We can’t avoid being haunted, but we can choose who haunts us
As aspiring devotees, our devotional determination may waver when we are confronted with temptations of material pleasures. Often these temptations haunt us like ghosts; they [...]
Those who make donkeys the Gita’s role models sentence themselves to donkey-like roles
“Work is worship is the central teaching of the Bhagavad-gita.” So claim many people. If they were right, then wouldn’t it make the creature that [...]
Don’t let materialist monomania mess your life
Our life is becoming increasingly dominated by machines, mechanistic thinking and mechanical behavior. Machines: As technology pervades our life, we spend more time with machines [...]
Be restrained to avoid being strained
Many of us feel strained by the pressure of having so many things to do. Actually, our strain frequently originates not as much in how [...]
Is the social mirror making a fool out of us?
The social mirror refers to society’s opinion that lets us know how we look in its eyes. This mirror often perverts the reality, especially in [...]
Krishna is a trans-cosmic enjoyer; don’t reduce him to a cosmic constable
Some people think that the purpose of God’s existence is to protect them while they enjoy life. Krishna as God in his highest manifestation [...]
Don’t let inner burdens add to your outer burdens
We often feel strained by the pressure of having so many things to do. Even if we have a heavy workload, our strain frequently comes [...]
Devotion kindles an inner drive that is beyond jeers and cheers
Our drives determine our destiny. Gita wisdom reveals our ultimate destiny: eternal, ecstatic love for Krishna. For realizing this destiny, we need to have a [...]
Find the balance between fidelity and flexibility by sincerity
When we try to live according to traditional devotional culture in our contemporary material surroundings, we face a constant challenge: “How much do I stick [...]
Checked, but never checkmated
Practicing spiritual life in the material world is challenging. This challenge exists at all times because materialism is inherent to the material world. The challenge [...]
Mirrors make us self-conscious; the Gita makes us conscious of the self
Few things make us as self-conscious as a mirror. The sight of a mirror often makes us involuntarily check and adjust our hair, our dress [...]
Fasting is an opportunity for feasting
Some people think of fasting as a means of achieving mastery over their body. They fast to increase their willpower by refusing to let bodily [...]
Morning is the time for mooring our heart to Krishna
For us as aspiring devotees, worldly temptations pose formidable challenges to our spiritual integrity. The Bhagavad-gita (02.67) indicates that these temptations are like stormy winds [...]
The harmony of the sword and the word
We often dread communal violence. So, we frequently feartheocracies due to their likely intolerance towards people who don’t abide by their sectarian beliefs. Naturally then, [...]
Hubris is the recipe for debris.
Debris usually doesn’t need a recipe. It results from a violent enough force that reduces an attractive structure to an unattractive mess. A recipe, on [...]
“So much, O Krishna, do I long for you”
Love is characterized by desire: strong, sustained, single-pointed desire. As spiritual seekers, we aspire to awaken our love for Krishna. In the ultimate sense, that [...]
We are aliens on earth
The possibility of aliens coming to the earth fascinates the contemporary imagination: "Can we encounter life-forms from other parts of the cosmos?" Science fiction regularly [...]
Tried, tired – and retired
All of us want to do something new. Andour craving for newness seems ready to be fulfilled byall the new gadgets, new dresses and other [...]
What are our thoughts giving us:frustration or jubilation?
Most of our thoughts run along the default rails of eating, mating, sleeping and defending. These activities may be necessary bodily functions, but our thoughts [...]
Don’t waste time on the mind’s futile pastime: comparison
As soon as people enter our familiarity perimeter, our mind starts comparing us with them. Comparison is its favorite pastime. However, unlike Krishna’s pastimes that [...]
Guard against the vice of the wise
We often think of those with developed intellect as wise. We may even see a developed intellect as an indicator, or at least a facilitator, [...]