Be Intense, not Tense
The pace and pressure of our contemporary lifestyle often makes us stressed. This tension is a nag that lurks constantly in the background of our [...]
Chemical highs cheat us of spiritual highs
All material pleasures are essentially chemical highs. Whenever we perceive any attractive objects with our senses, the corresponding sensory mechanisms secrete certain chemicals. This chemical [...]
Catch the eye, catch the I
Our eyes are often like voracious heat-seekers scanning the horizon for sensually hot objects. Our materialistic culture fully exploits our visual hunger. By planting seductive [...]
Can’t set things right? See things right
Whenever things go wrong in life, we can generally do something to set them right. But when death strikes, there’s nothing that we can do [...]
The way to say no to temptation is to say yes to devotion
We may hesitate to adopt authentic scripture-based spirituality because of the fear that we will have to give up too many worldly pleasures. Such fears [...]
The journey to realizing “I am not the body” begins with living “I am more than the body”
The Bhagavad-gita’s fundamental teaching (02.13) is that we are not material bodies but are spiritual beings. Even when we understand this intellectually, we can’t abruptly [...]
A game that we can’t win and can’t quit
We may get the question: “Why do we need to give up material desires like lust and greed?” Because of their two deadly characteristics: insatiability [...]
Materialism in a religious costume is still materialism
The Bhagavad-gita (02.42-43) deems as undiscriminating (avipashcitah) and shortsighted those people who think that religion has no purpose other than to provide material gains. These [...]
The soul is life’s amazing and empowering secret
When we come to know a pleasant secret, we feel amazed. Naturally therefore, we feel immensely amazed when we come to know life’s great secret. [...]
Be rooted in the unchanging, not the changing
The Bhagavad-gita (02.16) encourages us to meditate on the difference between the unchanging, the spiritual realm within, and the changing, the material realm without. Gita [...]
How our freedom of thought is lost – and regained
The Bhagavad-gita (2.44) indicates that worldly attachments, especially attachments to sex and money, abduct our consciousness and sabotage our prospects for inner stability. Whenever we [...]
Spiritual wisdom restores our freedom to choose our definition of happiness
The Bhagavad-gita (02.64) indicates that harmonizing our life with scriptural regulations is the way to happiness. Some of us may feel that regulating ourselves will [...]
Is that me?
In the Bhagavad-gita, when Arjuna asks Krishna about what his activity should be, Krishna's sequence of answers indicates that the question of identity takes priority [...]
Krishna is realer than reality
In our times of trouble, we may doubt, “Does Krishna really exist?” Gita wisdom turns this doubt on the head by prompting the doubt, “Does [...]
Value change, but don’t change values
Our present existence is bi-dimensional: we are spiritual beings residing in material bodies. Harmonizing the material and the spiritual dimensions of our existence is a [...]
Beyond lamentation to love
In the Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna’s instructions begin (2.11) and end (18.66) with a call to give up lamentation. Between these two calls is another call: [...]
Ever flowing, never flooding is the state of the serene consciousness
How can spiritual seekers stay peaceful amidst tempting circumstances? The Bhagavad-gita (2.70) shows the way with a metaphor from nature: just as rivers flow into [...]
Stop serving God as an advisor
Everyone wants to serve God, but as an advisor. This is true even, and especially, for atheists; their normally non-existent god pops into existence whenever [...]
Ending our history of dissatisfaction
The Bhagavad-gita (02.66)(02.67) indicates that when we let ourselves forget Krishna, we lose access to the inner happiness that comes from remembering him. Consequently, our [...]
Be concerned but not disturbed by change
The world around us is subject to constant change, change that is often unstoppable, uncontrollable and unpredictable. The Bhagavad-gita (02.16) indicates that the best way [...]
When the good seems better than the best
When we strive to practice devotional service, the power of illusion is ever-waiting to thwart our efforts. If we are casual about our practice, this [...]