Importance of having a goal in life

It is extremely important to have some aim / goal in life. Without aim, the life becomes boring and our actions can even become destructive ourselves. We need not keep a very big aim always. Even a short, temporary goal will also do. But we need to make sure that we are following some aim all the time. It is also fine if we get failure while chasing it, but aimlessness is a very dangerous state of mind which needs to be handled very carefully.   

My talk on the topic of 'Ayurveda:Concepts and Misconceptions (in Marathi) at Senior Citizen Club, Sinhagad Road, Pune dated 7 April 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71Xmk2OiKHI&feature=youtu.be

This seems the news about my talk in the newspapers. But please note that I have not said this. To know what I said, please listen to my talk. 

Thanks a lot Ghooi sir for sharing this video!

Only a human can!

We can further eat even if we are full. This only a human can do. Animals eat when they are hungry and then they stop as they are full. They have inborn understanding of when to stop eating. We too have this inborn sense. But we can neglect the real hunger and can modify our behavior at our will. This seems the real problem. As we 'can' eat more even if not needed, we do it sometimes and that can lead to increased weight. 

But this need not be looked with pessimism. This ability to control our behavior presents new opportunities as it presents threats. Because having ability to control our behavior means that we can remain hungry at will as well. Which an animal can't do. So remaining hungry even when our body is demanding food is something which only a human can! 

बारूद जब बच्चा था

बारूद जब बच्चा था तब तितली पकड़ता था

वो अमिया भी चुराता था, पतंगों पर झगड़ता था

तुम उसका मांझा भी लूटते वो कुछ नही कहता

थोड़ा नाराज तो होता मगर फिर भी वो खुश रहता

मगर धोखे से तुमने उसका बचपन भी तो लूटा है

जरा देखो तो उसकी आंख में वो कब से रूठा है

जुगनुओं की रोशनी में दिल लगाने दो उसे

धूप के सिक्के उठा के गुनगुनाने दो उसे

बैगनी कंचे हथेली पर सजाने दो उसे

भोली भाली रहने दो, जिंदगी को बहने दो

बहुत जल्दी दुपट्टे ओढ़ना सिखला रहे हैं हम

क्यों जिंदगी को रात से मिलवा रहे हैं हम

वो पल्लू से चिपककर मां की चलती थी तो अच्छी थी

अकेले छोड़कर उसको क्या कहना चाह रहे है हम

एक गहरी नींद से जगाने दो उसे

धूप के सिक्के उठाके गुनगुनाने दो उसे

बैगनी कंचे हथेली पर सजाने दो उसे

भोली भाली रहने दो, जिंदगी को बहने दो

बारूद जब बच्चा था तब तितली पकड़ता था।

- Prasoon Joshi

NHS Homeopathy ends in London

• By Marsh

Last week, the BBC covered the latest development in our campaign to stop NHS homeopathy, revealing that the Royal London Hospital for Integrative Medicine will no longer be allowed to offer homeopathy consultations to NHS patients, effectively ending NHS support for homeopathy in the capital:

NHS homeopathy ending in London

A major centre of homeopathy will no longer be able to spend NHS money on the controversial practice.

The Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine – formerly the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital – will stop providing NHS-funded homeopathic remedies in April.  Read more >>

As it transpires, the hospital should not have been giving NHS patients homeopathy, as the treatment was already on the list of treatments that would not be supported by NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups in London – as was reported in the coverage of our campaign in The Times:

Curbs on hospital linked to Queen over rule breach

The hospital where the Queen’s homeopath works has been banned from offering homeopathy to NHS patients for disobeying health service policy.

An audit found that the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine had been wrongly charging the alternative treatment to taxpayers.  Read More >>

The decision to end NHS homeopathy at the facility is no surprise to us – we have been tracking spending on homeopathy in the area since 2014, when we were told by 17 London CCGs that they had no way of knowing how much of their funding was being spent on homeopathy (though we subsequently came to estimate the spend to be around £3m per year).

During the last four years, we discovered that each of the CCGs in the city had a policy which prevented funding from being spent on homeopathy, yet we were aware that the RLHIM was certainly treating NHS patients with homeopathy. To try to get to the bottom of things, we wrote to CCGs in London encouraging them to investigate whether their policies were being breached at the RLHIM.

Partly as a result of our encouragement, in April 2017 NHS Camden CCG undertook an audit of 100 of their patients at the Royal London Hospital for Integrative Medicine. The audit found significant non-compliance with their policy on complementary medicine, with 41 out of the 41 homeopathy treatments tracked by the audit breaching the policy.

As a result of the audit, the CCG reiterated that the RLHIM was not to treat any NHS patients with homeopathy – bringing to an end the homeopathy service at the facility, and across London as a whole.

The end of homeopathy in London is a major milestone in our campaign to stop NHS homeopathy, and has taken many months and years of our work to understand NHS policies, write to CCGs and health bodies, make Freedom of Information requests, liaise with media outlets and more. If you feel, as we do, that this work has been worthwhile, you can sign up to make a one-off or monthly donation to Good Thinking, and help us keep our work going. 

With the end of homeopathy in London, following our previous successes in the North West of England and our ongoing project to have the Department of Health add homeopathy to the NHS Blacklist, only the Bristol and Glasgow regions continue to spend NHS resources on these ineffective treatments. Our attention, and our campaign, turns to those cities next.

We like to thank all the people who gave us help and support in our campaign so far – including Bindmans LLP, Alan Henness from the Nightingale Collaboration, Prof Edzard Ernst, Skeptics in the Pub groups around the country, and the many supporters of evidence-based medicine who follow our work. With your support, we can bring NHS wastage on homeopathy to a close, and help make sure that limited resources are spent more effectively.

Link: https://goodthinkingsociety.org/nhs-homeopathy-ends-in-london/