Two ways to deal with resentment
Resentment is a toxic but telling emotion. To understand what it is telling us, we need to attentively analyze its cause. Usually resentment arises from [...]
How can we be grateful when we don’t feel grateful?
When we strive to cultivate gratitude, we often find it elusive. At one moment, we feel grateful; sometime later, we feel the opposite: fearful, fretful, [...]
How to feel grateful when life gets tough?
Here are two thought-exercises: Dwell on the wonders of life: Though life can be demanding, even devastating, it also features much beauty, artistry and sublimity. [...]
Why gratitude is especially difficult in today’s world
Even when we have enough of the things we need, we don’t always feel grateful for them. Why is that? Because we don’t see the [...]
Why is it so difficult to feel grateful?
If asked specifically to list things we are grateful for, we all can easily list several things. Yet during our daily life, we don’t so [...]
Gita 02.14 explained
2.11-2.30: counters first argument – compassion In this context Arjuna says, I am concerned because my relatives will not be there with me, and I [...]
The first application of spiritual knowledge
Suppose a medically well-informed person gets a disease with scary symptoms. If they know that those symptoms are an inevitable and non-lethal part of the [...]
How the mind is a robber who pretends to be a well-wisher
Suppose a robber comes to our house pretending to be our well-wisher and tells us that our car which we had parked on a nearby [...]
How to get the mind to go along with us?
We sometimes resolve to do certain things that are important for us. But our mind stubbornly refuses to go along. Anticipating our predicament, the Bhagavad-gita [...]
How to get away from the mind when it troubles us?
When someone speaks negative things constantly, we may feel the need to get away from them. We may feel a similar need when our mind [...]
How to ensure that our phones are connecting us, not disconnecting us
In today’s fast-moving world, we seek phones to stay connected with our loved ones while we are physically away from them. But when we are [...]
Gita 20-23 explained
10-32: From practice to perfection in yoga 10-32 defines how one will achieve perfection when one is practicing yoga. 16-23: Realization of Paramatma Now Sri [...]
How depressed desire leads to depression
Suppose someone riding a cycle pedals too fast and falls into a ditch. On getting up, they decide that pedaling caused their accident and refuse [...]
Three benefits of fasting
Fasting is a time-honored practice in most of the world’s great traditions. The Bhagavad-gita too urges us to minimize our eating (18.52) — one way [...]
How are material achievement and spiritual achievement different?
We all want to achieve something special. Does this drive to achieve need to be renounced if we want to grow spiritually? Not really; we [...]
How can we know when we are gossiping?
Most of us may agree that it’s not good to gossip. We may even believe that we never gossip. But to be sure about that, [...]
How gossip can go dangerously out of control
Suppose we pushed a small snowball down a hill just for fun. It rolls down out of our sight and we forget about it. But [...]
How to speak an unpalatable truth?
Truth is unpalatable — we may quote this saying while speaking to others some truth that is likely to hurt them. Yes, we all are [...]
Do we choose our interests or do our interests choose us?
We all can think of several things in our life that are important for us, yet they just don't interest us. Why can't we simply [...]
When our interests aren’t in your best interests …
The word ‘interests’ can refer either to the things that we find interesting or to the things that are beneficial and rewarding for us, as [...]
How we become both villains and victims …
Typical movies have two characters: one who acts in villainous ways and one who is victimized by those villainous actions. But suppose a movie featured [...]