The essence of the fire-sacrifice is not lighting a fire without but lighting the fire within
Fire-sacrifices seem quaint or queer to many: “What’s the point of lighting a fire and putting ghee, grain and fruits in it?” The point is [...]
The Gita’s choice is not about nonviolence or violence – it’s about disintegration or integration
The Bhagavad-gita’s asking Arjuna to fight understandably unnerves many people. Though the Gita’s framing narrative involves choosing violence over nonviolence, its core is far deeper. [...]
See beyond the diversity of forms to the unity of substance and purpose
Racial, religious and other forms of sectarian violence rend the world today. Such violence may have complex social, economic, cultural and political causes, but underlying [...]
Reposition the mind as the object of observation instead of its subject
Seekers often question: “My mind keeps getting distracted from Krishna. What can I do?” Make the mind the object of observation, answers Gita wisdom. Usually, [...]
Be not allured by the blame game or the claim game – stay focused on Krishna
Blame game usually involves pointing the blaming finger outwards to others whenever things go wrong. The blaming finger can also point upwards or inwards. When [...]
Don’t just battle over your choices – choose your battles
Battling over our choices refers to struggling to make the right choice while staying in the presence of temptation. Choosing our battles refers to deciding [...]
A self-answering question points to factors beyond the self-evident
A question that contains the answer within itself raises questions about the question. For example, suppose someone asks, “After the diners sat down at the [...]
Don’t treat a game like life or life like a game
Many people treat games as if they are as important as life itself. Human culture has always featured sports as a form of recreation, but [...]
Love God, not the concept of God
The concept of God refers to an intellectualized or sentimentalized notion of God that is more a projection of one’s own preference than the revelation [...]
Don’t blunt the intelligence with indulgence; sharpen it with abstinence
Our intelligence is like a knife. It can cut through the surface appearance of things and see their deeper nature. Just as a knife with [...]
Better to be on the wrong side of history than on the wrong side of reality
Materialists sometimes accuse spiritualists, “You people are so old-fashioned, holding on to regressive ideas like sexual restraint. The whole world is giving up such ideas [...]
The mind herds us and hurts us and hurts others through us
Under the influence of the mind, we often do things that hurt us and hurt others too. For example, being impelled into a fit of [...]
Evil arises not from Krishna’s intention, but from the soul’s volition
People often ask, “If God, the creator of world, is good, why does evil exist in the world?” Evil arises not from Krishna’s intention but from [...]
Our intelligence can be overcome by illusion, yet it is also the key to overcome illusion
To practice spiritual life means to wage an inner war against the illusion created by our lower desires, especially lust. The Bhagavad-gita (03.36-43) vividly outlines [...]
To see life’s positive side, understand what life is and what its positive side is
Some people find the Bhagavad-gita pessimistic: “Why harp on life’s problems? Why not see its positive side?” Actually, the Gita doesn’t harp on life’s problems [...]
Illusion is the ultimate thief of not just our property but also our very identity
Suppose thieves steal all the property from their victims. Still, the victims can get relief by, say, withdrawing money from their bank by using their [...]
Harmonize conceptions of the divine with revelation by the divine through surrender to the divine
Different traditions whose ranks incorporate not just lay people but also serious seekers and even saintly seers have varying conceptions of the divine. Why? Because [...]
Without devotion, renunciation comes painfully; with devotion, even liberation comes joyfully
“To avoid karmic bondage, renounce the world.” This widespread notion governs Arjuna’s reasoning at the start of the Bhagavad-gita. However, the Gita recommends an alternative [...]
The worship of the demigods reaches Krishna, but the worshiper doesn’t
An oft-quoted Sanskrit saying states, “Just as water falling from the sky reaches the ocean, the worship offered to the various gods reaches Keshava.” Does [...]
Krishna is disinterested, but not uninterested
Disinterested refers to neutrality, a lack of partisanship, whereas uninterested refers to apathy, a lack of concern. Krishna is disinterested in the sense that he [...]
Krishna is not an explanation for the unexplainable – he is the explanation for explanability
Some people conceive of God as an explanatory alternative to science: “There’s so much about the world that science can’t explain; we need God to [...]