Can well-intentioned religious leaders find a cure for the world's intractable problems? This question raises two fundamental questions: "Well-intentioned" and "religion".

It is rare to find religious leaders who are well-intentioned in the sense who really want to resolve world issues without gaining anything from it. Religious or other leaders today always seem to have an eye on the prize. It is either that the leader wants to get the Nobel Peace Prize or the leader hopes to convert those receiving help into their religious beliefs. In the context of eastern beliefs and especially according to Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence when a good act is performed with such expectations the results are never what one desires.

It also raises the question of "religion" -- We understand religion in the narrow sense of the rituals that we practice and rituals really don't add up to religion. Merely because one reads the Bible every Sunday or a Muslim prays five times a day or a Hindu performs a host of rituals in a Temple everyday is not an indication of a pious soul if that ritual does not enhance the quality of that person's life.

It is not how many times we pray that is important but how well we incorporate that prayer into our daily lives and in our relationship with other human beings that is important. So, one can be a well-intentioned religious being but if one does not have the universal love and compassion in one's heart for all fellow beings then one's intentions become suspect.