All consciences are not born equal – nor are they bred equal
Conscience is the inner voice that guides us to do right things and avoid wrong things. Many thoughtful people make decisions guided by their conscience, [...]
Restraint and renunciation are routes to detachment – bhakti is the fuel
While traveling, we need to know the routes to travel by as well as the fuel to travel with. If we know just the route [...]
Train yourself to hack the inner hacker
A major danger in today’s digital world is hacking, wherein unscrupulous people gain access to our confidential, valuable data. A similar danger plagues us all [...]
Faith is the reason for reason
Some people feel that faith and reason are incompatible. They argue that those who have faith in God are not thinking rationally and those who [...]
Renunciation is not for deprivation but for connection and satisfaction
Many people see renunciation negatively, as deprivation of enjoyable things. However, a dramatically different picture emerges if we shift our focus from the practice of [...]
We can’t choose our past, but we can choose our memories
When we meet someone who has an ugly scar, that sight may jar us. But once we get to know them and see their good [...]
The way of the body is the way of limitation and tribulation
People sometimes ask, “Why are bodily pleasures spoken of so negatively in the Bhagavad-gita?” The Bhagavad-gita recommends restraint in bodily indulgence not to deprive us [...]
Mental silence is more defining than verbal silence
Some people, especially those seeking to grow inwards, take a vow of silence, known in Sanskrit as mauna-vrata. The rationale for such a vow is [...]
Our connection with Krishna is both constitutional and cognitional
A fundamental insight of spiritual life is that everything is inter-connected. We are not isolated chance products existing temporarily, alone in the vast infinity of [...]
Don’t let hindsight hinder foresight
Hindsight refers to the lessons we learn from life; it emerges from our reflectiveness to evaluate what we did and what we could have done [...]
Don’t discriminate against discrimination
The word “discrimination” has nowadays acquired a strong negative connotation, as in caste discrimination or racial discrimination. While such discrimination is distasteful, it needn’t make [...]
Let dissatisfaction propel us vertically, not horizontally
If a person has fallen in an ocean and is floating in a stormy part, they may naturally get to a calmer part of the [...]
The mind is a maddening chatterbox – silence it by absorption
We probably know chatterboxes. Especially detrimental are chatterboxes who are also gossipers and pessimists, who speak negatively about people, about things, about us, about everything. [...]
The power to compel is not the power to convince
Sometimes, people in positions of authority can command and compel their subordinates to do their bidding. “My way or the highway” is a popular way [...]
Gita 13-14 explained
10-32: From practice to perfection in yoga 10-32 defines how one will achieve perfection when one is practicing yoga. 10-15: Realisation of brahman Now [...]
Use propinquity to grow in bhakti
Propinquity literally means proximity, the state of closeness to something. In psychology, propinquity studies analyze the effect of time and distance on human behavior. Suppose [...]
Happiness comes not by maximizing our possessions, but by minimizing our attachments
Today’s materialistic culture makes us believe that the more possessions we have, the happier we will be. However, such “happiness” lasts only as long as [...]
The Gita is not an exhortation to war; it is an exposition on dharma
Some people feel alarmed by the Bhagavad-gita’s battlefield setting, especially in today’s world where many rationalize brutal violence against the innocent in the name of [...]
Fixing a leaking tank is more important than filling the tank
Suppose we had a leaking tank that we want to keep filled with water. If we keep filling it without fixing the leak, our effort [...]
Guard against the impulse of the senses with the vigilance of the intelligence
Why do we sometimes do things that we didn’t intend to do, things that we in fact had resolved not to do? For explaining the [...]
Let the sight of death transform into insight about mortality
Death. We see it around us daily, all the more so nowadays with the media bringing global news about natural and manmade disasters. Despite such [...]