George Foreman : the punching preacher

With Jackie Chan(above) while endorsing his cooking-machine and with Ali (below) The Rumble In The Jungle-1974.

Extracted from Muhammad Ali's biography

George Forman : My own conversion was truly religious. A deep pull from God changed my life. I had an experience in Puerto Rico in 1977 where, for a split second in my dressing room after I fought Jimmy Young, I was out of this world. I was dead, and then came back to life. Now you think about it. Everybody asks right before they die, if they could relive their life, how would they change it ? And I had another chance. I was getting ready to die, and I said to myself, 'If I could relive my life, I'd be nicer to people; I'd believe in Jesus'. And that's what I did. I've given my life to Jesus. So the next time I go to meet God, I can tell him I've lived my life right.

book: Muhammad Ali - His Life and Times by Thomas Hauser

Spirituality

Excerpts from Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe :

In the morning I took the Bible; and beginning at the New Testament, I began seriously to read it, and imposed upon myself to read a while every morning and every night; not tying myself to the number of chapters, but long as my thoughts should engage me. It was not long after I set seriously to this work till I found my heart more deeply and sincerely affected with the wickedness of my past life. The impression of my dream revived; and the words, "All these things have not brought thee to repentance," ran seriously through my thoughts. I was earnestly

begging of God to give me repentance, when it happened providentially, the very day, that, reading the Scripture, I came to these words: "He is exalted a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and to give remission." I threw down the book; and with my heart as well as my hands lifted up to heaven, in a kind of ecstasy of joy, I cried out aloud, "Jesus, thou son of David! Jesus, thou exalted Prince and Saviour! give me repentance!"

This was the first time I could say, in the true sense of the words, that I prayed in all my life; for now I prayed with a sense of my condition, and a true Scripture view of hope, founded on the encouragement of the Word of God; and from this time, I may say, I began to hope that God would hear me.

Now I began to construe the words mentioned above, "Call on Me, and I will deliver thee," in a different sense from what I had ever done before; for then I had no notion of anything being called deliverance, but my being delivered from the captivity I was in; for though I was indeed at large in the place, yet the island was certainly a prison to me, and that in the worse sense in the world. But now I learned to take it in another sense: now I looked back upon my past life with such horror, and my sins appeared so dreadful, that my soul sought nothing of God but deliverance from the load of guilt that bore down all my comfort. As for my solitary life, it was nothing. I did not so much as pray to be delivered from it or think of it; it was all of no

consideration in comparison to this. And I add this part here, to hint to whoever shall read it, that whenever they come to a true sense of things, will find deliverance from sin a much greater blessing than deliverance from affliction.

But, leaving this part, I return to my Journal.

My condition began now to be, though not less miserable as to my way of living, yet much easier to my mind: and my thoughts being directed, by a constant reading the Scripture and praying to God, to things of a higher nature, I had a great deal of comfort within, which till now I knew nothing of; also, my health and strength returned, I bestirred myself to furnish myself with everything that I wanted, and make my way of living as regular as I could.

Books

I have read this year

Unlike last year (2009), I did n't have much spare time to read fiction this year. Last year I spent most of my spare time reading favourite authours such as Dostoevsky, H.G Wells, Conan Doyle, Tagore and Satyajit Ray. But that doesn't mean this year I gave up reading altogether. I read anything that spontaneously came to me - such as magazines (esp. old collections of National Geographic) and non-fiction related to history,geography & spirituality. Ofcourse, reading continues to be my favourite hobby nowadays. I was no 'bookish' type to start with. In my first 20-odd years I hardly read anything - not even text-books. So I am making up for it.

The only fiction I read this year is Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Infact I started reading it in last November(09) and completed by April this year. (It was one of classics I chose to read last year.)The book made a huge impact on me that I kept re-reading it through out the year. Perhaps no other book had such a profound influence on me in recent years as this early 18th century classic.Though Robinson Crusoe is one of the heroes since my school-days, I was then only acquainted with the comics-book version.

The non-stop adventures in the high seas and eventually in the tropical-island makes this book unputdownable. The day-to-day problem solving methods described by Daniel Dofoe is still relevant which makes the book well ahead of its time. (I have wrote a detailed review of this 'mother of all modern-fiction' which I plan to publish here next year.) Inspired by the Robinson Crusoe adventures, I gained a new liking for an out-door life and even went for occasional boating trips in the lake. I also started lifting weights (after a gap of about 10-years) and other manual-labour to go with the self-reliant spirit of Robinson Crusoe.

Another reason for my liking of Robinson Crusoe is the amazing parallel between his life and mine. Like Crusoe, against the wishes of an authoritarian-father (to look after his business) I set out for a life of adventure, freedom and self-reliance and eventually ended up in the 'island of despair' (as Robinson Crusoe calls his island). But in my current state-of-mind, if given a choice between a posh, yuppie life in the big-city (such as Dubai) or laidback life in a remote island with loads & loads of books (to read and write), I may choose the later.