When things don’t make sense …
Suppose in a forest, a huge fire suddenly breaks out for no apparent reason. Most people will flee in panic. When trained fire-fighters arrive at [...]
Is the Gita’s declaration about the world’s distressful nature pessimistic?
Is the Gita’s declaration about the world’s distressful nature pessimistic? - When we hear the Bhagavad-gita statement (08.15) that the world is a place of [...]
Even if we lose hope with ourselves Krishna doesn’t
Even if we lose hope with ourselves Krishna doesn't We often face difficulties because of outer conditions or inner conditionings or both. If these difficulties [...]
Don’t let etiology distract from therapy
Suppose a person infected with malaria refuses to take any treatment without first seeing the mosquito that bit him, and knowing when, how and why [...]
The mind seduces us into doing wrong – and then scolds us for doing wrong
Suppose we have a tyrannical boss who tells us first to do something that doesn’t make sense and then castigates us for having acted senselessly. [...]
To beat problems, first beat the problematic mind down to size
When an army is fighting a war, it depends on its intelligence – its information sources – to know the strength of the enemy. But [...]
Treat life like a movie that you don’t have to always watch
Suppose we were watching a movie and suddenly discovered that it is a horror movie filled with ghastly scenes. We would naturally stop watching it. [...]
Self-pity is not humility
Self-pity can seem like humility because both appear to involve having a low, even negative, conception of ourselves. However, they are totally different both in [...]
To grow through problems, go beyond the circumstantial to the existential
“What should I do now?” When we face this question, we usually answer based on practical concerns. But when confronting dilemmas that have no practical [...]
To eliminate mental phantoms, contemplate the transcendental person
The mind often makes problems far bigger than what they actually are. We get a negative appraisal, but the mind chews and stews on it [...]
When we demand Krishna’s protection on our terms, we deprive ourselves of his best protection
When we face problems, we often pray to Krishna for protection. He always protects, but not necessarily on our terms. If we demand protection on [...]
Life may push us into the company of problems, but it cannot force us into their control
While traveling, sometimes the people sitting next to us are less than pleasant. We may not be able to avoid their company, but we don’t [...]
Are we strong enough to admit that we are not strong enough?
When problems assault us, it’s easy to cave in, to lose heart, to give up. It’s easy, but it’s also weak. And we like to [...]
Imprisoned by circumstances, liberated by consciousness
Sometimes life pushes us into a tight corner from which we just can’t wiggle out. We feel imprisoned by our circumstances. Such imprisonment is an [...]
Accidents are no accidents
The word ‘accident’ has become integral to our vocabulary, largely due to the many unfortunate crashes that beset our roads. Words, however, don’t just reflect [...]
“Got big problems?” Krishna is bigger
When life’s problems overwhelm us, our vision becomes distorted. We start feeling that the problems are ultra-big, bigger than even Krishna. Consequently, we become so [...]
Retreat within to treat without
When external problems trouble us, we may feel that they need to be solved first, and so we can’t afford time for our inner life. [...]