Gita 14.12 explained
Link to purport by A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada Transcript of Bhakti-Shastri class on this verse by Chaitanya Charan Bg 14.12 lobhaḥ pravṛttir ārambhaḥ [...]
How greed moves our goalpost endlessly
Moving the goalpost means unfairly altering the target of an endeavor while it is being pursued. Let’s see how greed often moves our goalpost. Suppose [...]
As long as we lack purity, we live in poverty, no matter how much money we have
We often equate poverty with a lack of money. And that's true at one level. If we don't have food, if we don't have clothes [...]
Seeking satisfaction through accumulation increases accumulation, not satisfaction
We all want to be happy. However, where we seek happiness determines whether we will become happy or not. Frequently, we look for happiness through [...]
Passion increases desire not just in intensity but also in quantity
We may see responsible people become alcoholics and wonder: how can anyone get so bound by desire? Gita wisdom explains that our desires grow by [...]
The mind makes us juggle too many balls – and then makes us drop them all
Some circus artists juggle many balls, expertly catching them all before they fall. Still, even they have their limits – they can’t juggle too many [...]
Trying to be materially over-productive is spiritually counter-productive
Suppose somebody who can lift a twenty-five-kg weight tries to lift a fifty-kg-weight – they will injure themselves. We too similarly hurt ourselves when we [...]
Our happiness depends not as much on our standard of living as on our standard of longing
We usually seek to improve our standard of living. If we have a high standard of living, we will have the trappings of success; society [...]
To not consider our capacity is to cripple our capacity
Suppose a child, on seeing an adult lift a heavy weight, tries to lift a similar weight. That child will end up injured, unable to [...]
To change your life, change the narrative of your life
Suppose three people are carrying bricks. When asked what they are doing, the first replies sullenly, “Can’t you see? I am carrying bricks.” The second [...]
What we don’t have is not the problem – what we don’t see is
We frequently crave for the many things we don’t have, things often aggressively glamorized by today’s corporate controlled media. Such greed and its concomitant dissatisfaction [...]
If we don’t make time for time-saving activities, we stay hard-pressed for time
We frequently feel pressured because we have too many things to do and too little time to do them in. And our devotional engagements may [...]
Thinking is not just a matter of thinking
Self-help literature often exhorts people to avoid pessimism and to think positive. Such exhortations, even when well-intentioned, frequently overlook the reality that thoughts can’t be [...]
Don’t confuse activity with productivity
We often have a heavy workload that makes us rush in a frenzy from one task to the next. Though we are active, working hard, [...]
Seek specialty through authenticity, not novelty
It is a natural human urge to want to be special, to stand out from the crowd, to be original. Today’s mainstream materialist culture capitalizes [...]
A passion for fashion ends in dissatisfaction and delusion
Fashions allure us constantly in today’s world. New clothes, new cellphones, new cosmetics – such things often captivate our minds. Keeping up with fashions doesn’t [...]
Let where we crave to be not drag us away from where we need to be
When our plans are thwarted by things beyond our control, we usually become irritated and distracted. Such disruption of our plans often blinds us to [...]
Are we mistaking an inner lacking for an outer lacking?
We sometimes feel that something is lacking in our life. Before we can soberly investigate what it is that is missing, the culture fills our [...]
Are we desiring the worthy or the trendy?
Our capacity to desire is our most powerful resource, second only to our capacity to access Krishna’s grace. Our desires shape our life’s direction and [...]