Never lose faith in your potential to improve, or you will court cowardice and malice
Suppose a patient loses faith in the potential of any treatment to cure them. They will become sicker, suffer more and soon die. What applies [...]
Between naiveté and cynicism is the courage to trust
When we are inexperienced, we may naïvely believe that everyone is entirely trustworthy. Exploiting our naiveté, self-interested people will sooner or later take us for [...]
Where we are doesn’t determine who we are
We might sometimes be at a terrible place in life — we may be addicted to something harmful. What could make us feel worse is [...]
Words are not just vehicles of thought, but also engines of thought
We often think of words as tools for expressing our thoughts. When we expand our vocabulary by memorizing new words, we usually desire to express [...]
Respect the dark within you, to keep it within you
Suppose we had a serious enemy out to destroy us. We couldn’t afford to take them lightly; we would need to treat them with respect. [...]
Gita 5.24 explained
Now Sri Krishna talks about turning inwards once again Bg 5.24 yo ’ntaḥ-sukho ’ntar-ārāmas tathāntar-jyotir eva yaḥ sa yogī brahma-nirvāṇaṁ brahma-bhūto ’dhigacchati Word for word: [...]
Gita 5.15 explained
Bg 5.15 nādatte kasyacit pāpaṁ na caiva sukṛtaṁ vibhuḥ ajñānenāvṛtaṁ jñānaṁ tena muhyanti jantavaḥ Word for word: na — never; ādatte — accepts; kasyacit — [...]
Gita 5.12 explained
Bg 5.12 yuktaḥ karma-phalaṁ tyaktvā śāntim āpnoti naiṣṭhikīm ayuktaḥ kāma-kāreṇa phale sakto nibadhyate Word for word: yuktaḥ — one who is engaged in devotional service; [...]
Gita 5.11 explained
Now what is the motivation for such a person to work? If one is not involved, one should not be having emotional desire for the [...]
Even if we can’t control our emotions, we can control the attention we give to our emotions
Suppose some hawker comes near our property and starts peddling their wares. If we pay attention to them, they will start promoting more loudly, excitedly, [...]
Regulate emotion with reason, animate reason with emotion
Reason and emotion are two of our fundamental human faculties. By reason, we can be orderly, logical, consistent. By emotion, we can be creative, intuitive, [...]
Fulfilling our every desire won’t make us happy, focusing on our most important desire will
We all have many desires that remain unfulfilled because we don’t have the necessary resources. For example, we may want to wear the trendiest clothes, [...]
Look up and things will look up
When things start going downhill, the more we think about the things around us, the more we feel depressed. To raise our spirits, we need [...]