Kathopnishad

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

Acharya Prashant (AP): This question has been quoted from the Katha Upanishad:

अन्यत्र धर्मादन्यत्राधर्मादन्यत्रास्मात्कृताकृतात् । अन्यत्र भूताच्च भव्याच्च यत्तत्पश्यसि तद्वद ॥ 1.2.१४ ॥

anyatra dharmādanyatrādharmādanyatrāsmātkṛtākṛtāt anyatra bhūtācca bhavyācca yattatpaśyasi tadvada || 1.2.14 ||

“Nachiketa said: That which you see as other than righteousness and unrighteousness, Other than all this cause… read_more

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

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

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

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

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

Questioner: I’ll start by introducing myself. I’m a second-year graduate of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. So, in my daily life, my habits that I think have morphed into compulsion with time, and it disturbs me when people don’t do the same as I do. Like for example, I have… read_more

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Acharya Prashant: You have to ask yourself what your primary identity is. If your primary identity is that of the body, then do what the body commands you to do. Good. The body has an inbuilt software of its own, and it’s a self-improving software. Its capacity to keep improving… read_more