Krishna’s pastimes are fantastic, but not fantasy
We may find Krishna’s pastimes of magically killing demons fantastic. Yes, they are fantastic, in the sense that they demonstrate his capacities to effortlessly accomplish [...]
Pride demands and blames, humility begs and waits
“Why am I not advancing fast enough?” This question sometimes troubles our hearts and makes us feel dissatisfied with our spiritual lives. This dissatisfaction can [...]
Be not dulled and lulled by TV
Few consumer products shape the contemporary home as much as a television. Few images represent a contemporary family better than a group of people, physically [...]
Transform your heart into a blossoming garden
Love is not just a feeling, but also a doing; not just an emotion, but also an action. In fact, love as a feeling is [...]
Devotion protects our values from being held hostage by our impulses
All of us have experience of times when our impulses overpower our values and goad us into actions that we regret later. How do our [...]
Attaining an unalienable wealth
We often presume that to become happy, we need lots of wealth. However, the pursuit of wealth as a source of happiness inevitably frustrates us [...]
Krishna is a coach, not a critic
The Bhagavad-gita (09.18) states that Krishna is present in the hearts of all of us as the witness. Fortunately for us, he is present there [...]
Seek the true tool to your self before you seek to be true to yourself
The Bhagavad-gita (18.58) indicates that all of us have essentially two choices in making our life's decisions: to act according to the voice of Krishna [...]
Ignorance with intellectual wings is the worst ignorance
The Bhagavad-gita (16.09) indicates that the atheistic, being possessed by their meager intelligence, flourish in self-destructive and world-destructive activities. In these people, ignorance not only [...]
Conquer Provocative Mind with Evocative Mantra
We may sometimes doubt: “The mind is so wild. Will I ever be able to conquer it?” Surely we can, reassures the Bhagavad-gita (06.36), provided [...]
By living for animal pleasures, we violate our human rights
The Bhagavad-gita (07.15) uses the word mudhas, meaning asses, to refer to those unfortunate people who violate their own human rights. Our society exalts as [...]
The mind can impel, but not compel
The Bhagavad-gita (06.06) points out the two opposite roles that the mind can play in shaping our destiny: if controlled, it can be our friend; [...]
Excess makes a good thing worse than bad
The Bhagavad-gita (7.24) indicates that impersonalists who consider Krishna’s form to be a temporary and illusory product of the impersonal Brahman are abuddhayah, bankrupt of [...]
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 [...]
The journey to realizing “I am not the body” begins with living “I am more than the body”
The Bhagavad-gita’s fundamental teaching (02.13) is that we are not material bodies but are spiritual beings. Even when we understand this intellectually, we can’t abruptly [...]
Even when Krishna is in the universe, the universe is still in him
When Krishna descends to the world, he appears to be just like any other person, someone who is limited to one place and needs to [...]
Humiliation is false ego frustrated, humility is false ego rejected
The Bhagavad-gita (13.08) lists humility as the first of the twenty qualities that comprise wisdom. Significantly, the Gita mentions humility in a negative way to [...]
Stop running away from Krishna – run down the mind instead
The Bhagavad-gita (06.44) indicates that those who have tasted the sweetness of Krishna, even if they subsequently get deviated from the path to him, are [...]
Searching for the villain can’t help us in finding the hero
When things start going wrong in our life, our false ego goes into a default defensive, scheming to find a villain on whom to lay [...]
Krishna is everything, but everything is not Krishna
The Bhagavad-gita (7.19) states that the wise surrender to Krishna, understanding him to be everything (vasudevah sarvam iti). Does this verse describe a naïve pantheism [...]