Beyond stereotypes of a wrathful God
Some religious groups portray God as a mighty and scary entity who sits above the clouds and casts thunderbolts to punish sinners. According to them, [...]
Feeling God or trusting God?
During our life, there will be times when we are down, yet we feel God's presence guiding, strengthening and uplifting us. However, there will also [...]
Love without sacrifice?
Love is one of the most common themes in popular media such as movies and novels. As today’s culture is increasingly moving toward individualism, sometimes [...]
Mistakes that even God can’t fix?
As we are finite beings, we may sometimes commit mistakes that have devastating consequences. When we realize the gravity of our blunders, we may become [...]
When we feel that we lack ability …
When we try to grow spiritually by serving God, we may sometimes feel discouraged, “I don’t have much ability.” Thankfully, God doesn’t fixate on our [...]
Who do we seek to be remembered by?
One of our greatest fears is the fear of being forgotten. Why is this such a great fear? Because it plays into another deeper fear: [...]
The renunciation that is necessary for devotion
Unlike some other spiritual paths, bhakti-yoga doesn’t require us to renounce all our possessions. Still, it does require us to renounce some of our conceptions [...]
What to expect from prayer — 2
Suppose we enroll for an exercise program meant to build our muscles. Suppose we are told to move some heavy objects. Moving those objects can [...]
What to expect from prayer — 1
Our conceptions of things shape our expectations from those things. Suppose we conceive of prayer as a means to get God to remove obstacles from [...]
Why gratitude is vital for bhakti
Gratitude centers on appreciating the good things in our life. Such an attitude of gratitude is highly conducive to our emotional health; it fills us [...]
Seeing Krishna’s love for us and showing our love for him
Many of us turn toward God after we have tried everything else in our quest to be happy and it all has left us disappointed. [...]
The transformatory potency of bhakti yoga (Appreciating bhakti-yoga 4)
The transformatory potency of bhakti yoga - Every path expects certain abilities or qualities from its practitioners. For example, athletes need to be physically fit [...]
The eternality of bhakti yoga (Appreciating bhakti-yoga 3)
The eternality of bhakti yoga - Many religious paths promise happiness, including happiness beyond this life. Gita wisdom explains that not all post-mortem destinations are [...]
The simplicity of bhakti-yoga (Gita 09.20-34 explained: Appreciating bhakti-yoga 2)
The simplicity of bhakti-yoga - Various religious paths require particular resources to be successfully executed. Those resources may relate with the capacities to get expensive [...]
09.34 Four glories of bhakti-yoga (Gita 09.20-34 explained: Appreciating bhakti-yoga 1)
09.34 Four glories of bhakti-yoga - The glories of bhakti-yoga, as explained in the Bhagavad-gita (09.20-34), can be summarized through the acronym SETU: Simple, Eternal, [...]
Does devotion transcend ethics? (Ethics & devotion series 7)
Does devotion transcend ethics? - The claim that devotion transcends ethics can strip devotion of all ethical content and strip ethics of all devotional relevance. [...]
How to counter spiritual reductionism (Ethics & devotion series 6)
How to counter spiritual reductionism - Spiritual reductionism refers to the tendency to reduce spirituality to some specific parameters that are deemed vital and to [...]
Will ethical self-assessment increase our guilt? (Ethics & devotion series 5)
Will ethical self-assessment increase our guilt? - If we are told to assess ourselves ethically, we may fear, “I already feel guilty because I can’t [...]
When does devotion exempt us from karmic consequences? (Ethics & devotion series 4)
When does devotion exempt us from karmic consequences? - Does the Bhagavad-gita’s concluding verse (18.66) — the surrendered are protected from karmic consequences — license [...]
Does devotion automatically lead to ethical growth? (Ethics & devotion series 3)
Does devotion automatically lead to ethical growth? - Devotion automatically leads to ethical growth — we may support this claim by quoting Srimad-Bhagavatam verse (05.18.12): [...]
Why ethics matter in devotion? (Ethics & devotion series 2)
Why ethics matter in devotion? - Devotion is a matter of the heart. Does that make it irrelevant to ethics? No, because the heart can’t [...]