Money

Big Fat Salary, Or Stable Job?
Big Fat Salary, Or Stable Job?
8 min
Work is the most important component of your life, it will take away all your time. You cannot approach work with these considerations: salary & stability. Discover your calling, not just a job, a calling. What is it that calls you as a lover? What kind of work that would be which you are ready to do even without being paid? If that work can be your life, then life is beautiful.
Is Your Expensive Lifestyle a Trap?
Is Your Expensive Lifestyle a Trap?
6 min
If you want money, you'll have to trade your body, time, and effort. No one will pay you a fortune and let you enjoy liberty. Learn to survive at the minimum, and then money is not a burden. But when money sticks to the mind, when it becomes a part of the mind, and when you become money-minded, it is bad. Keep your costs low, and no one can enslave you.
How to Earn a Higher Salary?
How to Earn a Higher Salary?
17 min
If you are really immersed in what you are doing, would you have time and inclination to worry about salary? The work itself is its own reward. There are people, who work to get paid. And there are people who work and get paid. An amusing thing is, those who stop worrying about salary, often start getting unexpected salaries.
How we Love to be Enslaved! || AP Neem Candies
How we Love to be Enslaved! || AP Neem Candies
3 min

Acharya Prashant: Ask yourself, would you be equally anxious to buy a flat, if you didn’t have that flesh in your life? Consumption promotes further consumption. So, if you are already addicted to one form of consumption, know that many other forms of consumption are just waiting to leap into

External growth is Passe, We now Need Internal Growth
External growth is Passe, We now Need Internal Growth
13 min

Questioner: Acharya Ji, if we talk about the subject matter of economics, it was said by the father of economics, Adam Smith, that economics is a science of wealth where he puts money over men. So over the years as time passed and the scope was broadened, the economist Alfred

Can Money and Spirituality Go Together?
Can Money and Spirituality Go Together?
16 min
Good spirituality is good economics. We do not know what to purchase. We do not know what really is valuable, even in the material domain. The punishment of not being spiritual is that you lead a very bad, a very ruined worldly life and that includes an economic life, a ruined economic life. It is not merely the person, even nations, actually the entire world suffers when the one making the economic decision is spiritually bankrupt.
Forget yourself, Find Yourself || AP Neem Candies
Forget yourself, Find Yourself || AP Neem Candies
3 min

Acharya Prashant: Service will not probably fulfill this restless ‘I’, but service will enable you to forget this restless ‘I’. That is beyondness—not quite the fulfillment of the little ‘I’, but a certain forgetfulness towards the little ‘I’. You say that you are serving a cause bigger than yourself or

Can Vedanta Address the Problem of Economic Recession?
Can Vedanta Address the Problem of Economic Recession?
10 min

Questioner: Good evening, sir. I'm Gauri. Sir, I would like to ask a question regarding the global recession. Sir, as we know the global recession has risen from 4.7% in 2021 to 8.8% in 2022. Because of this, we are facing a cost-of-living crisis in many countries. Thus, as a

Why are You so Angry Over Yourself?
Why are You so Angry Over Yourself?
18 min

Acharya Prashant: Latha is saying, why does she get angry so often even over small matters? Especially with some people, she is unable to control anger and she says she tried to change her attitude but hasn’t been quite successful. She is saying, now, how to change myself. Because anger

Financially Weak? Aspirations vs. Financial Constraints
Financially Weak? Aspirations vs. Financial Constraints
23 min
There are far more important things in life to give importance to, and also if you are leading a truthful life then you can’t be too short of money. You will do something, right? Otherwise, you will gain weight. And if you are a little intelligent, a little creative, why would you not earn anything? You would earn something and that would keep you going. Fear about one’s financial future is proportional to one’s disbelief in one’s own worth. Otherwise, one says, “We will see when we come to that, will be able to manage something. We are not so very unskilled or stupid or useless, we will do something, we will manage.
Friends, jobs and the need for entertainment || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2014)
Friends, jobs and the need for entertainment || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2014)
3 min

Questioner (Q): Sir, everyone is expecting something. Parents are expecting something, friends also expect something but sometimes I prefer to be alone. What to do in that situation?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Do you really have a friend? What kind of friend is this who does not like you to do

Lost money? No big deal || Neem Candies
Lost money? No big deal || Neem Candies
1 min

“You know what, I lost money in stocks and I still didn’t get a heart attack!” Why must you get a heart attack? It is a small matter. Let it happen. It’s okay. Every day more people lose money in the stock market than what is the number of those

Money and growth will not fill your internal hollow || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2014)
Money and growth will not fill your internal hollow || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2014)
3 min

Acharya Prashant (AP): Wonderful! A nice question has come to us. Our friend is saying that greed is making people work. If you remove greed from people’s life, they will not grow. So, I'm asking him, what is growth?

Questioner (Q): Growth is evolution. Like we have evolved into a

Self-worth dependent on money? || Neem Candies
Self-worth dependent on money? || Neem Candies
1 min

Let your situations, your circumstances, your possessions, your particular destination in life not become important enough or significant enough to define you. Let your self-worth not be dictated by things that are external.

But since everything is external, let your self-worth not be dictated by anything at all. Which means,

Modern dating is destroying us || Neem Candies
Modern dating is destroying us || Neem Candies
1 min

Something is very wrong somewhere. The first thing in liberation is: do not be dependent on somebody, at least for your bread, for your basic sustenance. What kind of empowerment is this that happily accepts dependence on somebody else’s money on a date, and also for an entire lifetime? It

To know your intentions  || Neem Candies
To know your intentions || Neem Candies
1 min

Money is a very important indicator. See where you spend your money, and see where you do not spend your money. See where you want to cut corners, and see where you want to be lavish. Have you not heard that little phrase, “Put your money where your mind is”?

Work is life || Neem Candies
Work is life || Neem Candies
1 min

One thing I have always advised those who are on the verge of choosing a career, or even those who are deep into their careers: Let there be no dissonance between who you are and what you do.

Your work is who you are. Do not say that you work

Acharya Prashant: What is the best thing you can get for free?
Acharya Prashant: What is the best thing you can get for free?
1 min

If you can understand the answer to this question, then you already have the best free thing. The best free thing is ‘understanding’ itself. Well, just that understanding is not a thing, and the best things in life are, as they say, not things.

Think of it. Many machines, many

Market, Money, Food, and Liberation || Acharya Prashant (2018)
Market, Money, Food, and Liberation || Acharya Prashant (2018)
7 min

Question: Acharya Ji, which are the industries I should invest my money in?

Acharya Prashant Ji: There are two industries that are not going to fail. First, that thrives on kids. Second, that thrives on sickness. And the two are one.

The school industry is never going to starve, and

Leaving money for your children? Think again! || Neem Candies
Leaving money for your children? Think again! || Neem Candies
1 min

If money is the gift that a father leaves behind for the son, then it’s a very petty gift—in fact, a dangerous gift. In fact, only a loveless father would think of primarily money to bequeath to the son. The more would be the money that you leave for him,

Where does my money go? || Neem Candies
Where does my money go? || Neem Candies
2 min

What else do you earn for? Pay to the schools, pay to the hospitals. You can avoid spending anywhere else, but these two places you will not only always spend, you will always overspend.

A fully grown-up man’s apparels are only as expensive as the apparels of a two-month-old, and

Security and sex || Neem Candies
Security and sex || Neem Candies
1 min

You must know what the place of security and money and sex is in your life. If you don’t know their right places, then for the purpose of sex you will give somebody a high position in your life, and then you will suffer. Persons are essentially harmless; harmful is

How to spot the fake feminist?  || Neem Candies
How to spot the fake feminist? || Neem Candies
1 min

That could be one necessary mark of a true feminist: she would be not dependent even for a single rupee on anybody else, especially not on the male partner.

“Financial independence and then still having kids, is that something that can be counted under feminism as such?”

No, you see,

Such money is harmful || Neem Candies
Such money is harmful || Neem Candies
1 min

You want some money? It is a little desire, and it is a harmless desire. The problem starts when you start wanting peace through money. Money is harmless. But when money becomes a proxy for peace, then money is very harmful.

People do not chase money; they chase peace through

How to know yourself? || Neem Candies
How to know yourself? || Neem Candies
1 min

See where you spend your time; that will tell you of your intention.

See where you spend your money; that will tell you of your intention. Money is a very important indicator.

See what is going on in your mind, see what circulates in your mind; that will tell you

External growth is passe, we now need internal growth || Acharya Prashant (2019)
External growth is passe, we now need internal growth || Acharya Prashant (2019)
13 min

Questioner: Adam Smith, who is considered to be the father of modern economics, said that economics is a science of wealth; he places primary importance upon money and not on man. Alfred Marshall, another economist, said that economics is a study of material welfare; there he puts importance on man

Earn a lot, and earn true wealth || On Guru Granth Sahib (2019)
Earn a lot, and earn true wealth || On Guru Granth Sahib (2019)
16 min

Questioner (Q): Dear Acharya Ji, Pranaam!

For three months we have been studying Guru Granth sahib, and my mind is filled with love for God, his name, and devotion for Guru. Today is the last class, so I wished to conclude all that I have learned and listened to so

Do you really need knowledge, power and money to love? || (2016)
Do you really need knowledge, power and money to love? || (2016)
5 min

Questioner (Q): When I see any children in a slum or working in a construction site, I feel like giving them all the knowledge, or at least help them to study the basic things but then a thought came that you are still not in a condition to help anyone,

What is the purpose of life?  || Neem Candies
What is the purpose of life? || Neem Candies
1 min

What is the ultimate purpose of life? Earning money or happiness? How can this stupid thing be the purpose of life?

The common happiness that we know, I have said, has two characteristics: one, it is an acquired conditioning, and second, it depends on the presence of sadness. So, if

What does man really want? || Neem Candies
What does man really want? || Neem Candies
1 min

All the economic theories, all the economic systems are predicated on this premise, based on this assumption that the goal of man’s action is to have more money. This they call as welfare, or even luxury. In some theories, they say that maximization of luxury is the objective of man’s

What do you do with your salary? || Neem Candies
What do you do with your salary? || Neem Candies
1 min

If you want to know why you kept working, slogging for the thirty days, the most effective way is to see what you are doing with the paycheck. What you are doing with the paycheck will very loudly demonstrate why you kept working the thirty days. See what you do

Make the right choice || Neem Candies
Make the right choice || Neem Candies
1 min

One spends eight, ten, twelve hours of the day working; add to that the time that you invest in commuting and thinking about work. What does all that do to you? Consider that.

If money helps you get a suitable environment for yourself, only then money has some practical value;

Money is alright, money mania is not || Neem Candies
Money is alright, money mania is not || Neem Candies
1 min

Money is nothing on its own. Money cannot bring you peace. But established in peace, money and material and the world can be perfectly dealt with. Now you neither need to renounce money nor do you get attached to money, because your real need is peace not money. Now you

Choose Joy || Neem Candies
Choose Joy || Neem Candies
1 min

Be compassionate towards yourself, and have faith that freedom is possible and that life can be enjoyed really. Life need not be a melancholy song; it can be a symphony of ecstasy. That faith has to be there.

Do not surrender so easily to the forces of littleness. They will

Finding God Is Easy, Tolerating Him Is Difficult
Finding God Is Easy, Tolerating Him Is Difficult
19 min

Acharya Prashant: Suffering is a fire that burns down a lot. It brings along a certain purification. One of the poets gave the example of a snowball. Snowball that is cleansing itself in its own blood; by melting down. When a snowball starts melting, it starts becoming cleaner. And the

Knowing When To Exercise Patience And When To Pursue Goals Aggressively
Knowing When To Exercise Patience And When To Pursue Goals Aggressively
4 min
Choose the goal extremely wisely and then it does not matter whether you are failing or succeeding or what. Obviously, you do not want to keep failing continuously. So, you look at the process of living, the process through which you wanted to move towards whatever you chose. And then you make continuous improvements in the process. But all this talk of improvement and everything make sense only if, first of all, the goal is right.
Thinking A Lot About Future?
Thinking A Lot About Future?
7 min
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.
The Joy of Being Drenched in Love
The Joy of Being Drenched in Love
13 min
Usually our love is about one special thing or person. But Kabir Sahab is saying, "Hari bhai ban rai—the entire jungle has turned green. I see greenery not merely in one tree, but in the entire jungle.” That’s the difference between common love and Kabir Sahab’s love. In your love, there is just one green tree; in Kabir Sahab’s love, the entire world has turned green: there is nothing dry anywhere anymore.
What Does Equanimity Mean in Life?
What Does Equanimity Mean in Life?
12 min
When you know that you can not be harmed, then you let the change come to you. Then, you do not lose your inner poise in front of changing conditions. This is equanimity. For equanimity, you require a very good driver, a totally dependable driver. Our driver is the Ego. It does not allow the Absolute to drive us. The Ego is so arrogant that it goes and sits on the throne, the sacred place, that is reserved only for the Beloved, only for God. It has no right to be there. Dethrone it!
Gita Is Not This
Gita Is Not This
7 min
To qualify an entrance exam, and work towards it, without thinking of the results, that’s not what Karma Yoga is. Karma Yoga is not about setting tangible worldly targets and going after them. It’s a moment-to-moment thing in which you are very conscious whether the objective of your action is personal ingratiation or larger welfare. You are acting all the time, you are not acting merely when you act towards a distant and a larger cause.
How to Utilize Time?
How to Utilize Time?
13 min
The real issue is not about time at all. You are spending time exactly according to your values. Don’t ask how to utilize time. Ask yourself, "Do I know what is truly valuable?" When you are clear about what is truly valuable in life, all your time will be devoted to that. Become clear. Know what is truly valuable.
Is Life Just Deja Vu?
Is Life Just Deja Vu?
9 min
Deja vu is not surprising. There is no newness here, only repetition. You are caught in a circuit, and everything is being rehashed, recycled, and repeated. Life itself is deja vu. It's just that you don't realize it. Those who realize this are the ones who, for the first time, come to something new and original. Discover your originality and write a new story of your own. Otherwise, there is nothing but deja vu!
Without this, all is worthless || Acharya Prashant, on Guru Kabir (2019)
Without this, all is worthless || Acharya Prashant, on Guru Kabir (2019)
5 min

If you cannot win the love of the Lord, so what if you can lord over your neighbor? What is the good of dressing your hair and donning your feet with jingling jewelry? What is the value of all your makeup with kajal to your eyelids and vermilion to your

What is Yagya?
What is Yagya?
11 min
In the name of yagya, if you continue to burn wood, you are doing no good to anybody. Yagya must be understood in its true spirit. Shri Krishna says, “Do not act for yourself or for your personal gain. Act for a higher cause; higher than yourself, beyond yourself. Do that action that takes you to your Niyati, which is your end. Yagya is that which dissolves you; that which reduces you.”
How to Set Goals in Life?
How to Set Goals in Life?
20 min
A goal that is too far away in time is a false goal. The goal has to be extremely immediate. By having a false goal, you give yourself the luxury of not doing the right thing right now. By placing your goal five years into the future, you have given yourself the freedom— the false freedom— to do any random stuff right now.
Why Can't I Leave My Comfort Zone?
Why Can't I Leave My Comfort Zone?
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!
How to Act Without Caring About the Result?
How to Act Without Caring About the Result?
7 min
The Gita does not say that you must do whatever you do without caring for the result; it is also impossible to execute. That’s also the way so many popular gurus have sold the Gita. It’s very harmful. With false action, you will always have one eye on the result. The first thing is the right action; only right action can give you detachment from the result.
You Always Have a Choice: Ditch the Helplessness!
You Always Have a Choice: Ditch the Helplessness!
6 min
Every time you say you are helpless against something, you are just displaying Akarma. None of us is ever helpless. Never come up with an alibi, “What else could I have done?” There is always something else that you could have done. There is always the right thing that you could have done.
Living a Life of Dignity
Living a Life of Dignity
3 min

Acharya Prashant: The Buddha used to quote three types of horses. Coming from his palatial background, it seems he was fond of horses. So, he would say that the worst type of horses are those that move only when spanked. That’s how our energy rises—it rises upon spanking. When there

The Dilemma of the Spiritual Path
The Dilemma of the Spiritual Path
16 min
Why is it that what you call the ‘spiritual path’ must be equated with leaving something? Do you find any renunciation in existence? Do you find anything in existence that is bent upon giving up something, or dropping something? If life were meant for dropping, then that whom you call as ‘God’ should have first of all dropped the universe. When he is running the universe, not dropping it, in spite of the world being as silly, as pointless and as rotten as it is, then why must you think of leaving all the desires behind, and going to the spiritual life, leaving all material behind, and doing something else?