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 [...]
Never make irreversible decisions based on reversible emotions
Our emotions can easily mislead us. When we become strongly emotional, we tend to make snap decisions. Such decisions can be detrimental, sometimes devastatingly detrimental. [...]
To keep fighting battles that are already lost is to be lost
Suppose in a cricket match a batsman had a great opportunity to score on a loose delivery, but somehow they missed that opportunity. They would [...]
Those who fight their inner devils are the ultimate daredevils
Many people like to be daredevils. Wanting a sense of adventure and achievement, they dive into extreme sports. While those living on the edge may [...]
The Gita is not inciteful, it is insightful
Self-interested people sometimes pursue their own agendas by inciting others to violence. And in today’s globally connected world, such hate speech can trigger widespread frenzy [...]
The lesser the structure in our life, the greater the rupture the mind can cause in our life
Our mind is restless (Bhagavad-gita 06.34) – it’s like a child. Children can spend their entire day or even their entire life playing with toys. [...]
To be thoughtful, attribute every thought first to the mind
Our mind is like a thought-factory that churns out thoughts constantly. Most of these thoughts are irrelevant and unproductive, some are dark and destructive, and [...]
Being conscious of the body is not bodily consciousness, being conscious only of the body is
Suppose a car driver is obsessed with their car. They drive around just to parade how attractive it is and to find some ways to [...]
Happiness is a state of being, not a status symbol
People often pretend to be happy. No matter how distressed they are, they plaster a smile on their face in front of others and say [...]
Education centers not on building our resume, but on broadening our reality
Today’s academic culture often makes students obsessed with building their resume. When they have to decide which course to take or which co-curricular or extracurricular [...]
A missed apostrophe can be a catastrophe – we are God’s, not Gods
Some people hold, “We are all Gods, for we are all the same impersonal omnipresent spirit that is commonly known as God.” This monistic claim [...]
To resolve conflicts, begin with the 1% commonality, not the 99% differences
Whenever we have a conflict with someone, our attention naturally goes to the area of conflict: we want to do things in one way; they, [...]
Those who are not humble often help us to become humble
Dealing with arrogant people can be annoying and draining. To view such people positively, we can see interactions with them as opportunities to become humble. [...]
Scripture is meant to be not just mapped, but also mined
Suppose we are in a territory rich with buried treasures. We may need to initially map the territory, but we will become rich only when [...]
Exploiting others’ weaknesses doesn’t make us strong – overcoming our own weaknesses does
Some people see the world primarily in terms of power struggles. They center their life on maneuvering and manipulating to get the upper hand over [...]
Intelligence means to know which thoughts are to be pinned and which to be binned
Suppose we regularly use sticky notes. If too many notes clutter our notice board, we would need to sort them. We would pin those that [...]
Krishna is just one thought away from us – always
When we practice spiritual life, we may feel forlorn: “I am trapped in this material world and Krishna is in the spiritual world, so far [...]
Don’t just work on our conditionings – work with our conditionings
Suppose someone has a condition with no easy cure, such as blindness. Though they may keep trying to cure that condition, they will also work [...]
Don’t let our desire to use something for Krishna become greater than our desire for Krishna
Suppose we are driving to meet someone dear to us, and we get a desire to offer them a special gift. But we get so [...]