Soul

If you are someone who cannot take care of herself, how will you be sure that your presence, your company is not becoming an influence of sickness on the other person?

Be very, very alert about cohabitation. Just don’t start living with anybody. Be very, very conscious of your personal…

Simple living is: when I look at somebody, I do not look at the makeup, I do not look at the brand of the clothes, I do not look at the expression the fellow is wearing; I look at the essence of the person. Direct and simple.

I do not…

You are not born alone. You are born welded to the body. The two of you are born together, and the two of you cannot go together. Born together, but can’t live together, but have to live together. ‘Live together’ not in the sense of reaching a compromise—the two of…

You have an exam tomorrow morning, and right now the body wants to sleep.

You very well know that you have an urgent task at hand, but the body is yelling for food.

You very well know that the fellow in front of you is a teacher, but the body

There is work that one needs to do to run the body, and such work even animals have to do. This you need not call as work; this you can call as labor of living. If you are alive then you have to feed yourself. This even animals have to…

We often feel that if we love someone, we must think of him or her. In fact, if someone tells us that we stay put in his memories, then we feel assured that the fellow loves us. Isn’t that which is taken often as a mark of love? “Oh! I…

It is not at all sufficient to talk of the Truth. One has to live the Truth. The Truth must not sit merely on your tongue but in all parts of your body. Your hands must express it; your legs, your eyes, your ears must express it; not merely your…

Most of the lovers, if you go to them and tell them point-blank that what they are experiencing is merely physical attraction, they feel offended.

They say, “No, it has something to do with the soul. My spirit is in love with her spirit. It is not merely bodily. I…

What is physical cheating? If the relationship exists purely on the physical domain, then you will be greatly offended if you find your partner sleeping around with somebody else, because that was everything that there was to that relationship—the body. The relationship was all about the body, and the body…

Can anybody ever love a man or a woman? Only those who have never seen a dead body would think so. What do you do with the body?

When you were asked, “Whom do you love?” you pointed towards the body. And now the person is dead—what do you do…

Questioner (Q): Scientists have been trying to prove the existence of the soul for a long time now. They are doing research about near-death experiences, out-of-the-body experiences, and reincarnation. Eleven to fourteen percent of the average American population who are mentally and physically healthy have had an out-of-the-body experience at…

“The fact is that the mind is only a bundle of thoughts. How can you extinguish it by the thought of doing so, or by a desire? Your thoughts and desires are part and parcel of the mind, and the mind is simply fattened by new thoughts rising up, therefore…

नाहं देहो न मे देहो बोधोऽहमिति निश्चयी।

कैवल्यं इव संप्राप्तो न स्मरत्यकृतं कृतम्॥ ११.६ ॥

nāhaṃ deho na me deho bodho'hamiti niścayī

वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय

नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि।

तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णा

Question: Acharya Ji, my father passed away four years ago, but still I miss him and he is in my memory. I don’t know how to deal with this condition. What is this all about?

Acharya Prashant Ji:

You want to remember him as a body, as a person, and

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, as we know that we are not the body, then why there is such a strong association with the body?

Acharya Prashant (AP): If you are not the body, who is called Rishabh (the questioner)? The wall, the Sky, the woods? Who is Rishabh then?

Questioner: A few days ago, during my usual morning work commute, I was watching your video on Mansahaar – flesh consumption, you called that the biggest sin, and although I am a vegetarian, my heart cried. My eyes got filled with tears in the middle of the World Trade Center.…

Question: Why does it happen that the movements and gestures that we make in our daily life is what others make perception of ours. For example in the past two hours I have been listening to you and I can’t stop noticing the fact that you are moving your legs?…

Listener 1: Pleasure for the human condition is just an absence of pain.

Acharya Prashant: Never talk of pleasure and pain separately. Never think that one exists in the absence of other. Never say that pleasure is the absence of pain. In fact, language has played a nasty trick here,…

Acharya Prashant: (Reading from listener’s notebook) Be poised, rock firm that you are not the body.

You are already poised that way. And if you talk of being poised that way then you are just dealing in petty change – 10 cents, 20 cents. Then, you are not dealing in…

Questioner: In some books, it is written that body does not lie. If you are thinking of something, body shows some messages, some signs. Body is telling the truth.

Acharya Prashant: No, body is not telling the Truth; body is representing the mind.

Questioner (Q): Morally, we are supposed to obey our parents for several reasons, we owe them a lot. Is there any point where it is okay to defy them and take an independent decision going against their will and liking, when does this realization come?

Acharya Prashant (AP):

Speaker: What is sense gratification?

There are these senses; Eyes, Ears and all. Sense gratification is to provide the senses with what pleases them. The eyes like to look at pleasing figures, forms. The ears want to hear what they are programmed to be pleased with. The tongue wants to

Questioner (Q): Sir, as a woman, how should I perceive religion? Religion and culture are supposed to help, but I have practically seen that religion is associated with patriarchy and misogyny. Please tell me, as women how should I look at religion? Acharya Prashant (AP): See, the relationship…

समोऽहं सर्वभूतेषु न मे द्वेष्योऽस्ति न प्रिय:।

ये भजन्ति तु मां भक्त्या मयि ते तेषु चाप्यहम्।।29।।

samo ’haṁ sarva-bhūteṣhu na me dveṣhyo ’sti na priyaḥ

Short description for the E2E smoke test article.

Sunday Guardian ColumnSunday Guardian ColumnSunday Guardian ColumnSunday Guardian ColumnSunday Guardian Column

Jesus stands for the Truth and Truth is omnipresent.

He is present here, and right now, in the hearts of those who love him.

Jesus is not a mere mortal. Jesus is the source of light; the root of all flowers and beauty. In one form, he disappears. In another,…

युवावस्था बहुत ही नाज़ुक समय होता है। यही समय निर्धारित कर देता है कि जीवन किस दिशा जाएगा।

The Truth cannot be objectified as a thing, place, person, or book. So, don't be too quick to accept your own assessments, judgments, likes, dislikes, and experiences. Whatever you're seeing is seen by "you" — the Ego — and you are no absolute. Everything must be available to enquiry, investigation, and questioning — and questioning cannot happen if you declare that you’ve already come to the Truth. Never believe that the journey has ended or that the ego itself is the Truth.

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।

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

Questioner: A lot of students that I talk to — it’s the fear of the society, it’s the fear of the unknown, it’s fear of the expectations that they are carrying, that pushes them to become an engineer and then they figure out that probably this is not something that they wanted to be. And that is the reality of a lot of individuals and not just engineers. Probably, here is something that is stopping me from taking a plunge of starting something of myself, right? Fear is something that is stopping somebody who is in a relationship for ten years to take that step to get married. Where does this fear come from? Acharya Prashant: Lack of love, which comes from lack of self-knowledge. You see, when I tie my sense of existence, my very identity, to something that is unreliable, I will have to be afraid. It’s like putting my heart on this table. Now, how can I live in security? The heart is out there on the table, anybody can take it away, anything can happen to it. Or the heart might grow legs and walk away on its own. My very existence has been subjected to something that is not in my control. Something that is definitely going to deceive me at some point, that is fear. My sense of self-worth comes from my monies, my bank account, I will be afraid. That bank account can be closed anytime, anything can happen. My sense of self-worth comes from my physical appearance. I very well know, time will take it away, I will be afraid. Right? Who am I? I am the one who is praised or worshipped by the society. Oh! I will be so afraid, so afraid! You talked of people working for their images, they would be living a cursed life. Because, their heart is out there in the hands of strangers. Their entire identity is tied to their image and the image is in the eyes of other people. So, the image can be distorted or can disappear any moment. Just imagine, how afraid they would be all the time. That’s with the ego. Because, the ego, as I said, is a fundamental sense of incompleteness. Therefore, to complete itself, it just associates itself to anything possible. And the things that you are associating yourself with, they are not reliable. They belong to the world and the world can take them away. They belong to time. They came with time and with time all those things will disappear. And you have tied your identity to those things. Now how can you rest in peace? That’s fear. If you do not have self-knowledge, you will always be afraid. My identity is linked to my husband’s identity. Now the husband has two legs. And the husband has a brain, a mind of his own. If your identity comes from your husband’s name, as happens in India at least, you would always be afraid as a wife. The husband can change his mind any day. You would always be, you know, having one eye on his secretary, and the other eye in his email and mobile phone. What’s he getting into? Who’s texting him? Why is he on the phone so late in the night? Because you are afraid if husband goes away, what happens to you? Your very existence depends on the husband. That’s fear. When you operate from the ego centre and make something very, very important for yourself and that something belongs to the world, it can go away anytime, and you are afraid. And in that fear, there can never be love, never be love. If you are afraid of losing something, you will be very violent towards it. Nobody lets his money go and have a walk down the road. What do you do? You lock up your money. That’s violence. When something starts becoming very meaningful to you, you lock it up. You don’t want it to have freedom. And that’s violence. So, love and fear just cannot go together. If you are dependent on something or somebody, you will be afraid. And that dependence cannot be called love. And that is a confusion, we often get into it. Just because you depend on somebody and somebody depends on you, you start feeling as if it is love, it is not. Questioner: Just like the way political parties think that people love them but it actually is fear. Acharya Prashant: Exactly! Love is a rare quality and rarer in politics. Questioner: So, if I am interested in a particular profession, do I not pursue it wholeheartedly? Do I pursue it wholeheartedly knowing very well that the results can either be zero or one? Acharya Prashant: One has to go into the very nature of interest. Aren’t we interested in cricket? Aren’t we interested in seeing songs in movies? Practically, everybody in India is interested in cricket, nobody in Brazil is. And nobody in India is interested in ice hockey. So, that’s how flimsy the whole thing about interest is. In India, if you don’t get a movie with songs, you say, “I am disinterested.” The movie would bomb. In Hollywood, if you have a movie with songs, that would raise eyebrows, what’s going on? Occasionally, you have an OD song but typically there is no song. So, that is the nature of interest. It is never something of the heart. Love and interest are not the same thing. Interest is something that is given to you by your body, by your environment, by random chance, your circumstances and all these. So that’s how your interests come to you. So, if you are interested in a vocation, first of all, you have to ask yourself, “Just two years back, I was interested in something else and two years before I was interested in that and when I was four years old, I was interested in becoming a fighter pilot. What happened to all those interests?” Today, I smile at those things and just shrug them off, “I don’t want to be a fighter pilot.” What you want to be today? Oh! I want to be an investment banker. What happened to the fighter pilot? You were so interested in that. And how do you know, tomorrow you will not be looking at this I-banker, just the way today you are looking at the fighter pilot. The self of a five-year old appears so naïve and immature when you are twenty-five. How do you know that at thirty-five, you will not look back at this twenty-five year old self and say, “What the hell! How was I taking this fellow so seriously?” So, interest is something that you must look at with healthy contempt. Interest, mind you, can even be induced in you. Interest can be aroused in you. That’s what the entire advertising industry is about. They can make you feel Interested in things that is intrinsically worthless to you. So, of what value is this thing called interest? But, then in today’s world, we place so much premium on this word 'interest.' Do what interests you, this, that. Whereas, it is wisdom to realize that interest is the last thing that you should ever go after. Then people come up and say, “No, should we do things that we are not interested in? No.

How do you, asks the chief of police, patrol a city, where the butcher shops are guarded by vultures, where bulls get pregnant, cows are barren,

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…

Now, mind is movement, right? Why does the mind move at all? The mind wants to reach somewhere. Where does the mind want to reach? Is that place within the mind? The mind wants to reach somewhere. Every thought, every action, every motivation, every emotion rides on a desire, is

Prarabdha refers to the sum total of (apparent)movements in time and space that have resulted in the (apparent) formation of the jiva – the human being, or any other being.Everything that the being appears to be is prarabdha. And prarabdha is all past.

सङ्करो नरकायैव कुलघ्नानां कुलस्य च ।। पतन्ति पितरो ह्येषां लुप्तपिण्डोदकक्रिया: ।।1.42।।

Overview

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

“I will beat him!”

“I will destroy her!”

“Did you just insult me? Did you?”

Four hours forty-eight minutes of deep intellectual perspiration!

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…

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.”

The worst are those who say, “But what do I do? I am helpless.” These are in the lowest state; they are the worst self-deceivers. They harm themselves and they pollute the entire environment.

A little better than these are those who at least try exercising choice, though their choices…