Shwetashvtara Upanishad

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How did the Buddha look then? Who is the Buddha? Let’s try to understand with the story of Gautama Buddha, The ‘Shakya Muni Buddha’ as we call him. So, who was he? Let’s look at his central characteristics. One, someone who is well versed in the knowledge of his time. Buddha had deep scriptural knowledge. He was born in a Hindu Kshatriya family, he was a prince and ever since his childhood he was quite talented. So, one thing about him is that he was quite well-read. Second thing is, he was deeply interested in knowing the depths of life. He did not want to remain merely at the superficial levels, so he would observe a lot, he would think a lot. https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/todays-buddha-1_4d1b6bf

किससे मिल रहे हो? किससे नहीं मिल रहे हो? कहाँ रोज़ पहुँच जाते हो? कहाँ से पैसे ला रहे हो? पहली बात – क्या ईमानदारी से काम रहे हो? दूसरी बात – जो कमा रहे हो, उसको खर्च कहाँ कर रहे हो? छः घण्टे से कोई खबरिया चैनल लगा कर…

I had to unlearn a lot of things, and I am grateful to all the sources—the books, the people and the experiences that helped me unlearn. And I am grateful to that within me that had the courage to unlearn. A lot of unlearning is needed. I often say you need to learn love. By that what I mean is that you need to unlearn false love. And it’s one mighty task to unlearn false love, transactional love, the transactional love that both biology and society teach you.

Something is very wrong somewhere. The first thing in liberation is: do not be dependent on somebody, at least for your bread, for your basic sustenance. What kind of empowerment is this that happily accepts dependence on somebody else’s money on a date, and also for an entire lifetime? It…

पारस में अरु संत में, बड़ो अन्तरो जान। वो लोहा कंचन करे, ये कर दे आप समान।। ~कबीर साहब

प्रश्नकर्ता: जैसा कि आप कहते हैं, कि जितना जल्दी हो सके अपने को पूरा अर्पण कर दो, या ख़त्म कर दो, पर यदि इसे समझेंगे और करेंगे, तो अपने अपूर्ण स्थिति…

श्रद्धावान् लभते ज्ञानं तत्पर: संयतेन्द्रिय: | ज्ञानं लब्ध्वा परां शान्तिमचिरेणाधिगच्छति || ४, ३९ || जितेन्द्रिय, साधनापरायण और श्रद्धावान मनुष्य ज्ञान को प्राप्त होता है तथा ज्ञान को प्राप्त होकर वह बिना विलम्ब के तत्काल ही भगवत्प्राप्तिरूप शान्ति को प्राप्त हो जाता है। —श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, अध्याय ४, श्लोक ३९प्रश्नकर्ता: आचार्य जी,…

◾ एक ही जाति होती है - वह है "बल"। बल विकसित करो अपने भीतर।

◾ आत्मा का इस पूरे देह व्यापार से कोई लेना देना ही नहीं।

◾ मिथ्याचारी वह है जो आगे के लालच में अच्छा काम करता है।

◾ आत्मा का विकृत सिद्धांत ही भारत की दुर्दशा…

यदा नाहं तदा मोक्षो

यदाहं बन्धनं तदा।

मत्वेति हेलया किंचिन्-

मा गृहाण विमुंच मा॥८- ४॥

अनुवाद: जब तक 'मैं' या 'मेरा' का भाव है तब तक बंधन है, जब 'मैं' या 'मेरा' का भाव नहीं है तब मुक्ति है। यह जानकर न कुछ त्याग करो और न कुछ ग्रहण ही…

प्रश्नकर्ता: आचार्य जी, जैसे मैं पहले किसी सत्संग में जाती थी, वहाँ पर कुछ बातें बतायी जाती थीं। अष्टावक्र गीता पर आपने बताया कि आज यहाँ पर उसकी उपयोगिता नहीं है। और अष्टावक्र जी ने जैसे बताया है कि ब्रह्म-ही-ब्रह्म है, आत्मा-ही-आत्मा है। तो अभी कुछ दिन पहले मैं अपने…

You cannot love someone or something you know very little of. The nation at its root represents a community of people united through certain values. A nation does not become admirable or respectable or lovable just by the dint of being a nation.

If you are to fall in love…

Hurt is not automatic. Somewhere there is an admission from you that you are hurt, and that you would be hurt, and that you would call yourself as hurt. Don’t call yourself as hurt, and see what happens.

Hurt is not an obligation. Hurt is a choice. Insecurity, fear, temptations—none…

Have you looked at kids playing? If you look at kids playing and if you look at animals playing, you won’t find much difference. In fact, human kids go along very well with animal kids. Later on, when we cover ourselves with a lot of acquired knowledge, with a lot…

Welcome pain. You have no option. That’s the way life is meant to be. Life is suffering. Because not only are you designed to have pain, you are also designed to resist pain.

Have pain, and have a lot of depth in your being. So much depth that it can…

We all need space. Man’s inner nature is freedom. When I say man, I mean both man and woman, mankind. Just as you need free mental space, you also need free physical space.

In fact, I find the idea of a shared bed quite vulgar. The double bed is an…

No situation is too bad to make a right choice in, and no situation is so good that you no more need the right choice—in a good situation, in a bad situation, in apparently easy situations, in apparently tough situations. Anything can happen anytime.

It’s a matter of your choice,…

Just as the ego loves to take credit, it also loves to play the victim.

If something good has happened, “I did it!”

If something bad happened, “It happened to me.”

“Good things I do, bad things happen to me”—this is astounding.

Playing the victim is a favorite pastime of…

Happiness and sadness are both wonderful, are both welcome.

But in some deep sense, sadness is a little better than happiness. It teaches us a little more than happiness does. It elevates us a little more than happiness does. It has a certain purifying effect that happiness does not quite…

There was this king of the demons; his name was Hiranyakashyupa. The king worked really hard. He kept austerities, he forced even God to come down and bless him. So, it would have required a very special effort. But then, what did he want from God? Nothing but the extension…

If you are suffering, there is nobody but you who is responsible. Unless you fully accept that responsibility, there is no freedom. If your suffering is just incidental, then how can there be freedom from it?—because incidents can happen any way, any day.

You have to, first of all, clearly…

Let your situations, your circumstances, your possessions, your particular destination in life not become important enough or significant enough to define you. Let your self-worth not be dictated by things that are external.

But since everything is external, let your self-worth not be dictated by anything at all. Which means,…

Let nobody say that he or she is making the right choices in life because she does not know. We all know. We prefer to suppress the inner knowledge. It’s an inner conspiracy against ourselves, just because we want to continue enjoying certain privileges in life—certain physical privileges, material privileges,…

If you want to know why you kept working, slogging for the thirty days, the most effective way is to see what you are doing with the paycheck. What you are doing with the paycheck will very loudly demonstrate why you kept working the thirty days. See what you do…

Both the genders have become even more anchored to their physical identity. The more you do that, the more you are in misery because, really, the body is not who you are.

There are places better and higher than the place of your gender specific hormones. Why do you want…

We need to see a lot of young people traveling on their own. We need to see a lot of young people living all by themselves for very long years, many, many long years. We need to see these things.

And we need to see young people who are much…

The planet has already given you as much as it could. You cannot draw any more from it. So, we can very safely and very confidently say that for the world, in general, the future is internal growth. If economics is about welfare, then further welfare of this planet and…

When you say sadness is just sadness, then you have gained freedom from sadness. It means being free from the obligation to label sadness as a loss of self-worth. If you let sadness go deeply into you, there is no way it is not going to touch joy.

It is…

How do we justify our anger? We justify our anger by feeling short-changed, cheated, or victimized; by continuing to assert that we are incomplete, while simultaneously bemoaning the incompleteness. If you have grudges within, if you feel a victim of situations, or past, or persons, and if you lend credence…

Emotions, they can do whatever they want to do. It doesn’t matter how I am feeling. What matters is what I must do.

Ask yourself: Had you not been feeling this way or that way, what would have you done? And you will get a very good answer.

When you…

The approach of self-help is: “I am sad because my desires have not met fulfillment. So, the way to help myself is: fulfill desires.” It’s a dimensional difference. Therefore, self-help pleases but helps not. It is not then ‘self-help’; the genre should be more correctly called ‘self-gratification’.

And if you…

Physical nearness has to be the tail of the elephant. Once the entire elephant has passed through, only then you must see the little tail. Only that much importance it must have.

Instead of that, the sexual aspect becomes the elephant. As far as the real, truthful, spiritual aspect is…

Living totally does not mean that you need to have a flamboyant lifestyle, that you need to be lavishly spending or lavishly consuming. Living totally means that you remain the same in the moment of your deepest fulfillment and in the moment of your deepest frustration.

Living totally is something…

This is the hallmark of gutter knowledge: it will have neither science nor spirituality. This is the hallmark of the gutter person: his words, his convictions, his values will correspond to neither science nor spirituality; it is coming from an altogether different place—the gutter.

He will talk unscientific and unspiritual…

Do not forget that that which you want from the world is not the world but satisfaction.

You do not want a new car; you want peace through the car. And you have never bothered to examine whether the car coming from the world can ever give you peace.

You…

‘Save the girl child’ campaigns, many of these campaigns say, “If today you kill the girl child, how will you find a bride for your son tomorrow?” So, the girl has no independent worth of her own, right?

If we go by the government propaganda, even if she is to…

If Facebook is satisfying you, it is not called as time wasted. Full stop. If the purpose of time is your satisfaction, and if doing all kinds of nonsense on Facebook satisfies you, then you cannot call it as wasted of time.

The only thing that determines whether time or…

Respect is not a permanent tag that you give to someone. When they are in a frame of mind that is worthy of respect, respect them. And when they have ganged up with unworthy ones, with debauched ones, in that moment, are they still worthy of respect? When they are…

Know your duty and give yourself totally to it. Will there be pleasure? No sir, not at all. There would be some higher than pleasure, more fulfilling, more satisfying than pleasure. Pleasure is a turncoat: today one thing, tomorrow another thing.

The one who lives by his duty, his dharma…

What does true nationalism mean in India’s case? Nationalism is founded on truly Indian values. What do I mean by Indian values? I am being very specific here. By Indian values I mean the values enshrined in Vedanta.

As long as the youth remains in touch with the essence of…

You have been entrusted with time not so that you while it away.

Somebody once asked the Satan, “How do you corrupt a being?”

He says, “It’s easy. I just whisper into his ears: your time is your time.”

And that’s the assumption we all have bought into: “I have…

You are a bird; your nature is to fly. You don’t need to be taught your nature; you need to be freed from the cage.

But we are pretty special characters. Instead of opening the door of the cage, we try to teach the bird to fly within the cage,…

There is someone you say you love dearly. You tell that person, “You are my life!” That person passes away; within a few hours, you are found having your meals. You are in grief—the body is not in grief, the brain is not in grief. The brain is telling the…

“He who, setting aside the scriptures, acts under the impulse of his own desire, he attains not to perfection nor happiness nor the gold supreme.”

Who is an āsura? An āsura is one who keeps the scriptures aside, detests them, ignores them, even derides them, and says, “What I…

Money is a very important indicator. See where you spend your money, and see where you do not spend your money. See where you want to cut corners, and see where you want to be lavish. Have you not heard that little phrase, “Put your money where your mind is”?…

If it was possible for one man to move towards greatness, it was possible for everybody. Nothing hurts the small man more than seeing a great man in his vicinity, or a small man trying to move towards greatness. It’s an utter insult.

The moment even one person defies smallness…

What a life it is? Woke up in the morning, had breakfast, took a bath, went to work, came back, again had a meal, watched TV, scratched someone here and there, and slept away again. And repeat next morning. So, to sum up, what did you get this month? Nothing!…