Listen to your Lord, not to your lust
Within all of us lies an evil voice that lies. By promising pleasure, this voice prompts us to pander to our senses. But sensual pleasure [...]
Cosmic administration is like a country’s administration, not a continent’s
Westerners who hear about the many gods within the Vedic pantheon often equate this conception with the polytheism widespread in the Greco-Roman culture that was [...]
Focus on the present, but don’t fragment it from the future
“Live in the present” is a popular self-help slogan that can enhance our concentration and contribution in whatever we do. However, if this slogan becomes [...]
Assimilation and application are essential for transformation
We live in an era of information overload. Being bombarded with news, updates and notifications, we often flip to the next thing even without reading [...]
For self-improvement, go beyond self-criticism and self-congratulation to self-realization
Some people say that to succeed in life, we should be hard on ourselves. We should unrelentingly critique ourselves, unsparingly punish ourselves for our mistakes [...]
Don’t expect illusion to get out — you get out
“Get out” we may tell someone who has hurt us terribly. In the past, kings would exile offenders from their kingdom, with such banishment being [...]
Compartmentalization is a mental mechanism for self-deception
When we strive to live according to some elevated principles, there results an inevitable tension between our precepts and our practices. The level that we [...]
The richness of life is more important than the riches of life
Our culture makes us believe that gaining more and more wealth will make us happy. While riches can ease our life-journey in some ways, obsession [...]
Devotion helps us discover the richness of life
We often go through our lives with a feeling of chronic impoverishment. The culture around us specializes in showing us all the things we don’t [...]
Lust locks the soul in an unholy embrace
When two people engage in an illicit relationship, their embrace is unholy. Lust is such an insidious partner that locks us in an unholy embrace. The [...]
Money is one measure of value, not the only measure of value
We live in a materialistic, money-centered culture that is almost mercenary in its obsession with money. Money is essential for our survival, so it is [...]
Don’t just talk about yourself – talk to yourself
People who like to talk about themselves can come off as egotistic when they describe their successes and as whiners when they explain (away) their [...]
Regulation is a protection measure, not a trust issue
Suppose a teenager is to stay alone at home. When his parents are leaving, they remind him to bolt the door and activate the security [...]
Set your sight and don’t let phantoms deflect your flight
When a plane streaks through the sky, its speed is often impressive. It achieves that trajectory by setting its sight on the destination right at [...]
If anything can mean anything, ultimately nothing means anything
A contemporary intellectual trend is deconstructionism, which some nihilists appropriate to invent all sorts of creative and destructive interpretations of things. Nihilists argue that there [...]
What we don’t have is not the problem – what we don’t see is
We frequently crave for the many things we don’t have, things often aggressively glamorized by today’s corporate controlled media. Such greed and its concomitant dissatisfaction [...]
When we desert Krishna, our heart becomes a desert
The word desert can refer to both a place and an action. As a place, it refers to a region without water. As an action, [...]
To see differences as fundamental and final is delusional
Across the world, we see a staggering variety among people in races, castes, classes, religions and nationalities. Such differences often trigger conflicts. But they don’t [...]
Walking away from problems is not the same as running away from them
When we are driving for an important and urgent meeting, if someone cuts ahead of us, we may decide not to chastise or sue that [...]
Asking whether God exists is like asking whether a circle is circular
Suppose a child asks us, “Is a circle circular?” We wouldn’t just answer affirmatively; we would explain a circle’s definition, thereby underscoring the question’s redundance. [...]
To mistake a ceasefire to be a treaty is suicidal
Suppose two warring armies decide to stop fighting. But one army thinks that they have arrived at a treaty that settles the dispute, while the [...]