The real me is beyond jeans and genes
Being influenced by our superficial culture we often evaluate others based on externals. We may similarly evaluate ourselves too, imagining, say, that we are lovable [...]
Decrease the perception of effort and increase the anticipation of reward by intellectual conviction
When we practice spiritual life, our mind holds us back by making us feel that the effort is too much and the reward too little. [...]
Those who let the culture fill their brain with junk beliefs, fill their belly with junk food
Junk food is fast emerging as a serious health hazard. It is a major cause of obesity, which is rapidly becoming a leading global cause [...]
Reason is confounded not by faith, but by faithlessness
Does faith in God confound reason, as atheists argue? Not at all. Far from confounding reason, faith is the foundation of reason. The very idea [...]
Don’t pander; ponder
Some people ask, “Isn’t it our nature to be pleasure-seeking? Why then does the Bhagavad-gita ask us to give up pleasure?” The Gita doesn’t ask [...]
Progress from questioning to understanding by patient hearing
While hearing philosophy, whenever we get questions, we often expect immediate and immediately intelligible answers. However, to understand the answers, we frequently need conceptual background – [...]
Faith requires not the rejection of logic, but its subordination
Some people ask, “Faith in God requires believing illogical things such as his lifting a mountain. How can we reject logic like this?” Faith in [...]
Recover the soul; don’t re-cover it
We may get the question: “If I am a soul different from my body, then why can’t I realize myself as such?” Because of our [...]
Don’t let propensity for immensity obscure the primacy of intimacy
Many people conceive God’s greatness in terms of size and imagine him to be a giant being pervading the whole universe. Gita wisdom accommodates such [...]
Krishna is not a jealous God; he is a zealous God
The Western monotheistic traditions frequently depict God to be jealous; he forbids the worship of any other gods and even approves the destruction of their [...]
What characterizes civilization is not the presence of comforts, but the purification of consciousness
Many people consider as civilized societies that have comforts such as cars, cellphones and computers. Societies without these are deemed primitive, backward and uncivilized. Such [...]
To shift our emotional center of gravity, we need gravity much more than emotionality
Spiritual growth essentially means shifting our emotional center of gravity. The center of gravity is the point at which all the mass of an object [...]
Don’t let disagreement degenerate into disrespect
“How can we best deal with our disagreers?” The Bhagavad-gita (18.03) offers a healthy model. Here Krishna states the position of those who recommend renunciation [...]
The perfection of devotional learning is not just learning but also learning to keep learning
Learning can refer to both the process and the product: the process of learning, and its product, becoming a person with learning. In learning about [...]
Krishna lights the world without and the world within
When we are caught in darkness and are struggling to find our way, if someone provides light to show the way, we naturally want to [...]
The key to offering ourselves to Krishna is offering our mind and intelligence to him
“How can we remember Krishna while doing our duties in the world?” This question often perplexes devotees. Let’s look closely at the Bhagavad-gita verse (08.07) [...]
The soul is indestructible in constitution but destructible in cognition
The Bhagavad-gita in its second chapter repeatedly stresses the indestructibility of the soul. Yet the same Gita in its sixteenth chapter talks twice (16.09; 16.21) [...]
Fanatical materialism banishes materialists to the Siberia of hallucination
Materialism is today’s prominent worldview. Most people may not consciously choose it, but they adopt it subconsciously. Why? Because the contemporary culture aggressively glamorizes material [...]
Knowledge in ignorance is tiny, at best vastly tiny
‘Knowledge in ignorance’ is an oxymoron, the placing of contradictory words next to each other to convey a deeper meaning. To understand this oxymoron, let’s [...]
The mind’s feelings are frequently the soul’s failings
We are sometimes led astray by the mind’s feelings. For example, we may eat a lot because it feels good, but later it spoils our [...]
Life may not be logical but it is teleological
Teleology refers to ‘the perception of purposeful development towards an end.’ (American Heritage Dictionary) ‘Life is teleological’ means that whatever happens in our life is [...]