We can’t reach new planets without leaving the earth
The prospect of traveling to new planets is both stimulating and unnerving. It’s stimulating because of the excitement ofexploring uncharted territory. And it’s unnerving because [...]
Are we like doctors who give medicines to everyone except themselves?
Doctors going to epidemic-struck areas are extremely careful to vaccinate themselves from the disease they intend to treat. Gita wisdom informs us that the entire [...]
When life makes us emotionally seasick…
Seasickness is caused by the continuous up-down movement of the ship due to the sea-waves. Similarly, when we travel through life, its ups and downs [...]
Materialism centers on gaining; spirituality centers on regaining
All of us have the drive to achieve, which we can direct either materially or spiritually. To aid us in choosing correctly, the Bhagavad-gita contrasts [...]
Do others have to pay for our enjoyment?
When we enjoy materially, we often fail to notice that others have to pay for our enjoyment. Here are a few examples: 1. When one [...]
Rise from touch-me-not to touched-me-not
We all need a sense of security in our lives. Often, we seek that security by trying to build a cocoon around us, by trying [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Happiness through a perpetual tickling machine?
When children are tickled, they start laughing. Does their laughter indicate that they are happy? Not really. If happiness could be had just by tickling, [...]
Don’t let your assumptions about happiness deprive you of happiness
“I want to go closer to Krishna, but it requires following so many rules that will restrict my happiness. How can I give up happiness?” [...]
View the world as an object for reciprocation, not recreation or rejection
Many prospective spiritualists have the question: “To become spiritual, do we have to turn our back to the world?” Gita wisdom offers an unequivocal answer: [...]
Renunciation is super-ambitious, not un-ambitious
Many people assume that renunciation symptomizes a lack of the ambition to struggle for material pleasures. Such people deride as unambitious those who renounce worldly [...]
Go down the consequence lane of memory to go up the devotion lane of life
Our mind loves to go down the pleasure lane of memory, especially when those pleasures are materialistic. It not only glues itself to those memories [...]
The war against lust is a war of attrition
A war of attrition refers to a war in which victory requires wearing out the opponent. As spiritual seekers, we need to wage war against [...]
Surrender to Krishna is difficult, but surrender to the body is doomed
Surrender is a word that often brings negative connotations, making us imagine that it involves forced submission to an aggressor. But surrender is simply a [...]
Let’s keep our intelligence FIT
The Bhagavad-gita (5.22) states that those who are intelligent never delight in sense pleasures because they understand how it always ends in misery. This verse [...]
To give up the ocean for a drop is a rank bad bargain
“I would like to make spiritual advancement, but giving up worldly pleasures is too much of a price to pay for it.” Such thoughts may [...]
Be not allured by the pleasure that is pregnant with suffering
Why does the Bhagavad-gita ask us to regulate indulgence in sensual pleasures? To protect us from unnecessary suffering. The Gita (05.22) states that such pleasures [...]
Krishna’s ways may not always be pleasant, but they are always benevolent
When things go wrong and disrupt our lives, a doubt may trouble us: is Krishna really my well-wisher? While dealing with such doubts, we need [...]
Tolerance is the stopper between temptation and transgression
“I have been striving for selflessness and purity, yet I feel repeatedly tempted by selfish and impure pleasures. Will I never make spiritual advancement?” As [...]
Self-denial opens the door to self-fulfillment
Whenever Gita wisdom encourages us to perform any act of self-denial like fasting on certain holy days, the purpose is not self-torture, but self-fulfillment. Fulfilling [...]