Dear Jayb,

It is very wrong to use knowledge in order to control others. The Hindu scriptures and spiritual masters keep repeating: control thine own mind and thine own senses - not police others.

Unfortunately, even the best teachings can be distorted when the human mind falls prey to desires and unfortunately we also see this in India.

Segregation of classes and looking down on others is not ordained by Hindu scriptures. While I dispute the idea as if improving one's economic status is tantamount to "improving ones self", it is not a sin to improve oneself, quite the contrary and it is not a sin to try to improve one's economic status using ethical means.

However, only Vaishyas have by their nature this strong urge to improve their economic status, so if you have such an urge then you are probably a Vaishya. If two people marry where only one of them is eager to gather wealth, there arises the danger of discord in the family.

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"When ya dead, ya dead" is a a tautology, but can you ever die?

Your body dies and your brain dies with it. Understandably, you may not like the idea of this ultimate disability - not being able to know what's going on, not being able to do anything about it, not being able to enjoy pleasures, not even to think, just being there doing nothing, just as you probably are every night when in deep sleep. So you may contemptuously call this state "death", but only your body is dead, your abilities are dead, but nothing ever happened to you, the one who once had those abilities and now hasn't.

Since at some point in time (around when your body was born) you acquired those abilities, what's so strange about this which already happened once, happening again in the future?