Distraction is draining; concentration is energizing
When we practice meditation and strive to focus our mind on higher spiritual reality, the struggle to concentrate can be disheartening. But we don’t have [...]
Don’t try to be too good for your own good
We may sometimes become impractically idealistic, “I will never do anything wrong in my life.” Such an aspiration is good, but it needs to be [...]
The more we are responsible for others, the more we need to be responsible for ourselves
Suppose a surgeon is agitated, distracted or exhausted while doing surgery – a small wrong cut can be disastrous. Their responsibility for the lives of [...]
Our material needs are like painkillers – necessary but not sufficient
Some people argue that our spiritual side is optional and superfluous – our material needs are what matter. Yes, material things are necessary, but they [...]
The value of our work is not determined by our work’s market value
Our market-driven culture places a price tag on everything, even things such as artistic talents whose value is often not reducible to monetary terms. Such [...]
Love is not just feeling – it is giving
Love is commonly used to refer to the strong emotion that one person may feel for another. Yet love is not just a feeling; it [...]
Material progress centers on having what we want; spiritual progress, on wanting what we have
Some people feel that taking to spiritual life means abandoning all efforts to progress in life. But their feeling stems from an unexamined assumption: progress [...]
When your mental expressway gets overcrowded, direct your thought traffic with your intelligence
Suppose we are caught in a traffic jam on an expressway. We honk and maneuver, but make little progress. But instead of staying vexed, we [...]
Gita 5.27 explained
Now try to understand Chapter overview by trying to understand what is happening: In Arjun’s mind there were two options action or renunciation, So Sri [...]
Gita 5.19 explained
We are in third section of chapter 05, first section talked about how Karma Yoga brings same result but is easier than Jyana Yoga. And [...]
Gita 5.17 explained
#BG 5.17 So Sri Krishna is saying once we understand the absolute truth what we do after that, then we make that absolute [...]
Caring means sharing
Suppose one person tells another, “I care for you.” But suppose the first person is having food and the second person is hungry. The claim [...]
Surrender to God is not the suppression of human will, but its perfection
Some people hold that surrender to God is demeaning, for it suppresses human will. Their argument assumes that all surrender happens amidst antagonism, as [...]
Materialism reduces life to a disrelation of unrelated events
Suppose we are shown a movie in which events are utterly unconnected; characters pop in and out with no logic; and the story moves without [...]
Krishna is close to us, but we are far away from him
Sometimes we may feel that Krishna is far away from us, existing as he does in the spiritual world. However, Krishna doesn’t exist only in [...]
Express affection through recollection and attention
Suppose a husband who works out-of-station returns home for vacation. He tells his wife that, while he is away, he remembers her frequently. But then [...]
We can’t survive for long on secondhand faith
Secondhand faith refers to the faith we have developed in something because of our faith in those who tell us to do that thing. Such [...]
Just because we can’t live without something doesn’t mean that we can live with it
Sometimes people may have some addiction such as alcoholism that they feel that they can’t live without. But their feeling that it is essential doesn’t [...]
Observe your mental neighborhood just as you would observe your physical neighborhood
Suppose in a new neighborhood, we glance at a passerby with interest. They invite us to a hotel for a chat, and we go along. [...]
The best way to fix the mind on Krishna is to take up responsibilities in his service
The Bhagavad-gita repeatedly urges us to fix the mind on Krishna. The specific phrase man-mana (“fix the mind on me”) occurs twice in the Gita [...]
We are not programmed machines – we are the possessors of programmable machines
Atheists often argue that we are just our neurons – our behavior is simply a function of our neuronal programming, and our belief that we [...]