Does surrender take away our free will
Some people are afraid of surrendering to God because they fear that they will lose their free will. However, surrendering to God is not about [...]
Might we all be bound by something worse than ropes?
If we saw someone being dragged around bound by a rope, we would be appalled. Yet millions of us are bound by attachments that bind [...]
How can spirituality protect our mental health? (Mental health series 6)
Mental health problems can have many specifics, yet they share a fundamental feature: a distortion in our perception of reality. When such distortion becomes so [...]
How desire takes control of our life — Desire management series 1
Suppose we get into a car and start it to go somewhere. Suppose further that next time when we get into that car, it starts [...]
If we lack freedom or willpower, what can we do?
When we try to do something worthwhile, if external situations hamper us, we may lament our lack of freedom. Or if internal conditionings hamper us, [...]
How to respond when someone hurts us?
When someone speaks harshly or acts cruelly toward us, how we respond depends primarily on their disposition. The Bhagavad-gita (16.04) mentions two distinct dispositions: godly [...]
How to choose the lesser pain and how to make that pain lesser
Suppose we are bound in a car that is racing toward the edge of a huge mountain cliff. If the bonds holding us down are [...]
Unspoken threats to our freedom
We live in an age which treasures freedom as the foremost among cherished values. If governments issue any injunctions restricting citizens’ freedoms, they often receive [...]
From mean actions to the meaning of actions
We sometimes succumb to unhealthy behaviors such as overeating, excessive net surfing or even much more injurious indulgences. After such indulgences, we may rationalize, saying [...]
Technological advancement without spiritual advancement makes us powerfully powerless
Being powerful and being powerless are usually opposite states. But when someone has a power they can’t control — say, an automatic gun whose trigger [...]
Better to endure cravings that seem unbearable than to endure consequences that are unbearable
Suppose someone is trying to recover from alcoholism. They may still be subjected to strong cravings to drink. Suppose they feel that those cravings are [...]
Even if we cover the tracks we make externally, the tracks we make internally still cover us
Suppose we wanted to hide what we are doing from others while we are going on a trek through the wilderness. We would cover our [...]
In dealing with our urges, if we don’t consciously choose responsibility, we unconsciously choose slavery
We all treasure our freedom and would fight if someone tried to enslave us. Yet many of us unconsciously let ourselves get enslaved. How? By [...]
What we initially indulge in casually, we eventually indulge in compulsively
When contemporary culture tempts us with addictive indulgences such as drinking, it often offers a common rationalization, “Just drink once. It’s no big deal.” However, [...]
Indulgence decreases our capacity to push against desire and increase desire’s capacity to push us
Suppose we had to push a huge boulder uphill. That would be difficult enough. But on top of it, if we were becoming weak and [...]
Seek freedom from weakness, not freedom in weakness
Freedom from weakness refers to freedom from the lower urges that weaken our determination to act constructively. Our weaknesses are self-destructive forces within us such [...]
Why crave for any pleasure that makes us a slave?
If someone is enslaved, they would try to break free. If instead someone who is free tried to become enslaved, we would consider them insane. [...]
When our desires change suddenly from spiritual to sensual, know that the lasso of illusory desires has fallen on us
Suppose a kidnapped person is running away from their abductors. If suddenly they feel themselves being pulled backwards, they will look sharply to discern what [...]
Morality may be relativized, but the consequences of immoral indulgence can’t be relativized
Today’s culture revels in moral relativism. People reject the existence of objective moral principles; they argue that whatever makes them feel good is good, and [...]
What is craved within gets carved within
We sometimes feel cravings for things that we would normally never indulge in real life. Yet we entertain those cravings mentally, thinking that the mental [...]
Indiscriminate indulgence makes the impulsive compulsive
No one desires to become an addict. When people drink, they usually want to have a good time with their friends. However, each time they [...]