There are cuisines around the world where animals are eaten alive. You like to have an octopus, a living octopus on your plate, and then you take the octopus and you take it in.
You have to address the entire value system. You have to ask man: Who are you?…
Questioner (Q): I lack confidence when it comes to decision-making. I am always doubtful of whether I am making the right decision or not, and this results in a lot of stress and having to take a lot of time to decide anything. How can I be more confident in…
You asked me how I became a mad man. It happened thus: one day, long before many Gods were born, I woke up from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen- the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives- I ran maskless through the…
Acharya Prashant: The question is from Simone from the Netherlands and it says, "I get easily get influenced by others. How do I learn to stand my ground?"
The mind is a crying vacancy. It is an undue emptiness. It is an unclean half-filled emptiness. The mind will always need…
Acharya Prashant (AP): Is there anybody here who is not all, not at all concerned with the word ‘personality’? I don’t suppose there is anybody here, so just again, as I said, it is not only his question. This is not only…
Acharya Prashant (AP): It is also an assignment, correct? You did not write it on your own accord; somebody assigned this work to you, right? Is there any difference? Is this sheet of paper any more or any less significant with all the heaps of assignments that you have created…
Acharya Prashant (AP): Vikram is asking, “Sir, I can kind of see that personality is a mask, but then why is the world giving the personality so much of importance? Why does everybody seem to be giving the personality so much of importance?” Right, Vikram, that’s what you are asking?…
Questioner: Sir, sometimes, outside incidents become so pinching that I feel like running away. But then, again, everything goes alright. These ‘lows’ tremble me. How can the lows be stopped?
Acharya Prashant: Stop the highs.
As far as you are concerned, the lows are real; the highs are an escape.
Question: Sir, when it is said that ‘Individuality is nothing’, then how is it correct to say that ‘Individuality is being yourself with self-awareness’?
Questioner: What are the practical ways by which we can move towards dropping personality?
Speaker: No! Going by the discussion we have had so far, look at the semantics of your question – “What are the practical ways in which we can move towards dropping personality?”
Speaker: The word ‘vulnerability’ is not a very likable word. ‘Vulnerability’ to us is a consequence of the fact that there are forces outside of us that are hostile, aggressive and inimical, because we need to protect and defend ourselves against these…
Questioner: There is a lot happening in my life. The whole day is full of actions and reactions. There are times when I catch myself slipping when I see chaos. And there are times when I have glimpses of Truth. What is it to be at the center, and then…
Question 1: Sir, how can our mind be free of influence?
Speaker: Influences never come to influence you. The question is: how can the mind be free of influence? Does the influence come and say that I want to influence you? Go into this. There is a hoarding on the…
हमारा मिजाज हमेशा दूसरों और परिस्थितियों पर निर्भर करता है। नतीजे आपकी उम्मीदों के मुताबिक नहीं रहे। इसलिए अब आपको मनोबल बढ़ाने वाले किसी प्रेरक वक्ता की ज़रूरत है। जैसे ही वह व्यक्ति चला जाता है, आपकी ऊर्जा भी थम जाती है। लेकिन जीने का एक और तरीका भी है। अपने भीतर गहराई में, मुझे एक ऐसा बिंदु मिलता है जिसे कोई बाहरी परिस्थिति छू नहीं सकती। जो कुछ भी होता है, वह सतह पर ही घटित होता है। वह स्थिर, उदासीन और तटस्थ बना रहता है। तब आप सचमुच स्वतंत्र होते हैं।
Does the person you are with encourage you to read? You have to ask, “What does he bring for me, roses or books?”
Be very cautious of those who bring roses for you, especially red roses. Books are what we all need, and books are dangerous. Books are dangerous because…
We want to reach the end of wanting. We want completion, fulfillment in such a final way that we are left with nothing to want anymore. That’s the destination. Born a human being, you will have to act. Act rightly. Act for the right purpose. Live for the right
The politician, we very well know, is a criminal and yet we belong to his fan club. So, who is it who is promoting crime, then? Look at the parliament of the country. I suppose half the parliamentarians have criminal cases against them, close to half. And they didn’t muscle…
There might be people around you who make it compulsory for you to smoke, not because they urge you to smoke, but because they put you in so much of tension that you will need to smoke. But you are deriving some benefits from those people, so you will never…
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Excerpts from Articles
Is Acharya Prashant Building a Cult Around Himself?
"Cult means personality worship. Where the entire teaching is that personality is false and the Self is truth, where will personality worship come from? And there is nothing in my personality worthy of personality worship. If one wants to worship like that, there are many standing in line whose entire job is to polish their personality.”
A guide to handling difficult periods, adapting to unexpected changes, learning from experiences, seeking support, and continuing forward with confidence and patience.
“Revolutions always promise change, and they usually deliver something that merely looks like change. Regimes collapse, flags are replaced, slogans change, but something remains untouched. The question we refuse to ask is simple: when the wheel turns again, what will have changed?”
Anybody who believes in astrology cannot be rational. All you have is a set of beliefs—the belief that this thing will happen. There is no logic in it, only fear and insecurity. Science is based on verifiable and falsifiable experiments, whereas astrology is not subject to verification; hence, it is just a story. It's a story that is making big money for a lot of storytellers.
If you are fond of playing the game of Love, then come over
Love is not a mental or physical need. Love is not for the faint-hearted. Love is not for those who fear the loss of relationships, reputation, possessions or life. Love is not for those who are afraid of family, society, or uncertainty. Love is not for those who seek sanction from tradition or culture.
When your expectations are not fulfilled, that is the situation you call anger. Your expectation is nothing but a desire that the other person should behave according to your image of him. You create images because you are afraid. If you are not afraid, you cannot be angry. All these diseases come from a basic fountainhead — ignorance. They go away once ignorance goes away.
Unless you have reached the heart, the sexual activity has gone waste. Sex that is just a few inches deep serves no purpose. Sex has to be infinitely deep. You have to touch not only the other’s body but really the heart. That is what you are looking for.
\"If one relies on events, shock is guaranteed, again and again, because most misdeeds never come fully to light. Scandals are not reliable teachers. If one understands the principle, shock loses its grip, because what unfolds is recognised rather than discovered.\"
The woman is simpler, more innocent. I would dare to say the woman is simple and innocent just as animals are, because woman, just like animals, is biology-driven. She is emotional, and her emotions do not really arise from understanding, not even from intellect. Her emotions arise from her body, from her biological conditioning, from her hormones.
Love would have helped you fly. And now you have captivated love within four walls. As wise men and women, if you are married, wonderful. As wise men and women, if you are not married, wonderful. The point is not really marriage. The point is wisdom.
https://dev-main8.vedant.life/en/articles/marriage-and-love-1_0ff5cad
Does Acharya Prashant Dismiss Alternative Teachers?
"I am fully in support of learning in all ways from everywhere and everybody but I am not at all in support of foolishness and hypocrisy. Get the difference please. I am absolutely in support of learning from wherever it is possible to learn but I am not at all in support of using the various avenues to learn to not to learn."
Not allowing the soul to manifest is suicide: Acharya Prashant
Acharya Prashant says:\n“If you wouldn’t call this foeticide, then what would you call it? When an unborn child is killed in the womb, you consider it wrong—you call it a sin, a crime. But what do you call the way we are killing ourselves from within? Not allowing the self to manifest is suicide.”\n
Truth - The Most Famous Verses of the Bhagavad Gita
You see, what does it mean to say that “righteousness is on decline”? Mind is moving away from Krishna. Mind is moving away from Krishna. Krishna is the centre of the mind. Right? Krishna is the centre of mind. As soon as the mind moves away from the Krishna, the centre applies a spring like force on the mind.
In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media In media
is a big ‘sacrifice’? And whenever there is a ‘sacrifice’, there is somebody collecting the sacrifice. Who is collecting the sacrifice? You
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At the root of the question lies image-formation.
“When we say individuality is just nothing, then how is…
The solution is here,
…
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ye bhajanti tu māṁ bhaktyā mayi te teṣhu chāpyaham
The same am I to all beings: to Me, There is none hateful or dear. But…
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and calves give milk three times a day,
where mice are the boatmen, and tomcats row the boats,
where frogs keep snakes as watchdogs,
…
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Overview
Fighting Duryodhana is Dharma. Fight Duryodhana in the way you can, that is swadharma. Dharma is the same for everybody, but swadharma varies according to your physical, social, temporal conditions. But remember that swadharma can never be in contradiction of Dharma; swadharma will always be something…
saṅkaro narakāyaiva kula-ghnānāṁ kulasya cha
patanti pitaro hy eṣhāṁ lupta-piṇḍodaka-kriyāḥ
When the castes mix, that spells hell for the family. It destroys the family, in the way that the ancestors all fall because they are deprived of the Pindokdakriya.…
…
When does one finish being a student? When the resistance to being a student is finished.
Who is the teacher? The teacher is the most obedient and voluntary of all students. The teacher is not a non-student; the teacher is the first student, the best student, the most voluntary student.…
“Did she? Did she not?”
Have some mercy upon yourself. Learn to ignore, please. Bypass the small issues. Learn to ignore the small for the big, would…
Why do you call a theft a theft only when one is taking away something from others? Is it not theft when you take away your greatest possibility and potential from yourself? Is it not theft? Are we not criminals against ourselves, first of all?
Swami Vivekananda has said, “First of all, our young men must be strong; religion will come afterwards. Be strong, my young friends; that is my advice to you. You will be nearer to heaven through football than through the study of the Gita.”
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…
Giving birth is not for kids. Law just says that there is a legal age—eighteen, twenty-one and such things. First of all, giving birth requires that there has to be mental maturity. Unfortunately, 99% of the world’s population is not at all mentally mature enough to be parents. The funny…
A strange situation is that a beautiful woman’s life is perhaps more complex than an average-looking woman’s life, because a beautiful looking woman has a lot of men eyeing upon her, and she can get whatever she wants. And what you will get for your beauty, that is the real…
Spirituality just needs basic self-honesty, self-awareness. There is nothing mystical, nothing magical about it, but that is what it has been associated with. I am not talking of chanting; I am not talking of chakras; I am not talking of flying snakes; I am not talking of magical seeds. Not…
You are so powerful actually that you are scared of yourself.
There are three ‘you’s in that statement. The first two refer to the small self or the ego. The third one refers to the best that you can be, the Great Self, the Truth—classically, the Ātman. And classically…
There was a Buddhist scholar Nagarjuna. He talked of a painter who fills his entire room with terrifying paintings painted by himself. So, on this wall he paints a demon, there he makes another horrible scene, something there, something there. And he is painting it himself, and then he becomes…
“I am pious and I have holy intentions”—this was the first piece of fake news invented by man. All attempts, all intentions, all likes and dislikes, all decisions ultimately boil down to just the prakritik narrative—food, comfort and sex. That’s what we live for, that’s what we act for, and…
Treat the body as a companion, and see how this companion behaves when you fulfill its demands, and how it behaves when you do something that is for your own welfare. This companion is very, very selfish, very greedy. It cares only about itself; it has no respect for what…
On its own, stupidity is so feeble; it can be crushed very easily. But because stupidity is feeble, it knows one thing: it must gather numbers. So, it forms huge organizations, colonies where all the stupid ones can stick around, and then they are very difficult to tackle.
Episodes of physical sickness are occasions when you can truly test how much spiritual mettle you have.
You do not want to deliberately have a sick body; as far as possible, avoid sickness. But then, sickness is inevitable, just as old age is inevitable. Sickness will come.
Several people dislike their few glimpses of joy. They hold themselves accountable, they hold themselves guilty for having tasted even a few drops of joy, because joy is not a socially sanctioned kind of happiness. Joy is deep, disruptive, rebellious. It takes you far away from everything into yourself. It…
Man must observe animals, and whatever you see the animal exhibiting is something that you should be very cautious of. Whatsoever it is that you find common between yourself and animals is the stuff that you should be very cautious of.
You must learn aloneness before you relate with people. You must be very, very comfortable with yourself. If you are someone who cannot be with herself comfortably, easily, gladly, then kindly spare the other person. If you are not alright with yourself, then don’t start piggybacking on the other—and usually…
The more smart you are, the more clever you are, the more are the chances that your own smartness will destroy you.
It is very important to see when cleverness turns into cunningness—and that happens very frequently, very easily, very unnoticeably. You do not even know when you have turned…
As long as you keep giving importance to what you get from here and there, you will live in fear. And that is not necessary. Nobody wants to live in fear, right? Neither do you want to live in fear, nor do I want to live in fear. That is…
Revenge is a mistake built upon another mistake. The first mistake was, “He took it from me—my peace, my pride, my respectability.” That was the first mistake to think that way. And the second mistake is, “I can get peace back by snatching it away from him.”
What is it that blocks creativity? A cluttered mind, an obsessed mind, a worried mind, a mind too particular about results. Just as creativity is uncertain, similarly are the results of creativity. And if you are someone who bothers too much about results, then you cannot be creative.
You are actually so powerful that you are scared of yourself. The ego doesn’t want to give up. That’s what the scare is all about, because betterment of the ego is nothing but the reduction of the ego. Who wants to reduce?
