Seek more to connect than to correct
On the brink of the Mahabharata war, Arjuna was overwhelmed by misdirected compassion and was about to abandon his duty. Krishna could simply have corrected [...]
How not to share spirituality
Suppose a blind person is out in the cold, covered only by a thin, torn sheet. Wanting to give them a thick, intact comforter, we [...]
When being truthful makes us unhelpful …
Suppose a first-grade student struggling with math approaches their teacher and says: “This is so difficult.” And the teacher shows the student a 500-page book [...]
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 [...]
Get rid of misplaced guilt
Suppose a policeman feels guilty about putting a vicious criminal in solitary confinement. If that criminal has been duly tried and convicted, then the policeman’s [...]
How can we know when we are gossiping?
Most of us may agree that it’s not good to gossip. We may even believe that we never gossip. But to be sure about that, [...]
How gossip can go dangerously out of control
Suppose we pushed a small snowball down a hill just for fun. It rolls down out of our sight and we forget about it. But [...]
How to speak an unpalatable truth?
Truth is unpalatable — we may quote this saying while speaking to others some truth that is likely to hurt them. Yes, we all are [...]
How our actions matter to others more than we think
When we function in the huge world filled with countless people, we may wonder, “I am so tiny. Does what I do matter to anyone?” [...]
Are we committing violence with our mouth?
When we grow in wisdom, we learn to live more consciously. We inspect our habitual actions and their consequences in an interconnected universe. By such [...]
What are we seeking when we are speaking?
When we speak with others to persuade them about something, how can we make our speaking more effective? By remembering that speaking is meant to [...]
How to resolve arguments with our loved ones?
Suppose we get into an argument with someone, specifically a loved one with whom we want a long-lasting relationship. We may try to prove our [...]
Are we holding others to an unrealistically high standard?
Suppose someone we know does something so shocking that we feel, “I don’t want anything to do with such a horrible person.” While our shock [...]
The mind demands that others leave us alone and then complains they don’t care for us
Suppose someone who we care for is going through difficulties. When we try to help them, they demand from us, “Leave me alone”, but then [...]
To avoid emotional extremes, center your emotions on the eternal, not the external
We sometimes experience mood swings, whereby small good things make us elated and more commonly small bad things make us dejected. If such mood swings [...]
Light is usually seen before warmth is felt, but spiritual warmth frequently needs to be felt before spiritual light is seen
If we are lost in the dark and cold, we can spot the light of a fire long before we feel its warmth. In the [...]
Forgiveness shouldn’t enable atrocity; it should end animosity
To know when to forgive, we need to recognize two different needs: ending atrocity and ending animosity. Ending atrocity: If someone is treating us hurtfully, [...]
When we react to atrocity with fury, we give the forces of illusion control over both sides of the war
Suppose two countries start fighting because one of them has done something terrible. Suppose further that one side is usually good and the other routinely [...]
Our attachments are like a rented house that we don’t usually leave unless we are evicted
Our attachments are our mental home – that’s where our thoughts go by default when we have nothing to think about, just as we physically [...]
To be truly non-judgmental, stop being judgmental about those who are judgmental
If we are judgmental, we make snap judgments about people. We blame them for actions that were almost inevitable for them given their circumstances which [...]
Condescension looks down at others while laughing at them; compassion lifts others up while laughing with them
Suppose someone walking on a road slips and falls into a manhole. If onlookers laugh without helping, that would be terrible. To laugh at others [...]