Today’s medals will be tomorrow’s baubles
One of our innermost drives is the drive to show the world that we are someone significant. This drive impels us to win medals, which [...]
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, [...]
Live beyond life’s tornadoes and torpedoes
Life confronts us with challenges both externally and internally. External upheavals – financial and political, for example – are like tornadoes that twist and topple [...]
Respecting Krishna’s rights is the right way to receive his revelation
Ours is an age of rights; we recognize that every individual has certain inviolable rights. As our rights consciousness expands, it is befitting that we [...]
Take exception to the hope for an exception
Our mind gets excited by any chance for material enjoyment. We have repeatedly experienced for ourselves that material enjoyment is at best an exasperating anti-climax, [...]
When style violates sense, style deserves to be violated
Few things obsess the contemporary mind as much as the latest styles. Most people today are possessed by the craze to parade themselves with the [...]
Let our words be like windows, not walls
Words are indispensable tools for communicating our ideas and feelings with others. These verbal tools have become increasingly critical in our hi-tech age of phones [...]
The mind traps us materially and trips us spiritually
We like our job one day and detest it the next day; we feel excited about our devotional activities sometimes and bored at other times. [...]
Krishna is not an optional filler in our life – he is its central purpose
Our time is among our most wanted resources. Our fast-paced culture places so many demands on us that fitting all the items on our to-do [...]
Guard against the last-ditch attack of the false ego
The notion that we are ourselves God is the false ego’s ultimate weapon. The false ego is the subtlest of all the subtle material elements. [...]
Seek not a problem-free life, but a purpose-filled life
The endless problems of life may wear us out and make us long for a problem-free life. Such a longing, however, is unrealistic and unfulfilling. [...]
Temptations in the consciousness are like dust in the carburetor
When dust enters into the carburetor of a finely tuned engine, the engine can no longer function optimally. Though the dust initially seems inconsequential, after [...]
Krishna ends the misdirection and frustration of our love
Loving anyone is a challenge. The poets frequently sing about the thrill of falling in love at first sight, but they rarely sing about the [...]
Let self-mastery be devotion’s fruit, not determination’s feat
Bending our impulses to our principles and thereby attaining self-mastery is vital for us to make tangible spiritual progress. At the same time, it is [...]
Give your prime time to the highest bidder, not the loudest bidder
Television channels charge phenomenally for their prime time. Knowing that maximum TV audience is available during this time, they allocate those slots to the highest [...]
Treasure Krishna’s message more than his miracles
Some of us may feel that our faith in Krishna would stabilize and increase if we could see his power through miracles: “If Krishna is [...]
Go beyond naughty desires and knotty doubts
When we embark on our inward spiritual journey towards Krishna, our mind blocks us with naughty desires and our intelligence, with knotty doubts. Bhakti removes [...]
Don’t miss the feast of the heart because of the lethargy of the mind
Love has its own life, and it needs its own food to survive and thrive. The food that love feasts on is the glory, the [...]
Fasting is an opportunity to sacrifice the good for the best
As spiritual seekers, werecognize that immoral sinful pleasures are obstacles on the spiritual pathway. What we may not recognize is that even innocent pious pleasures [...]
Change of values is more significant than change of desires
When we as spiritual seekers find ourselves becoming repeatedly afflicted by greed, anger or lust, we may become discouraged, thinking, “Despite my practice of devotional [...]
Go Within, Beyond the External – and the Internal
Many self-help books tell us that we can become peaceful by going within. But is the within actually peaceful? In our own experience, we often [...]