Niralamba Upanishad

Worrying is the other name of hope. When you think negatively about the future, you call it worry. When you think positively about the future, you call it hope. So, worrying is just as equally bad as hoping.

Conserve your energy. Train your thoughts. Discipline your little self. Time is…

Hope is a very dangerous animal. It can make you do the most stupid things. It can make you fall in the same trap one million times.

There was the Cricket World Cup in 2003, and the finals were played between India and Australia. I know of a man who…

She won’t directly say, “Get me a sari.” Often when they need a sari, they do not say they need a sari; they say, “Janu (beloved), you do not love me!” And janu understands: she needs a sari.

Similarly, janu does not need to say…

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…

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,…

You did not do what you should have done for yourself; therefore you now expect somebody else to do good things for you.

The responsibility to bring goodness to your life rests primarily upon you, not upon somebody else. To bring somebody to life and then expect that somebody to…

Only in aloneness can you have relationships that are not exploitative. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what name, what color you give to your relationship; your relationship will be definitely one of exploitation.

Have you ever looked at your relationships closely? Do you ever want the other? No. You just want…

The problem is, the usual feminism always proceeds keeping the man at the center. The woman is saying, “The man is alright, and I want to be like the man.” This is such a low standard to set. Whereas, true feminism would proceed keeping the person that the female is,…

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…

“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…

You never want the other person; you want returns from the other person.

When those returns are not forthcoming, have you seen how you shout, how you go breathless, how you panic, how you stamp your feet, how you pull the other’s hair, how you pull out your own hair?…

Life is decided by no factor stronger than the company and the environment you give yourself. So be careful. Be careful about the people you meet, be careful about the stuff you read, be careful about what you eat, be careful about what you are seeing, what you are hearing.…

If you start thinking that a man or a woman will bring contentment to you, will bring godliness to your home, then you are going to be severely disappointed.

And that’s why you see disappointed couples. The man was living a forlorn life. The woman was living a spineless life,…

Keep fighting. Keep fighting till your victory, and keep fighting in your defeat. The second part is more important. Keep fighting even when you have been beaten down. Keep fighting even when yours looks like a hopeless cause, a lost battle. Don’t just start wallowing in self-pity and self-abuse. “Oh!…

“Why do you want to follow their science? We will follow our science!” This kind of thing too you are hearing these days, no? This science and that science, as if there are multiple sciences all opposed to each other. Spiritual sciences! What kind of foolishness is this? Pandit-ji is…

Why do you want commitment? Because not only do you want to have sex, you want an uninterrupted and guaranteed supply of sex; that is what you call as commitment.

“Not only should you be with me for one night; assure me that I will find you on the bed…

Nobody is obliged to live as per your fancies. Are you able to fulfill your own expectations? And if even you cannot meet your self-image, how is the poor wife or husband going to live up to what you expect from him or her? If you think that it is…

Man was never so powerful with respect to his environment as he is today. No virus can harm you; no bacteria can harm you; there are no plagues, no black deaths. You can produce as many objects as you want, you can order them at the click of a button;…

You have all the right to make a choice. But if you make a choice and don’t do justice to it, then that is very bad. In fact, correction of choices happens only when you have first of all fully tried out what you are doing. Unless you dedicate yourself…

“Shiva is not giving me peace. Maybe gold, riches, pleasure, entertainment can give me peace?” This is a foolish approach. The master and the servant are one. The servant will not give you what the master is not giving you. Shakti and Shiva are one; the creator and his creation…

Love firstly means total dedication towards the Beloved, and secondly, total identification with the world. First of all, you need total disidentification with the world, because unless you are totally disidentified with the world, how will you identify with Him? And that is why saints have so much compassion for…

There is no search as ignorant, as useless, and as tragic as the search for happiness. And unfortunately, happiness or sukha is something that all your well-wishers want for you, that all the markets and systems in the world promise you, and all that your mind is mad for.

It…

You’re asking me, “Is it possible to act rightly with trembling hands?” I am saying, you can act rightly only with trembling hands.

One unmistakable quality of right action would be that it would require all your guts. It is only false action that you can comfortably undertake. Falseness is…

Desire begins when you perceive a world out there, and the world makes a promise. What does the world say? ”Here you will get what you want.”

You cannot desire in absence of a promise. This is the fundamental duality of mind. You desire only because you are hopeful that…

If you want Truth in your life, create a situation in which you have to face the false. Face the false and reject it—that is when you’ll be forced to call the Truth.

Now, what is it that I mean by the false? That which does not satisfy you is…

The ego does not live for the Truth; it lives for its own survival. And to live for one’s survival makes any sense only in the presence of challenges to survival. If there are no challenges to survival, whose survival are you protecting and living for?

Therefore, if you are…

Your action has to be one with the Truth. Let wisdom guide your action. That’s Yoga of Wisdom. What is the other kind of action? Prescribed action.

Each of us, in each moment, has to make this choice. Where is your action going to come from? Is it going to…

Let’s assume for a while that your worries about the future are founded in facts. Let’s say some grand evil army is invading your little fortress and you can see them all coming with your binoculars, and you are estimating that they will reach you in another four hours. They…

A fellow might be doing the worst possible thing to you in the name of love or concern or friendship, and he will keep saying, “But you know, this is my care towards you.” This is not care. You must apply intelligence. Is this love? Is this care? When you…

Do two things: One, start talking real stuff; secondly, start blocking the nonsense. And then you will see who stays with you and who does not. Do both of these two things, concurrently. Start talking the real things with all those you consider close to yourself, and start blocking all…

You do not really care about the expectations that, let’s say, the entire humanity has from you. It is bitterly cold and a dog is outside your doorsteps; you do not wonder about the expectations that that dog might be having. It is only the expectations of a particular four…

The woman is the more oppressed of the two. Once the revolution begins, obviously man too will be liberated. But just as woman gives birth to the man, woman will also need to give birth to the freedom of man. Man will not be able to give birth to his…

The sexual activity is just like any other activity of man: he is searching for God. He searches for God in ambition. He looks for God in money. He looks for God in fame. He also looks for God in a woman’s body.

But because he is not in touch…

When you say that you go to your workplace for a purpose, is the purpose ever the work? The purpose is the salary cheque. In fact, if work could be bypassed and you could straightaway reach the salary cheque, then who would want to work? Is work the purpose really?…

Loneliness does not decrease when you connect to a thousand other people using technology. Loneliness is a thing within. Irrespective of how many people you are connected to in a party or via Zoom, loneliness is not going to decrease. It’s just that when you are in a party, loneliness…

There was a kids camp, I have freshly returned from there. I bought three or four masks, really scary masks as per my standards, and I wore those masks. I also bought a couple of rubber snakes, and I took those rubber snakes, and when the kids were sleeping, I…

You defeat someone not because he is weak; you defeat someone when he wants to protect his weaknesses. Understand the difference. It is not your weaknesses that defeat you; it is your fondness towards your weaknesses, your protective attitude towards your weaknesses that defeats you.

If you are prepared to…

Is your lover enfeebling you, enslaving you, or empowering you? Ask yourself.

Somebody who limits you, cages you, mostly in the name of care, cannot be your friend, let alone lover.

Somebody who allows you to comfortably exist with your weaknesses cannot be a worthy lover.

Somebody who doesn’t challenge…

This is the way most parent-child relationships are, this is the way most families are constructed—not on the foundation of love and Truth, but merely as institutions that exist for society’s sake.

How often do a man and a woman come together for the sake of Truth? How many people…

Our love is always a product of conditions and proceeds only as long as conditions remain favorable. It hurts to hear this, because we want to claim and we have professed in front of our loved ones many a times that “I will keep loving you till eternity” and, you…

Even when you want to worship Shiva, you only worship him with his eyes half-closed, deeply absorbed in meditation. You do not want to look at the tāṇḍava mudra (dance of destruction form) of Shiva. Yes, there are a few temples, there are some infrequent references, but largely you do…

If you are someone who is a serial relator—one relationship after the other, or several relationships at a time, whatever, one and the same thing really—you must tell yourself that you really have not a physical but a spiritual urge, and therefore you should stop your mad, nonsensical method of…

If God has given you anything, it is just the freedom, the power, and the responsibility to create yourself. You are your own father. God is just the background. God is just the canvas on which you paint yourself. God is the brush, God is the color, God is the…

You want the other person to be nice. We are such idiots. We want the other person to be nice. And if the other person is not nice, we feel there is no love. We do not understand anything. We are prepared to give up our life probably when somebody…

Lovers often like it when the partner acts silly. “It is so sweet, chomu is so silly!” But have you ever seen the partner going crazy saying, “My chomu is so enlightened”? An enlightened chomu is such a threat; you cannot like him. But silly chomu is so cute.

You…

Intention, goal, purpose, desire, clinging, attachment, attraction—none of these are bad, provided they are towards the right object, right end. Please be attached, please be greatly attached, please be desirous, please feel the attraction, the pull towards liberation, towards Truth.

It is not for nothing that your mind is vested…