Live not for gratification; live for contribution
We are all innately pleasure-seeking whatever we do, we do it for gaining pleasure. But pleasure has a peculiar nature it eludes those who pursue [...]
Those who check the urge to mate avoid checkmate
Checkmate signifies final, irreversible defeat. In material existence, checkmate comes in the form of death. It terminates all our dreams and schemes for enjoyment at [...]
The vision of the one in everyone grants liberation
Addiction is a result of fragmental vision. Alcoholics see only the pleasure of the drink, not the pain of the consequent hangover. Although they may [...]
Are we changing the world or is the world changing us?
Gita wisdom enables us to make sense of the world as it is – and as it can be. The world is as it is, [...]
Sensual pleasures are easily visible, rarely relishable
Sensual pleasures tantalize us by their appearance and frustrate us by their experience. They last at the most for a few minutes; so the actual [...]
We can’t reach new planets without leaving the earth
The prospect of traveling to new planets is both stimulating and unnerving. It’s stimulating because of the excitement ofexploring uncharted territory. And it’s unnerving because [...]
Better to be exhausted than rusted
With every passing moment time moves forward inexorably and irreversibly. The passage of time causes non-living things to rust. Living beings also age as time [...]
Why pursue pleasure in a prison of protoplasm?
Our material body is a prison of protoplasm for us souls. Just asprison life inevitably involves sufferings like grueling work and unpleasant living conditions, the [...]
Are my attachments holding me or am I holding my attachments?
As aspiring devotees, we often find that our attachments abduct and drag our consciousness away from Krishna, as the Bhagavad-gita (2.44) outlines. Consequently, we may [...]
Do others have to pay for our enjoyment?
When we enjoy materially, we often fail to notice that others have to pay for our enjoyment. Here are a few examples: 1. When one [...]
Blunt the desire for enjoyment with engagement
The greatest obstacle on the spiritual path for most of us is the desire to enjoy material pleasures, especially anti-devotional material pleasures. Because most of [...]
“Live for the moment?” But the moment doesn’t live for you
“Live for the moment.” So chimes the materialist credo. It is a curious slogan, assuming as it does that a moment is itself an entity [...]
We can’t avoid being haunted, but we can choose who haunts us
As aspiring devotees, our devotional determination may waver when we are confronted with temptations of material pleasures. Often these temptations haunt us like ghosts; they [...]
To give up the ocean for a drop is a rank bad bargain
“I would like to make spiritual advancement, but giving up worldly pleasures is too much of a price to pay for it.” Such thoughts may [...]
Be not allured by the pleasure that is pregnant with suffering
Why does the Bhagavad-gita ask us to regulate indulgence in sensual pleasures? To protect us from unnecessary suffering. The Gita (05.22) states that such pleasures [...]