Science can examine material claims, but Advaita Vedanta deals with the subjective self, ego, suffering, bondage, and liberation—areas outside science’s objective framework. Vedanta need not be accepted because of one’s religion or tradition; its value lies in whether its insights can be personally verified and help free one from suffering. The ultimate responsibility is not toward any philosophy, but toward oneself: to live a truly free life.
The atman is called 'the enjoyer' in the sense of the watcher, just as in a cinema hall you enjoy the show. How do you enjoy the show? By leaping into the screen? In the cinema hall, you enjoy the show by relaxing in your seat. That's what the atma does—it keeps relaxing in its seat. Even suffering is enjoyed in this detached manner, much like how we can enjoy tragic scenes in a movie. For the atma, there is no tragedy, as all suffering is false.
Acharya Prashant: Any kind of attainment whether physical or mental indicates the presence of a bonded one within. The full cannot attain. The limitless cannot add to itself anymore. Only the one with boundaries can aspire to attain. When there are boundaries, then there is scope for addition. When there
नायमात्मा बलहीनेन लभ्यो न च प्रमादात्तपसो वाप्यलिङ्गात् ।
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Questioner: Acharya Ji, Pranaam! I read the six chapters from the book allotted to me yesterday. And now I don’t want to stop and there is a feeling of stillness. But when I look back to conclude what I have read, I cannot recollect much. There is a feeling that…
सभी देवता वास्तव में आपकी आंतरिक शक्तियों के प्रतीक हैं, क्योंकि स्थूल जगत में कोई देवता नहीं होते; वे आपके भीतर ही हैं। दानव तुम्हारा वही हिस्सा है जो बार-बार चोट खाकर भी हठी की तरह खड़ा हो जाता है, अपनी पुरानी गलतियाँ दोहराने के लिए। यदि तुम्हें अपने भीतर के दानव को परास्त करना है, तो अपने काम, क्रोध, मद, मोह, लोभ और भय — इन 6 गुणों को सत्य और ऊँचाई की सेवा में माने देवी को समर्पित करना होगा।
We never know the total. The mind, the senses, the grasping power are all limited. The total is available to you, but not through the root of intellectualization, not through the root of causation. The total is available in silence, in noise, in movement, in appearance, in grasping, in holding, in intellect. When you are still, then that which is to be known is known just by itself — without reason, without cause, without preparation, without desire.
We are all system-makers, and systems we do make. Having made systems, we think those systems are final. No, they are not final. You have to go beyond every inner system that you create. You can say, “People are of 4 kinds,” and you can classify the entire 800 crore people of the world into 4. It’s clever, but not very useful when it comes to liberation.
Excerpts from Articles
Justice Without Boundaries: Why Compassion Cannot Stop at Species
Oppression should not see caste, gender, creed or colour, and it should not see species either. The moral threshold is sentience, not intelligence. An animal feels pain as fully as a human does, whether or not it can explain its suffering.
Climate change is more than an environmental crisis—it is a crisis of human choices. Our patterns of consumption, consumerism and endless pursuit of more are putting increasing pressure on the planet. But meaningful change does not necessarily begin with new technology or stricter policies. It begins with a deeper question: what are we willing to change within ourselves?
अंधविश्वास या किसी दावे को केवल किताबों, परंपराओं या बड़ी-बड़ी हस्तियों के कहने से नहीं मानना चाहिए। भौतिक जगत से जुड़े हर दावे के लिए प्रमाण माँगना आवश्यक है। जो बात जाँची-परखी जा सकती है, उसे तर्क, प्रयोग और उपकरणों से जाना जाए; बिना जाने नहीं माना जाए। सच्ची जिज्ञासा वही है जो हर दावे के सामने प्रश्नचिह्न रखे और प्रमाण मिलने पर ही स्वीकार करे।
रक्षाबंधन केवल भाई-बहन के रिश्ते और सुरक्षा की रस्म तक सीमित नहीं होना चाहिए। आज असली रक्षा उन चीज़ों की ज़रूरत है जो कमज़ोर और संकट में हैं—गौरैया, नदियाँ, पहाड़, पेड़, महासागर और पृथ्वी। साथ ही ईमानदारी, आत्मज्ञान और मानवीय मूल्यों की भी रक्षा जरूरी है। धर्म कर्मकांड नहीं, अपनी शक्ति और उससे जुड़ी व्यापक ज़िम्मेदारी को समझना है।
जो खुद आज़ाद नहीं, वह लोकतंत्र को मजबूत कैसे करेगा?
लोकतंत्र, गणतंत्र और स्वतंत्रता केवल संविधान में लिखे शब्द नहीं, बल्कि जागरूक नागरिक की चेतना पर निर्भर हैं। वास्तविक स्वतंत्रता मनमानी करने की छूट नहीं, बल्कि भीतर घुसे भय, लालच, अंधविश्वास, पूर्वाग्रह और बाहरी प्रभावों से मुक्ति है। जब नागरिक अपने ही विचारों और मान्यताओं की जाँच नहीं करता, तो लोकतंत्र भीड़तंत्र और संप्रभुता खोखली बन सकती है।
एक पुजारी जो रोज़ भूत-प्रेत, तंत्र-मंत्र और वशीकरण के नाम पर आए लोगों से मिलता है, आचार्य प्रशांत से पूछता है: जब वो ख़ुद जानता है कि कुछ भूत-चुड़ैल नहीं होता, तो लोग बार-बार इसी झूठ की शरण में क्यों जाते हैं? जवाब अंधविश्वास से कहीं गहरा निकलता है — यह हमारे भीतर के उस झूठ की कहानी है, जिसे हम हर कीमत पर बचाना चाहते हैं।
फ़ालतू खर्च छोड़िए, अपनी ज़िंदगी पर खर्च करना सीखिए
आचार्य प्रशांत बताते हैं कि क्यों हम सही खान-पान, स्वास्थ्य और अपने ऊपर ज़रूरी खर्च से बचते हैं, लेकिन दिखावे और फ़ालतू सामाजिक परंपराओं पर पैसा बहा देते हैं। अधिकांश लोगों के लिए समस्या सिर्फ़ पैसों की कमी नहीं, बल्कि विवेक और सही प्राथमिकताओं की कमी भी है।
ज्योतिष कितना सच है? कुंडली, ग्रह-नक्षत्र: इनका क्या अर्थ है?
वेदांत को केवल इसलिए सही या श्रेष्ठ नहीं माना जा सकता कि वह किसी विशेष परंपरा से आता है। विज्ञान जहाँ भौतिक जगत की वस्तुनिष्ठ जाँच करता है, वहीं अद्वैत वेदांत सीधे मनुष्य के ‘मैं’, उसके दुख, बंधन और मुक्ति की पड़ताल करता है। इसकी कसौटी वैज्ञानिक प्रमाण नहीं, बल्कि अपने जीवन में इसकी सच्चाई को देख पाना है। किसी दर्शन को मान लेना नहीं, बल्कि उससे स्वयं को मुक्त करना ही उसका वास्तविक उद्देश्य है।
Struggling to choose between a secure job and the path you actually feel drawn to? This isn't really a question about careers. It's about why other people's opinions have so much power over you in the first place. Real clarity doesn't come from finding the 'right' choice. It comes from honestly looking at your own fear, again and again, until it stops running the decision for you.
सपनों और सामाजिक प्रतिष्ठा के पीछे भागते हुए युवा अक्सर अपनी वास्तविक क्षमता, रुचि और वर्तमान चुनौतियों को देखना भूल जाते हैं। आईआईटी, यूपीएससी, सरकारी नौकरी और पेंशन को जीवन का लक्ष्य मान लेने के बजाय ज़रूरी है आत्मज्ञान—ख़ुद को ईमानदारी से परखना। जवानी भविष्य की सुरक्षा की चिंता में नहीं, आज की वास्तविक चुनौतियों से जूझने और सार्थक कर्म में लगनी चाहिए।
कई तरह के डर—अकेले पड़ने, छवि खोने या छोटा समझे जाने—की जड़ अक्सर अतीत में बनी पहचान और कहानियों में होती है। शरीर की हाइट जैसी चीज़ों को समस्या मानकर उनसे जूझने के बजाय उनकी अप्रासंगिकता को समझकर आगे बढ़ना चाहिए। अतीत को दबाने से मुक्ति नहीं मिलती; उसके करीब जाकर अपनी स्मृतियों, धारणाओं और पुराने पैटर्न को निष्पक्षता से देखना ज़रूरी है।
Take up the bow of the Upanishad, that mighty weapon, set to it an arrow sharpened by adoration, draw the bow…
Spirituality is not for the timid, the lukewarm, the ones who live life in a diplomatic way, the ones who like to keep all ends secured and covered. You have to be unreasonably, outrageously in love. You have to be in love with that immensity, and then you can easily reject all the petty things, and you won’t feel bad. After all, we are lovers of joy.
Explore Books on Lord Shiv by Acharya Prashant, revealing deep Vedantic insights into Shiv’s true essence, symbols, and spiritual wisdom beyond misconceptions.
Don’t think of heaven and hell as the afterlife; both are here, right now. As the Niralamba Upanishad says: Right company is heaven; wrong company is hell. If you are someone who loves to be with people who will take you towards truth, joy, and simplicity, you are already in heaven. And if you surround yourself with people who pull down your consciousness, then verily, you are—right now—in hell.
का जाति:।
जातिरिति च।
न चर्मणो न रक्तस्य न मांसस्य न चास्थिनः।
न जातिरात्मनो जातिर्व्यवहारप्रकल्पिता॥१०॥
शरीर (त्वचा, रक्त, हड्डी आदि) की कोई जाति नहीं होती। आत्मा की भी कोई जाति नहीं होती। जाति तो व्यवहार में प्रयुक्त कल्पना मात्र है।
~ निरालंब उपनिषद (श्लोक क्रमांक १०)
आचार्य प्रशांत: आज जो…
Self-help books aim to help the self without investigating what it really is. The self has desires, and the book guides you to fulfill them, which gratifies the self. The way to help the ego is to reveal its falseness. It doesn’t need help; it needs dissolution. Vedanta explores the ‘I’ to dissolve it. That’s where you’ll find rigorous self-enquiry and freedom from the sufferings of the self.
यमराज तो यमराज ठहरे। हमारे स्वार्थों और हमारी भावनाओं से क्या लेना देना? तो वह पहली बात यह स्पष्ट कर देते हैं कि श्रेय और प्रेय आपस में अलग-अलग हैं। या तो यह पकड़ लो या यह पकड़ लो। यह दो नावों पर तुम एक साथ सवारी नहीं कर पाओगे। अपनी चालाकियां अपनी जेब में रखो। दुनिया भी ना छूटे और दिलदार भी मिल जाए, ऐसा नहीं होगा। जो दिलदार दुनिया छोड़े बिना मिल जाए वो दुनिया की ही धूल होता है। वहां फिर दिल जैसा कुछ होता भी नहीं। यह किसी की फिजूल जिद नहीं है कि दो में से एक ही मिल सकता है। यह अस्तित्व का एक साधारण नियम है।
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प्रश्नकर्ता: गरुड़ पुराण और ये सारे, जो वाचे जाते हैं, ये भी कल्पना हैं? कहीं न कहीं से तो ये आया है।
आचार्य प्रशांत: कुछ भी जो है, वो कहाँ से आता है? कुछ भी जिसको आप बोलते हो कि “है”, वो कहाँ से आता है? बोलिए?
प्र: रचना तो…
Brahm is not the creator. When you desperately want to invent a creator, then you come up with īśvára. But Vedanta is not very enamored of īśvára. So, Vedanta says, "Īśvara is just Maya, just Maya.” Because you experience the universe, therefore, you feel the need to justify the origin of the universe. Therefore, you must have an īśvára. But how can the creator of a false universe be real? If the universe is false, what do you say about its creator?
In the Upanishads, "Om" is used as a powerful symbol of transcendence. It consists of three sounds: "A", "U" and "M". These correspond to the three states of consciousness. "Om" begins where one currently is—obviously, there can be no other place to begin with. You can only begin from where you are. So "Om' begins with "A", which is your current state of consciousness.
प्रश्नकर्ता: आज शिविर में वज्रसूचिकोपनिषद् का पाठ किया तो जाना कि सचमुच में ब्राह्मण कौन होता है। आज तक लगता था कि ब्राह्मण जन्म या जाति के आधार पर बनते हैं; आज वो धारणा टूट रही है। ब्राह्मण कौन होता है, आचार्य जी और स्पष्ट करें।
janam janam bharmat firi-o miti-o na jam ko taraas
kaho naanak har bhaj manaa nirbhai paavahi baas
Mortals wander lost and confused through countless lifetimes; their fear of death is never…
Acharya Prashant:
Chandogya Upanishad — Chapter 3, part 11, verses 2 and 3:
न वै तत्र न निम्लोच नोदियाय कदाचन ।
देवास्तेनाहंसत्येन मा विराधिषि ब्रह्मणेति ॥ ३.११.२ ॥
na vai tatra na nimloca nodiyāya kadācana |
devāstenāhaṃsatyena mā virādhiṣi Brahmaṇeti || 3.11.2 ||
Never does this happen there; never did…
We believe that the four yugas represent time spans on the calendar as an external entity. Vedanta just does not look at time as an external entity. Time is a state of mind. So, these four *Yugas*, they surely are states of mind. Satya Yuga is when the mind is totally centred in the Self, the Truth. Treta is when the mind is identified with thoughts. Dvapara is the body, and Kali Yuga is saṃsāra.
Your deepest dream is to just be what you are, what you really are. And the world gives you a thousand dreams, but not this one. Heaven is the moment when you realize that this dream is possible. Hell is when you have already lost your way, and there are voices around that say, "You cannot go back, there is no home." All that forces tell you not to fly too high, the forces that tell you that compromise is the name of the game-the company of such voices is hell. A point comes where there is neither heaven nor hell. There is just an empty stillness- Beyond.
The mind of a sage is continuously sensing a reality beyond appearances, a reality beyond limits. There is a constant realization that all the diversities share commonalities and there is something beyond the diversities that contain all the diversities. This feeling is being given a poetic manifestation in this particular verse. What matters here is the sense that there is something definitely beyond; that which is perceivable, all that which can be experienced between the Earth and the sky is of little importance compared to that.
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Acharya Prashant: Nachiketa is a mere boy dependent on his father, and he has the honesty and the guts to go to his father and say, “Of what use is all this that you are doing? Who will benefit from these old and sick and milkless cows?” I assure you…
Acharya Prashant:
You haven’t yet started?
Questioner: No sir.
Acharya Prashant: It’s too late.
Questioner: (laughing). Sir, how late? I wasn’t actually sure if I’ll be able to digest it or not.
Acharya Prashant: How…
4
Those who are anywhere close to the Truth know what is being said. The journeying fructifies only when one is at the destination in the beginning itself. Be at the destination right in the beginning, and then the journey will be successful. But if one is traveling to reach the destination, one will never reach because the traveler is designed to not reach. If he were to reach, why would he be a traveler?
2
Questioner: Acharya Ji, today I was reading about brain and conditioning. Our brain is affected by experiences all the time, and these experiences put the brain in a certain form and cause deformities also.
I have some memories about some people that do not allow me to feel free. I…
Questioner:
What is
Duḥkha
?
Acharya Prashant: The thought, the desire of all that which is fleeting, ephemeral is Duḥkha. Why is it Duḥkha? To whom, is it Duḥkha? Few things have to be understood. Everything likes to be in its most stress-free state. That's what even…
1
Unmoving, the One, than the mind is swifter.
The senses fell back as ahead It speeded.
Though standing, It passes all others running.
The air by Its presence supports the waters.
It moves and yet It does not move. It is far and also near.
It is found within all…
5
आचार्य प्रशांत: हम जैसे जीते हैं, हमारे लिए दो हैं, एक संसार और एक हम। संसार और एक हम, कुछ हम संसार की बात करते हैं, कुछ हम अपनी बात करते हैं। जब हम अपनी बात करते हैं तो भी हम अपने आप को देखते उन्हीं उपकरणों से और उसी…
andhaṁ tamaḥ praviśanti ye'vidyāmupāsate
tato bhūya iva te tamo ya u vidyāyāṁ ratāḥ
They enter into a blinding darkness who worship avidyā; into still greater darkness, as it were, do they enter who delight in…
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Different indeed, they say, is the result of vidya and different indeed, they say, is the result of avidya. Thus have we heard from the wise who had explained it to us. He who knows both vidya and avidya together, transcends mortality through avidya and reaches immortality through vidya.
Nachiketa said: That which you see as other than righteousness and unrighteousness, other than all this cause and effect, other than what has been and what is to be—tell me, that.
The destruction of actions leads to that of thought; thence results the dwindling of innate impulses (to act). The obliteration of innate impulses is liberation; it is held to be freedom in life. || 12||
~…
Acharya Prashant (AP): A conspiracy is a belief that you are quite clever. A belief is a conspiracy that is not known as a conspiracy.
A conspiracy is a belief that you are quite clever. A belief is a conspiracy that…
3
Questioner: You mentioned that mumukṣā (deep desire for liberation) is what matters when we choose a path for liberation. But the mind is always playing games. Once I do things against its comfort, it tries to make up stories, create random, non-existent problems for me. Should I listen to my…
adhaścordhvaṃ ca prasṛtaṃ brahmaivedaṃ viśvamidaṃ variṣṭham
All this is Brahman immortal, naught else; Brahman is in front of us, Brahman behind us, and to the south of us and to the north of us…
ਪ੍ਰਭ ਭਾਵੈ ਬਿਨੁ ਸਾਸ ਤੇ ਰਾਖੈ ॥
ਪ੍ਰਭ ਭਾਵੈ ਤਾ ਹਰਿ ਗੁਣ ਭਾਖੈ ॥
ਪ੍ਰਭ ਭਾਵੈ ਤਾ ਪਤਿਤ ਉਧਾਰੈ ॥
ਆਪਿ ਕਰੈ ਆਪਨ ਬੀਚਾਰੈ ॥
ਦੁਹਾ ਸਿਰਿਆ ਕਾ ਆਪਿ ਸੁਆਮੀ ॥
ਖੇਲੈ ਬਿਗਸੈ ਅੰਤਰਜਾਮੀ ॥
ਜੋ ਭਾਵੈ ਸੋ…
ājñābhayasaṁśayātmaguṇasaṅkalpō bandhaḥ
Bondage is to imagine that Ātman has qualities like doubts, fear, etc.
~ Niralamba Upanishad, Verse 25
✥ ✥ ✥
Acharya Prashant (AP): “Bondage is to imagine that Ātman has qualities like doubts or fear etc. Bondage is to imagine that Ātman has doubt or…
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Acharya Prashant: The purpose of the Upanishads has to be remembered. It is commonly said that the purpose of the Upanishads is ‘attainment of the Truth’ but it is not really so. If you say that the purpose of the Upanishads is the attainment of Truth then you are actually…
Questioner (Q): What is the highest?
Acharya Prashant (AP): The question is - What is the highest? What is the utmost highest? And the answer, as usual, begins in negativa. They (referring to the Rishis of Upanishads) said the highest is not prāṇa; the highest is not the sense…
sa paryagācchukramakāyamavraṇamasnāviraṁ śuddhamapāpaviddham
kavirmanīṣī paribhūḥ svayambhūryāthātathyato'rthān vyadadhāt śāśvatībhyaḥ samābhyaḥ
He, the self-existent One, is everywhere; the pure one, without a (subtle) body, without blemish, without muscles, holy and without the taint of sin; the all-seeing, the all-knowing, the all-encompassing…
tathākṣarādvividhāḥ somya bhāvāḥ prajāyante tatra caivāpi yanti
This is that, the truth of things: as from one kindled fire thousands of different sparks are born and all have the…
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Acharya Prashant (AP): The first question comes from an MBA 2nd year student from IIT Kanpur named Prashant. He says:
“I have been reading Krishnamurti and Vivekanand since the past three years having learned from them, I genuinely feel that the teachings of such great teachers should be at the…
