Kathopnishad

Why Do the Wise Call the Aatman 'The Enjoyer'? – Kathopanishad

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… read_more

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.

Whatever you choose will bring sorrow to you || Acharya Prashant, on Kath Upanishad (2015)

Living a selfish life? || Neem Candies

nāyam ātmā pravacanena labhyo na medhayā, na bahunā śrutena:yamevaiṣa vṛṇute, tena labhyas tasyaiṣa ātmā vivṛṇute tanῡṁ svām.

-(Katho Upanishad, 1.2, 23)

Translation: This Self cannot be attained by study of the Scriptures, nor by intellectual perception, nor by frequent hearing (of It). He whom the Self chooses, by him alone… read_more

1 min

People talk of personal time as opposed to professional time, right? They forget that the profession that they have chosen has also been chosen by the person. So, even that which they are mistakenly calling as professional time is only personal time.

Our lives have only personal time. To be… read_more

What Is the Main Message of Bhagavad Gita?

14 min

You have to fight. The world is the battlefield. To be born is to be born as a warrior, to be born is to be born with weapons and armour. That is the message: you cannot run away. Shunning action is not possible.

Death: Destiny, Karma, And Divine Intervention

There is no divine intervention. There is prakriti. Prakriti does not brook any intervention from any quarter. Just happened. If you look for a reason, there isn’t any. Randomness is the reason.

Thinking A Lot About Future?

Fear, you have to remember, is biological. Fear, you have to remember, is to the body. Fear is not to you. Fear is a letter addressed to the consciousness. Do you open the other's letters and read them? Do you do that? So, the letter has been delivered. The letter is coming from Mr. Fear and it is addressed to the body. So what do you do with the letter? You keep it aside. Let the body read it; I won't read it. It's not mine.

Do Love And Attachment Go Together?

10 min

Attachment is just a promise. A lack of fulfilment. It is a substitute for love because the real thing is not available. If you find yourself attached, it means there is a desire for love; it means there is a call for love. Know that a fake is presenting itself as a substitute for the real thing.

Understanding Death Rituals: Is it Okay to Forego Them?

Existentially and Absolutely, no issues at all. By existence, I mean this prakritik existence. Absolutely meaning at the level of the Truth, Self, Atman. No problems at all. Nobody’s going to bother. There is nobody to bother. But mentally, yes, the whole affair has to be tactfully managed. There has to be resolve within and tact outside, and then it’s alright.

Mind Work Ends When True Realization Takes Hold

18 min

Realization is extremely powerful. You cannot realize and not act. It is impossible. You cannot realize and not act. Action follows realization. So if you come and say, “I realize, I understand but I cannot act,” then you are mistaken; you actually do not realize at all! The action after realization is not time-bound; it does not even have a time lag. It is instantaneous and spontaneous.

How to Deal with Attachment?

12 min

Attachment is not a problem; the problem is being attached to something totally unworthy. If you are attached to someone, check out the facts of their importance. Ask yourself, “Does this person bring Truth, Fearlessness & Light into my life?” If you have been wise enough, or simply lucky enough to have the right person in your life, then continue to remain attached. But assess them well with Truth at your core.

Why Does One Desire Liberation while the Other does not?

Why Can't I Leave My Comfort Zone?

Questioner: Why is there a difference of intensity and love for mukti (liberation) between different human beings?

Acharya Prashant: The differences that you are talking of all relate to time; therefore, they all will be resolved in due course of time. Time gave rise to all those differences, and those… read_more

8 min

The body will not allow you to do things where your physical sustenance gets threatened. 'What will happen to this body?’ is the fear. The one who can go without food and sleep in the streets under the open sky can never be enslaved. Have the guts to sleep in the fields, and learn to go without comforts—then the world cannot dominate you!

Is Death Always There, or Is Life Itself Death?

The sword is hanging over everybody’s head. It can fall here or there. Nobody is conspiring against anybody, and nobody has been blessed with special fortune. There is a random chance it falls here; it falls there. I am not talking of cases in which, let’s say, the family atmosphere is so toxic that it compels a couple of members to commit suicide. I am not talking of such cases. I am talking of accidental deaths. Accidental deaths are exactly that: accidents.

Does Following Myself Lead to Freedom?

8 min

If following others is slavery, the mind quickly wants to conclude that following oneself is freedom. No, following oneself is deeper slavery because what we call the 'self' is just an aggregate of internalized, pervasive influences, like a crow mistaking a cuckoo’s eggs for its own. True freedom is to be free of others and, more importantly, yourself.

How to Cope with a Loved One's Death?

To the loved ones who have died, pay the holiest tribute possible. There are others still here; ensure you have right relationships with them. If a relationship is right, the end won't hurt much. The end might even be glorious, a true pinnacle. The relationship was an upward journey all along, and death now becomes the peak of that connection.

The Biggest Obstacle to a Spiritual Life || AP Neem Candies

1 min

Fulfillment is what you want, don’t you? There won’t be any fulfillment until you break your inner bondages. And the most central, critical, and primary bondage is body-identification.

Use everything that your birth, your body, and Prakriti (physical nature) have given you. Use all of that for the sake of… read_more

How to Control One’s Anger? Best Ways Explained By Acharya Prashant

Don’t ask, “Why did I get angry?” Ask, “Why does guilt arise? Why this divided mind? Why can’t my anger be complete?” Does resisting anger not fuel it? In trying to control yourself, are you not giving yourself energy to act the same way? That’s duality’s principle—what you try to control, you energize. By saying, “I do not want to get angry,” you’re still thinking of anger. But anger is seductive. Anger attracts. So, now I think of anger through the other route. I think of anger by telling myself not to be angry.

Love or Knowledge: Which is More Powerful for Liberation?

Secrets of an Authentic Personality

Acharya Prashant: Love is the fire that melts down the bondage that is you. Knowledge is merely the light in which you can see your bondages. Even if you are able to look at your chains in the light of knowledge, that does not rid you of the chains. In… read_more

The Hypocrisy of Climate Warriors

A. Objective and Fear

Wherever there is an objective, there would be fear associated with it. You hope to get something, and you fear that you may not get it. Don’t you see that a man who is chasing goals has condemned himself to live in fear?

It is possible… read_more

How to Make Oneself Do the Right Thing?

Acharya Prashant: The very urge for liberation, when it doesn’t find an outlet, becomes the urge to consume. Do you see this? Where does the tendency to consume so much come from? It comes from the misidentified and thwarted urge toward liberation. If you will not provide liberation to a… read_more

Freedom from Ego is Freedom from Fear

Questioner 1: In my experience, what’s happening is that I really like reading scriptures, so I’ve been reading them for quite some time. But with time, what I’ve observed is that earlier there used to be a freshness and it would stay with me. There was a sense of excitement… read_more

24 min

Acharya Prashant: What to do when you encounter a person with a lot of ego? He has used two words: High ego and bad ego. Let us understand this. When you use the term ‘bad ego’, you necessarily mean that there is something called ‘good ego’ as well. Correct? Logical?… read_more

For Those who Want Freedom

Stay Cautious with Such Energies

Questioner: Namaskar Acharya Ji. You talked of Mukti. So, I would like to know, is it a Mukti from life and birth? I mean, more, If you can elaborate?

Acharya Prashant: Mukti from internal compulsions. The goal of life can be talked of as Mukti which is Liberation, which is… read_more

Questioner: My question is that I heard that there are two cosmic energies, these two Cosmic energies will take out all the sufferings of the people, which are from treta yuga of Lord Sri Ram and Lakshman get received the cosmic energies from Sage Vishwamitra, those are called some bala… read_more

What is Clarity?

Spontaneous, or Carried Away?

Questioner: Sir, what is clarity?

Acharya Prashant: Clarity is two things together: One, it is the absence of readymade concepts based on which one lives, one reacts, one sees the world, and parallelly, simultaneously, on the other hand, it is the ability to respond greatly. So, on the one hand,… read_more

Women in Revealing Dresses: Liberation or Titillation?

Questioner: Why think so much about decisions? Shouldn’t our decisions be spontaneous? I like to decide in a free flow.

Acharya Prashant: So the questioner is stressing on the spontaneity of decisions. He says that he likes to decide in a flow. It's a good thing, your intention is good.… read_more

9 min

To those who articulate that women should mind their clothes and dressings, the question arises: what kind of person are you, man or woman, if anything is able to disturb or provoke you so easily? The allegation is that when watching a woman dressed skimpily, it becomes a disturbance, a distraction, even a provocation. How will you insulate yourself, and how much will you insulate yourself from the world? And what are the limits to what you want to see and not see? Today, it is said that a woman’s legs or thighs provoke you. What prevents you from saying tomorrow that her ankles and fingernails provoke you? Would you then demand that she should cover up from head to toe?

Do I Know You? || AP Neem Candies

3 min

Acharya Prashant: We anyway live in attitudes, try to have a carefree attitude. Try to have an attitude of reasonless security, try to have an attitude in which you don't get daunted easily, you don't start shivering easily.

The world might be stamping its feet in front of you, angrily,… read_more

Afraid of Being Judged by Others?

8 min

Put your heart fully into your work, and your mind will no longer be in the audience. When there is no heart in your work, then your mind wanders in the world. Love your work, and you will forget the world. Your problem is not that you are too concerned with people’s opinions. Your problem is that there is no heart in your work.

Does Maya Really Exist?

25 min

Questioner: Acharya Ji, a good discussion happened yesterday in which many seekers participated and shared their understanding of Prakṛiti , Puruṣha and other things.

During the discussion, it was put that Prakṛiti , Puruṣha , Māyā , are mere concepts and that one is pure Ātman , never threatened and… read_more

Choose the Right Career Using Bhagavad Gita's Teachings on Work

14 min

There can be two sets of actions to choose from. One action could be the one that will load one with more bondages. Action that will lead to a thickening or deepening of your bondages. Another is kartavya i.e. action that leads to Freedom from your bondages. You can see the chains, so your action is for the sake of your Freedom, Liberation.

What Is the Price of Freedom?

How to Make the World a Better Place?

Questioner: What is the price of freedom? What is it that convinces someone to pay that price? What is the reason for someone wanting freedom in the first place?

Acharya Prashant: Certain things do not even require a reason to validate them, because they are . What is need not… read_more

18 min

If you want something extraordinary like Liberation to happen in the society, then you have to take extraordinary care as a society. You need that kind of a society that chooses the right kinds of rulers and brings up the right kind of institutions. To get the society to do that, you have to teach the society.

Career Crossroads: Finding the Right Path Forward

You Can Respect the Formless Only by Respecting His Forms

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… read_more

Inviting Fear || AP Neem Candies

Questioner: Sir, we just heard one of the couplets of Kabir, saying,

“जो सुख साधू संग में, सो बैकुंठ न होय”

(The Joy that I find in the company of Saint, that Joy is greater than the Joy of heaven).

Is this verse being used in a negative connotation? What… read_more

Intellectual gorilla or a simple human being? || Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant: Losing something requires a method, an application only if that something is either central to you or sticks to you on its own. Fear is neither central to you, nor does fear say that “I want to stay with you.” All fear is acquired and external.

So, rather… read_more

1 min

Acharya Prashant: If you find religion bad, then just honestly consider a world totally without religion. Then probably you will not find religion so bad.

I assure you, there is nothing in man’s physical constitution that prevents him from being envious or lustful or tense or attached. In fact, man… read_more

Man Bows Only to Fear, or to Beauty || AP Neem Candies

The Storm Kept Raging, the Sky Didn't Utter a Word

Acharya Prashant: Man bows down to only two things, you know—either to fear or to beauty. Today the world has neither of these. There is very little to be afraid of, you know. If the Earth is being destroyed, you can colonize another planet. “So, don’t worry, we will fly… read_more

12 min

Acharya Prashant: What's the relationship between immortality, deathlessness, and knowing the Ātmā as the container of the material and the mental world? Not that they are really distinct, still. So, what's the relation between knowing Ātmā as the container of the world and keeping all other thoughts aside, and immortality?… read_more

When You Are Alright, then the Sound of Your Footsteps Is Compassion

9 min

Acharya Prashant: The desire is to be able to distinguish between the true and the false, the wise and the unwise, the real and the unreal, right action, and the wrong action. That is the desire. The only thing is that whatever will come out of the desire, will necessarily… read_more

3 Levels of Happiness - Hell, Heaven and Liberation

25 min

Overview

Hell focuses on what you have. Heaven reminds you of who you are. And once you clearly remember who you are, you don’t even need heaven; then what you have is Liberation. Do not starve yourselves of happiness. If you are giving up on lower happiness, make sure that… read_more

The One Thing You Must Never Lose

12 min

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… read_more

Procrastination vs Having a Good Time

Should You Sacrifice Your Pleasures - When and How Much? || AP Neem Candies

Questioner: Sir, you have said that “right action is its own reward; the wrong action is its own punishment.” Basis your quote, the common man must choose right action and be naturally aversive to the wrong action but that does not happen. Kindly, throw some light on it.

Acharya Prashant … read_more