

There can be nothing worse than being saddled with, being tied to, being chained to some general unworthy person in life. That’s the worst hell you can create for yourself. Don’t do that.
If life is benevolent enough to offer you a great great companion, nothing like it. But if…

Questioner: Acharya Ji, If we see things and move quickly, are we not observing them?
Acharya Prashant: See, it's like this when you're not observant and you look at something, you go back into your own world or into the thousands other worlds that you have, and then with a…

प्रश्नकर्ता: संसार में प्राणी मरने के लिए ही उत्पन्न होता है और उत्पन्न होने के लिए ही मरता है। उत्पन्न होने के लिए मरना क्या है?
आचार्य प्रशांत: मरते नहीं न पूरा, रीचार्जिंग (पुनः ऊर्जा प्राप्त करना) पर जाते हैं। हमारी मौत थोड़े ही होती है। हमारा तो ऐसा होता…

प्रश्नकर्ता: आचार्य जी, मेरी प्रेमिका मुझे कल ही छोड़कर चली गयी। दर्द में हूँ। क्या करूँ?
आचार्य प्रशांत: दूसरी खोज लो!
जब प्रश्न के केंद्र पर प्रेमिका बैठी है, तो तुम्हारी उत्सुकता प्रेमिका से आगे की है ही नहीं न। ये खेल चलता रहेगा – कभी एक से जुड़ोगे, कभी…

प्रश्नकर्ता: आचार्य जी एक प्रश्न है, “आसक्ति से कैसे बचा जाए?”
आचार्य प्रशांत: क्यों बचा जाए?
श्रोता१: क्योंकि वो नुकसान दे सकती है आपको।
आचार्य प्रशांत : कैसे नुकसान देती है?
श्रोता१: जब आपसे अलग हो जाएगी।
आचार्य प्रशांत : इसमें ये कहाँ पर है कि आसक्ति का मतलब है…

Speaker: ‘How can I get my ex-girlfriend back?’ The question comes from Shubham. Shubham you will have to die (audience bursts into laughter). There is no other way, you will have to die.
You know, it was Kabir who said:
ये तो घर है प्रेम का, खाला का घर…

श्रोता: मैं जब बारहवीं क्लास में था तो उस समय मैंने पढाई में दिलचस्पी नहीं रखी, न ही परिवार से बहुत मतलब रखा। मतलब उस समय मैं कुछ भी नहीं सोचता था। जो मन में आता था वो करता था। और उस समय मुझे लगता था कि सब लोग…

skldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laks
skldjas claksn laksskldjas claksn laksskldjas…

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


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.

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,…

भारतीयों को शायद यह लगता है कि हिंदुस्तान से बाहर जहाँ कहीं कोई मिलेगा वह ‘अंग्रेज़ी’ ही बोल रहा होगा। एक तो यह बहुत बड़ी ग़लतफ़हमी है – बाहर जैसे ही हम निकलेंगे वैसे ही जो मिल रहा होगा अंग्रेज़ी ही बोल रहा होगा। हिंदुस्तान बेचारा बस पिछड़ा हुआ है,…

कथं न ज्ञेयमस्माभिः पापादस्मानिवर्तितुम्। कुलक्षयकृतं दोषं प्रपश्यद्भिर्जनार्दन ॥३९॥
"तो कुल क्षय से होने वाले दोष को देख-सुन कर भी हम लोगों को इस पाप से निवृत्त होने का विचार क्यों नहीं करना चाहिए?"
~ श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, अध्याय १, अर्जुन विषाद योग, श्लोक ३९
आचार्य प्रशांत: इसी आशय के तर्क आगे भी…

Whenever you will give a lot of importance to what others give you, you will be afraid, and then you will want to play safe. Make a list of all that others give you—company, attachment, reputation, and these are the things that are at the core of your fear.
Whenever…

The world is your playground. So don’t be so particular about moving only within your pre-existing circle. If your cause is worth it, show some courage and move out.
If you have a tender and precious sapling in your palm, would you plant it in a desert? No. You will…

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…

Veganism cannot succeed if you just keep talking of animals. You keep saying, “Oh, it is bad to look at animals as a commodity. It is bad to exploit animals.” If man is exploiting man, why will man refrain from exploiting animals?
So, veganism has to be holistic, comprehensive. You…

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…

One can become an entrepreneur, for example, in the field of killing animals, cutting animal flesh, and supplying freshly cut flesh to people at their doorsteps. And this might be a successful business model.
This kind of an entrepreneurship is idiocy, perversion, profanity. The evil was present right in the…

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…

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.”
Swami Vivekananda was no soccer evangelist. His…

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…

Love is when you start seeing the deep desire beneath all your superficial desires. Love is when you start seeing what you are really really thirsty for. Superficially, the desires of different people are different. Deeply, we all share one desire.
So, what is it that happens in love? In…

To love is to see that the other is in trouble. To love is to extend a helping hand. Love is not about admiring somebody’s physicality or using someone for some means. Love has to be an exercise in compassion.
Only two kinds of associations are right in this world.…

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…

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…

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…

Pay attention to all your thoughts, emotions, actions. Something unknown is waiting there for you. Most people know nothing about themselves.
If you are angry, it tells you that there is something within you that is resisting the world now. Why is it resisting the world? Go into it. Try…

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…

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…

The movies tell us that unless there is a special person in your life, you are really missing out on something big, and then you are seized by FOMO. What is FOMO? Fear of missing out.
“Oh my God, everybody has that! I am the only one left behind! I…

Choose a person who will challenge you, not someone who will pamper you, console you, tell you, “You are beautiful as you are.” And in the very same way, choose work. Choose work that will really be difficult to handle. Because if it is difficult to handle, then maybe it…

If you want to know an atom, you have to go to nuclear physics. There you do not just proudly claim, “Oh, I know atoms. Everything is an atom. I have been with atoms since my birth!” There you want to read a book. There you want to consult somebody…

Love knows on its own. Love needs no instructions. Hence, we are so afraid of it. We cannot control it. We do not know where it would go and what trouble it might lead us into. So, we say, keep your hands off this dangerous thing! Better be in formal…

If the two of you could together shout and scratch and bite and tear and break—if all those things could be done together, why not meditate and be loving and compassionate together? Or is companionship only for biting into each other?
So, having been companions, now it is your responsibility…

If a bad thought is persevering in your mind, continuing in your mind, then it means that you are just calling it a bad thought. Deeply you are supporting it; deeply you think that it is a good thought. We call them bad. We actually do not consider them bad.…


Your fear is not that something bad will happen; you are afraid of the impact it will have upon you.
Is it the world that terrifies you, or is it your own vulnerability? If you know very well that, “Come what may! Let the world collapse, it will have no…

Christmas Eve again, Jesus says to his disciples, “I am going to be killed soon.”
One of his disciples, Peter, starts weeping and crying, and he gets a good scolding from Jesus. Jesus says, “Had you had anything to do with God, had you learned anything from me, how could…

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…

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…

Facebook spirituality says, “The greatest religion is not to hurt others.” Just Google it, you’ll find a million responses. What is the greatest religion? To not hurt others.
If there is one fellow who is a bigger culprit than the fellow who gets easily hurt, it is the one who…

For us, life means reactivity. Life is not peace to us. Life is not meditativeness to us. We feel alive when we are tense, reactive, and agitated. Then you say that now you have come alive.
The fellow is sitting silently and peacefully, unnoticeable. You will say he is a…

What is the nature of a gymnasium? The gymnasium only gives you obstacles. Have you ever noticed? You want to raise something—what is the gymnasium giving you? Weights, and weights are obstacles against the rise. The gymnasium really does not support you, it actually obstructs you.
The world is anyway…

Love is not about admiring somebody’s physicality, or using someone for some means. Love has to be an exercise in compassion. So, I often say, when you relate to the other, relate either to uplift or to be uplifted.
Only two kinds of associations are right in this world. If…