annoying and they were genetically different and hence could no mate. If this is the case all humans are indeed pure sapiens

If replacement theory is true it is well the first ever human genocide on earth.

Yuval Noah Harari quotes: “They were too familiar to ignore, but too different to tolerate.”

And the last human species other than us got extinct 12000 years ago.

Why Humans rule this planet?

Why do humans rule the planet instead of any other animal?

Humans were able to rule this planet because of their unique ability to communicate with a well defined language.

The most accepted theory is that accidental genetic mutations caused sapiens brains enable to think in unique ways which no other animal could.

The Power of Myths

The cognitive revolution occurred between 70000 to 300000 years ago.

While all other animals too had a language it wasn’t as sophisticated and well defined as sapiens language and sapiens are the only living things which can talk about things we have never seen heard or smelled.

The Myths, Legend and Religion are all the ideas of humans. No other animals have the concept of the above three.

Gossip theory is one of the important Element which evolved the language.

The Power of Unity

Humans could collaborate in very large numbers For example- Chimps can’t form groups more than 50 even humans can’t usually go up to 150, yet humans were able to collaborate due to common beliefs and myths.

Hence to summarize after cognitive revolution humans began to have dual realities – physical reality and imagined reality.

And humans myths were not genetically based hence humans could replace all the myths and adopt to it easily and they didn’t have to wait for years to evolve to a change!

We humans have the same physical, mental and intellect capacity as we had about 30,000 years ago and the evolution of psychology happened even before the agriculture revolution at about 10,000 years ago.

The Gorge Theory

The instinct to binge eat sweet foods is an example that we haven’t changed even after 1000’s of years. A typical forager would gorge the ripe and sweet fruits and eat them as much as they can because they know that to find such foods are rare ,hence they gorge the food whenever rarely they find them. This instinct is still wired with us that’s why we binge eat junk foods and sweets.

But One thing is different. Ancient people had a very low private life and also very little loneliness compared to today ,where we are the opposite.

Individual Human Vs. Collective Humans

As an individual we are less skillful than an ancient forager. But as a human collective we are very far powerful and advanced than the ancient humans as a whole.

The dog is said to have been domesticated about 15000 years ago. since then it has been the most favored companion for most humans.

The Travel to Australia made humans at the top in food chain.

Yuval Noah Harari says that humans traveling across the sea and landing in Australia was one of the most important expeditions of human history.

It made the humans at the top of the food chain.

Large animals such as diprotodon which flourished in Australia earlier got extinct in years due to human activities. Most of the unique flora and fauna were completely eradicated by the humans and when humans learned to start a fire, they burned the entire forests at times as it was easier for them to get dead animals for food.

The humans then spread to America then to Mexico and South America, it was so rapid and finally humans controlled the land the settled in and they became the only species to have invaded large amounts of land in such a short span of time.

AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION -The Biggest Fraud in History?

Yuval Noah Harris call the agriculture revolution as history biggest fraud in history.

Yes it allowed humans to settle in one place and population increased manifold. Humans were also able to collect more food. But this in fact was done by sacrificing some things such as leisure time and created more hard work.

The agriculture revolution was actually a suffering for a human at an individual level.

Not only humans but also cows sheep’s and chicken suffered due to agriculture revolution.All these animals population had a population boom.At an evolutionary level Agricultural Revolution was a success, But at an individual level it was simply suffering.

Agriculture also made humans in contact with animals this in turn resulted in various epidemics causing deaths in thousands.

Hence agriculture revolution was a fraud.

The Ability to Write

The myths that surround us are the ones that dictate our lives, Like the Egyptians building pyramids and the American Declaration of Independence 

Writing changed the way we think, it literally changed our thoughts and the most prevailing language is numbers.

Yuval Noah Harari points out that unjust discrimination often gets worse and not better with time as of 2006 there will still 53 countries where a husband cannot be brought before law for raping his wife.

THE 3 UNIFIERS OF HUMANKIND

There are 3 unifiers which united us Humans in unprecedented ways, The 3 Major Unifiers of Humankind are-

1.Money

2.Empires

3.Religions

The Power Of Money

Another example of myth is Money. the value of it only exists in our minds. In a physical reality a money is just a paper which is literally of no use. But all of our minds believe in the value of that paper, That is why money is powerful.

The Contribution of Empires

Empires often have a negative shade on them, but they also have contributed things such as music, arts and the idea of governance and the world is fast turning into one single empire .For example- Global warming and commonly accepted principles such as human rights have an touch which is beyond national boundaries.

Religion

Religion is the third great unifier after money and empires and it sprout out during the time of agriculture revolution. The dilemma with a monotheistic religion is that it has to deal with an omnipotent god even when there is evil in the world.

 How can there be evil if god is good and caring?

Even there are new religions such a communism and capitalism. Like normal religions they have a holy book (example- the communist manifesto), a god (Karl Marx) who teaches the principle of  each according to his ability.

The Difference Between Science and Religion

 One difference between religion and science is that science is more humble and accepts the fact that humankind has still a long way to go and is ignorant of many things. 
Religion, however, assumes that all the things are well known and are written on the religious text.
 The religion assumes that humans are “all-knowing” whereas science assumes “ignorance”.

The Rise Of Modern Capitalism

The Per-Capita production has stayed constant for most of human history. However, since the birth of capitalism, per capita production has risen dramatically.

Creation Of Credit

The creation of credit facility is the fundamental reason why modern capitalism skyrocketed.Credit allows us to borrow money because we human collectively think that the future will be much better than the present.

Adam smith in his book “wealth of nations” suggest that increasing private profit will lead to the collective growth and prosperity of mankind as a whole.

In simple terms when you become rich, you benefit yourself and everyone. But this process happens only when you reinvest the profits. Saving the money and hoarding it will not create this cycle of prosperity.
So in order for Capitalism to work, The Profits received by a person should be invested in a new production.

Most Peaceful Times

The thing is we live in the most peaceful of times. There is no major war anywhere, More people are overfed than who live under poverty. Most People are getting access to healthcare than ever before.

The Key To Happiness

If happiness is based on pleasurable feelings, then increasing our happiness is a matter of increasing our bio chemicals. When we can alter them our moods can be changed.
Buddhism has closely studied happiness for many years. According to Buddhism, Happiness and sorrow are our own responsibility  and completely within our control. “If we train our mind properly, Happiness will be the result.”

CONCLUSION – THE FUTURE?

The next part of human history will be the evolution of consciousness and human identity and due to these changes the term “Human” will have an entirely different context.
In the past 1000s of years we have crossed all barriers of nature, reached at the very top of the food chain, having leaps in genetic and scientific areas.
Yet do we know what we really want? Why are we so unhappy then?

We have become godlike. Yet we don’t know what we want and is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?

I first was intrigued to know about Marcus Aurelius in the early months of 2024.That was when I got the copy of his book “Meditations”.

And by the way the book was never meant to be read by anyone nor published. It was written as a form of mental crutch for Marcus Aurelius himself to be a virtuous man until his last breath on earth. Another fun fact was that book was meant to be burnt after the death of Marcus Aurelius yet it was saved and published by one of the bookkeeper/ librarian who wanted it to be saved just so the world could know how such a brilliant mind existed.

But to be honest, I never could understand the book on it’s entirety. It could well have been because of it’s archaic English language. But there was something which helped me understand the core message of the book and it was a YouTube video by Michael Surgue ( I will provide the link to the entire video below).

A quick little background-Marcus Aurelius was known as one of the greatest (if not the best Roman Emperor of all time) and he was also the last of good emperors in Rome.

The video I mentioned above which introduced me to Marcus Aurelius and his book “Meditations” was Michael Surgue. The 40 odd minute lecture by Michael Surgue really made me curious to know more about Marcus Aurelius and his writings in Meditations.I never heard of any of his works and this video randomly popped up on my feed (god’s intention?).

The lecture starts from the very basic of philosophy for some minutes until he goes full “god mode” to explain what Stoicism is and more about Marcus Aurelius. The next paragraphs and the once that follow it are some of the nuggets I tried to extract from that video.

Stoicism is classified as the rejection of pleasure as the standard of human happiness and the stoics are not scared of anything but rejection of moral responsibility.

Michael Surgue gives an example (which all is about the POV of Marcus Aurelius) that a person can not control the weather nor the sun, A person can not control a leaky ship nor other people. And there is no point in worrying about tomorrow because tomorrow is not in your control. And he further quotes “do what is right today and let tomorrow take care of itself.”

For stoics moral value and obligation is the ultimate. Not sexual pleasure nor acceptance from other people not even life. A stoic will try to reach the most a human potential can offer and will not succumb to human pleasures.

Michael Surgue further explains that in Roman philosophy 2 philosophers stand out – One being Epictetus and the other Marcus Aurelius and the irony is such that Marcus Aurelius was an emperor and Epictetus was a slave showing that philosophy is the greatest equalizer.

Turning out to Marcus Aurelius he was the “ruler of the world” as Rome knows, He could have indulged in every set of sensory pleasure possible ranging from unlimited food and wine to sexual pleasures, Yet he restrained himself from it for 19 long years. When his predecessors indulged in every scandalous life possible, Marcus Aurelius abstained from it and could well be the only one whom power did not corrupt.

Something fascinating about Marcus Aurelius is that he not only preaches, but also act the same way he preaches stuff on his book.

Excuses should never be given. If a thing is in your control you can fix it. If not, There is nothing you can do about it ,so why worry? The very person who is angry about you will die just like you so it doesn’t really matter. So it’s best if you forget about what is troubling you. If you can fix it do it without complaining, If it seems difficult to do get help—But never complain.

Marcus Aurelius also prescribes to never fall on fear, to never let your imagination run wild, and to control feelings and emotions and a person living to his full potential need not worry about anything— including death.

The key idea behind Marcus Aurelius was that it was normal for a human being to face troubles, suffering and anxiety and one must make sure it doesn’t affect or torture one’s mind and must leave it nature or god. Do your best to try to control what is possible- Your self, intentions, actions and behavior – If these can be done one can live a well fulfilling and virtuous life.

And if one can not do that will lead to that person falling to a slide down and lead to harm to oneself and will never make them autonomous in the sense that one is always a slave to emotions and feelings and will forever be in this vicious cycle.

Marcus Aurelius lets us know that all men die, but not all men die whining.

I watched the movie “Gandhi” (1983) recently .What amazes me is how can such a good soul existed along with us, It is no exaggeration when Albert Einstein quoted  “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth” 

Surprisingly (not very) many still consider Gandhi only cared for Indians, But that was simply false.

Gandhi actually cared for everyone.

Gandhi was the one who lead the Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience Movement. During This time huge heaps of clothes manufactured by Britisher’s were burned.

And Lanchshire was the site of the world’s premier cotton-goods industry. The weaving towns of the region had flourished through trade aided by British Empire ensuring a ready supply of cheap, raw cotton.

Hence Gandhi went to Britain to visit the mills and apologize to the workers.

The British Weavers never let him Apologize and actually supported the boycott of British woven clothes.

The Darwen News, September 26, 1931 Quoted-

A crowd numbering three to four thousand people assembled at Darwen Station … when the train was heard to be entering the station, there was babel of eager voices, and every eye was focused on the station exit, but hopes were quickly dashed to the ground and the crowd was greatly disappointed when the first passenger to see the gathering shouted, “You all can go home. He got off at Spring Vale”.

Image- Gandhi Jayanti 2018: “‘Three cheers for Mr Gandeye, hip, hip … Hurrah!’, shouted the crowd, and then again and once more, for the third and loudest time…” 

Watch this beautiful video where Gandhi meets the British workers-

Gandhi is not only for India a hero of national history, whose legendary memory will be enshrined in the millennial epoch. -Gandhi has renewed, for all the peoples of the West, the message of their Christ, forgotten or betrayed.
-Romain Rolland

Gandhi cared for everyone.

He is the greatest human being of the 21st Century.