A modern woman calls herself liberated, yet lives anxious — anxious about age, desirability, marriage, motherhood. Acharya Prashant exposes this anxiety as proof that feminism never touched the real wound: centuries of conditioning that reduced women to bodies for pleasure and reproduction. External equality isn't enough. True freedom demands she reject the entire inheritance of tradition and simply become human — not woman, not wife, not mother by decree, but free.
Migration can arise from genuine needs such as safety, education, livelihood, or environmental conditions, as well as from the ego's pursuit of greater consumption and fulfilment. The challenge is to distinguish between these motives with wisdom rather than ideology. Fair, impartial screening, mutual respect between migrants and host societies, and practical integration create a balanced approach that is both humane and responsible.
True revolution begins with inner transformation, not merely with protest. Lasting social change is possible only when individuals cultivate self-knowledge, integrity, and personal responsibility. Replacing governments or demanding reforms without examining the mind that sustains the same patterns only repeats history. Awaken yourself first, educate others with clarity and compassion, and let conscious citizens, not unconscious crowds, become the foundation of a better society.
The one who is religion-less. A real Hindu does not have any religion. To go beyond all religions is to be a Hindu. There are religions that are on one plane, and then there is Sanatan Dharma, which is another dimension — the eternal religiousness. Liberation from religion is religiousness. Sanatan Dharma is awakened intelligence.
Death is already happening moment by moment. Why think that it is there somewhere in the future? We are all going in the same direction: a journey towards death. You cry not at the fact that somebody died, but at the fact that life was not lived fully. We have had a mystic who said that death should be celebrated. When everything about this man was joyful, how can his death be painful? There would be no reason to cry; death can be celebrated.
If you see GDP growing at a fast rate, it is not a matter of celebration; it might actually be a warning. Don’t do that. Slow down. GDP is something that you can increase even with a lot of income inequality, as is happening in the case of countries like India. We need clarity. We need to be extremely clear on the definitions of our national imperatives. If development means the images we have been carrying of the United States, that is unsustainable, just not possible.
You know, if your husband is gone, your finances are gone. Therefore, you will guard your husband very, very strongly, very possessively. It’s not love, it’s dependence. In love, you often allow the other to fly free. But if you are acting as that possessive wife or girlfriend or whatever, that is also because you are dependent, and that is violence, is it not?
The biggest problem is when we succeed in these little acts of charity, goodness, kindness. Had you succeeded in somehow persuading the kids away, you wouldn’t even have raised this question, and a self-awarded sense of morality and righteousness would have held you high. That’s the whole problem. When you said the kids wouldn’t go away because it is a festival and it is crackers, then do we really understand why the kids wouldn’t go away?
If you know no philosophy and you are just celebrating Holi, Diwali, or Eid, or Christmas, that's dumb. Very dumb. And you call that as your great culture. No, I will have to sacrifice goats. Bloodshed is the name of religion. What kind of religion? No crackers are needed, even if that kills the air. What is this? AQI of 1,400. But I don't bother. I'm a religious man. What are you celebrating?
When you are reading the Upanishads, and your face has a sudden radiance, and you feel for yourself what it means to say, ‘pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idam,’ then I will say, “That! That is Bharat.” Otherwise, what do ‘bha’ and ‘rat’ mean? Nothing. All this is just wordplay. The word ‘That’ is of tremendous significance — ‘That’; ‘tat’; ‘tat tvam asi’. ‘Tat’ — ‘That’ — 'That is Bharat.'
A lot of negative attitudes towards women today are claimed to be sanctioned by religion. The reason is that religion has been a victim of contamination. And this contaminated, mainstream, and false religion becomes a tool to exploit women. On the other hand, real religion is a woman's best friend because its effects are emancipation and empowerment. Therefore, when real religion shows up, it will deeply frustrate the traditional kind of religionists.
The building is raised on a weak foundation, and now you want to penalize everybody who comes and shakes it up even a little? You don't do this. Why did you allow this building to stand on such a weak foundation, and now you are trying to protect it through legislation? What kind of stupidity is this?
If India is just the birthplace of your body to you, then there is nothing special in India. What is India really? Figure that out, and then you will know whether it is of importance to serve India. And when you know something is important, then you devise means. Then, you need not necessarily be present within the geographical limits of India. You probably could be anywhere equally. You need not be at other places for reasons of greed.
There is no morality really there. Though, being human beings, you want to frame it in moralistic terms. We want to kind of pretend that the action has some kind of moral basis to it. But there is no moral basis. Really, there is no moral basis.
We have gathered a lot of things that make us powerless—like the concepts you’re talking about. Those concepts make you powerless. Once you get rid of those concepts, you are the superpower. That superpower in the Sanatan philosophy is called the self, Atma. That’s the shruti that all Puranic literature, all Smriti, is supposed to submit itself to. The only superpower is the self, Atma—me. There is no other superpower."
The crisis exposed by the NEET paper leak goes far beyond examination malpractice. When society teaches young people that a single rank determines their worth, corruption, desperation, and broken trust become inevitable. Lasting reform requires more than stricter systems—it demands a transformation in how education, success, and self-worth are understood by students, parents, teachers, and society.
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Human beings are born into uncertainty, surrounded by beliefs, identities, and social conditioning that offer ready-made answers to fundamental questions. Real spirituality begins not with accepting collective or personal beliefs, but with honestly examining one’s own suffering, fears, and false identities. The journey is not toward comforting ideas, but toward self-inquiry, where truth is discovered through questioning, observation, and the gradual rejection of illusion.
Excerpts from Articles
Animal cruelty: Who deserves mercy, and who doesn’t?
Violence begins long before the knife or the slaughterhouse—it begins with the ego, the one that draws boundaries, seeks justification, and decides who deserves compassion. Laws and reforms may reduce suffering, but they cannot end violence while the ego remains intact. When the ego dissolves, exploitation ends naturally, and compassion no longer depends on regulation or moral boundaries.
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.
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।
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।
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.
You Don't Understand the Bhagvad Gita, But You Still Claim That You Love Krishna?
The Bhagavad Gita deserves reverence not because of inherited beliefs about its author, but because of its power to dissolve falsehood and reveal Truth. Real devotion is not ritual or blind faith—it is understanding, inquiry, and living the wisdom of the Gita. Through sincere study, one discovers the true meaning of Krishna, making the Gita the most authentic path to knowing and worshipping Him.
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?
Will another revolution really change anything, or are we just changing faces while keeping the same consciousness intact? The article argues that societies often rush toward rebellion because it feels easier than responsibility. We blame systems, governments, and institutions, but the deeper crisis lies in the collective ego that creates them. Without inner education and self-understanding, every revolution risks becoming another cycle of the same story.
Do you still feel the need to know someone’s caste? That urge itself is the problem. Caste exists neither in the body nor in consciousness; it is a construct of the mind. Society keeps it alive because the ego thrives on division. Until you see a person simply as a person, caste will persist. The real solution lies in understanding and dropping inner ignorance.
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Listener: (Reading a quote of Acharya Prashant from a quote-calendar)
What lies beyond mind?More mind.What is more mind?What and lies and mind.Questions, perceptions on the concept of the mind.
Acharya Prashant: Any question about beyondness would be a useless question because the question itself is coming…
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Questioner: All the forms of multimedia, the film industry and advertisements, have presented images of both sexes that are very often unrealistic and debatable. The very quality of femininity has been portrayed in the film industry, ironically, as victimizing them, merely pretty faces, and sidekicks. Why do you think women…
For most people, India is just a bit of land, a boundary on the global map, a political entity. These are not things you can fall in love with. To love, there must be something sacred, something worth worshipping. The identity of India, the root of the Indian nation is essentially spiritual. India has been a nation because of its Vedantic foundation.
If you are religious, then shouldn’t you be truly religious? Religion is about a total commitment to the Truth. You’ll have to recognize that the objective of religion is not to attain heaven, not to please a holy figure, but to come to your own inner Truth. All good books exist to awaken your consciousness. When it comes to you and the Truth, do you want somebody in between? And wherever you spot fakeness, falseness, hollowness or ignorance, drop it.
There is a search within the human being, always for the greatest, the absolute, and that is what differentiates humans from animals. India was fertile, and there was abundance. You had ample leisure, and in that leisure there was space for intellectual inquiry. The sages and the seers would talk to each other purposelessly. And from that purposeless discussion, from silent observation of life for hours, days, months, and years, came those insights that you today recognize as Indian philosophy.
India was a superpower in all possible terms and yet those lowly little Britons came here and colonized us. Is it possible? There is something fishy in the story. We don't want to go back and really read and figure out what really happened. We believe in this narrative: we were great, we were ‘Vishwaguru’. How can the land of the Gita be ever defeated? It was due to internal reasons that we got defeated and enslaved. And those reasons are still very much present today. Which means the fault is entirely our own.
You see, the democratic system is a great one, but there are some problems associated with it. The leader comes from the masses, and the masses, by themselves, are never really attracted to wisdom. Have you ever found a voter asking his leader, “How many Upanishads have you read?” before casting a vote. The leaders know very well what they can ignore. They just want to know what your religion is, and what your caste is. That is why wisdom always comes last.
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This has always been a hugely profit-making sector of all economies, just that it has always been a small sector controlled by the priestly class. Now the attempt is to make this sector really big and on an organized scale, because the profits are very tempting, and there is no quality control. There can be no external auditor. All kinds of objections, audits, and scrutinies are ruled out. Getting it? So it’s a very tempting sector.
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Shri Krishna is saying: the mind is conditioned to move towards objects and perceive only their surface, periphery, or form. Develop the practice of penetrating further. Let Truth be your practice. The moment you would look at something, and you are in no position not to look at things being embodied, you would look at things. Nobody said that you have to practice lust. Lust just comes. You might be a total fool, an utter retard, and still you will find yourself getting sexually excited once you reach a particular age. Did you need some practice? No, you didn’t. It just happened. But if you are to understand lust, if you are to cross over, if you are to be a master of your body, then it will require a lot of practice, and that will necessarily and obviously tell you about your predicament.
If I do not know what I want, what can be sold to me? Anything. How do you know you need anything you aspire for? No, no, that need is artificial. And not knowing yourself, you are blissfully unaware that the need is an implanted thing. Remember, the seller is not selling you just his goods. He’s also selling you the need to buy his goods.
If you leave yourself weak and vulnerable, you are submitting to the ecosystem of rape. What’s worse? It won’t even be reported. The first thing is: empower yourself through education, through exposure, through wisdom. When it comes to sexual urges, no lessons of morality really succeed. You’ll just be left complaining to the benevolent power up there, “You know, I’m such a pious woman. Why was I violated?” Because that’s how it happens in the jungle. That’s the answer. That’s all.
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If somebody is a great cricketer, I am all right admiring him irrespective of his nationality; that’s fine. But the question is: why is such adulation and such expenditure reserved only for people outside your own country? Indian soccer is totally starved of funds, but the same fans will not spend this money, not even a fraction of this money. Are we really poor, or are we just poorly directed? We don’t know the right direction to move in because we don’t know the right center to have.
So much so that, even today, India’s literacy rate is just 77%, and China has almost cent per cent literacy. That’s a huge difference. From where will you get innovation if your kids are not well-educated? And even if they are educated, they are just moving towards the service sector rather than the line of innovation. How will you lead the world? Just having democracy will not take you anywhere if those casting their vote are not educated enough.
It totally depends on what you're using AI for. You use AI to educate yourself about the climate, and then if AI takes energy to run on the net, still the deal is beneficial. Maybe by educating yourself using AI, you have consumed x units of energy, but the education would mean that you will now save 5x units of energy. So, on the whole it's a favorable deal.
The very nature of research is that there is uncertainty. It’s a dive into the unknown. We fear the unknown so much that we want to stick to known lanes throughout; that’s what explains the lack of a research culture. There are just so many masters all around and over you. Don’t listen to them. All those who stop you from flying high, they are being irresponsible, because they in no way can compensate for the opportunity you lose.
You have lifted the World Cup, and with it, part of the weight of centuries. Such victories go beyond the field; they remind us how much becomes possible when you are unshackled from limiting scripts and submissive roles. A true victory is not over an external opponent, but over one’s own limitations: personal, cultural, historical. When women play freely, the nation breathes freely. When women claim their place, the planet finds its peace.
You need to earn the right to even utter ‘Shri Ram’. If, for 364 days, you have really lived up to Shri Ram, only then must you celebrate the festival of Ramness. For 364 days, your life had nothing to do with Shri Ram, and on the 365th day, you join the noisy bandwagon. Shri Ram, who stands for that which can neither be bought nor sold, his festival has been turned into an orgy of sales and discounts. Live your life just as Shri Ram lived his life, and then you will have the right to celebrate Diwali.
When it comes to social media, hardly anybody is in charge. Now the mischief maker is faceless, anonymous, because there are just so many of them that you cannot call out or point out one single face. You cannot regulate so many people, and you cannot have laws that punish people for their intentions. The only solution then is individual responsibility. Vedanta has to become a part of mainstream education. There is nothing more important today than awakening the individual.
Today we venerate Bismil, Rajguru, Bhagat Singh, and Azad, yet many of them were let down by their own youthful compatriots. Be it any era, most people are governed mostly by their biological mandate. The choice is to either follow your biological compulsions, or go by the whisperings of your free mind, the aspirations of your yearning consciousness. The villains are ordinary; it is the hero who emerges against the norm. This age desperately needs a few heroes.
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You have inflated the reproductive process much beyond its worth. Psychologically, a girl carries it throughout her life as something big, whereas it's nothing — just another process in the human body. And because of the stigma you have attached to this purely biological thing, countless women suffer silently because they can't openly talk about gynaecological problems. Indian philosophical systems have zero space for any belief, assumption, or tradition. So, obviously, this culture has to be outrightly rejected.
A lot of people from the West come to India, thinking that the land itself will do something magical to them. The land will do nothing on its own. One comes to India to probe himself, to know himself. The process is Upanishadic — of deep discussion and deliberation. If you are madly in love with realization, then India can bless you with something very magical. But India’s blessings cannot be foisted upon someone; one has to be deeply in love with, and desperate for those blessings.
It is not really the action that counts. One has to look at the constitution of the actor. If you want to become India’s soldier because you understand the great principles that India stands for and realize that those principles are worth laying down your life for — then you should definitely become a soldier. However, if becoming a soldier is about defending just a piece of land, or your own self-worth or ego, then there is not much in this choice.
Just because we don't hear gunshots doesn't mean that things are peaceful between partners or between parents and kids — especially daughters. Not at all. There are clear boundaries and those boundaries have been mined. As long as you remain within the boundaries, you will entertain the illusion that you are free and loved. Try to step out, and you'll be blown to pieces. So, the violence was always cooking but you didn't see it because you were blinded by your emotions, need for security, and conditioning.
Vedanta says that the body of the woman is her cage, just as the body of the man is the man's cage. Vedantic feminism would say, ‘Disown your physical self — you are much beyond that, girl.’ As long as you identify with the body, enjoy being called a girl or woman, there’s no freedom for you, and the same goes for the man. Saying, ‘I am the woman, I am the man’ is the real problem. Equality is a high ideal, but liberation is the purpose of life.
The human mind suffers because it does not understand what’s going on within itself. The mind longs for understanding and liberation from bondage. And the responsibility is on the human being to gain that understanding and that freedom from bondages. This responsibility is called Sanatan Dharma — founded on self-inquiry, ‘Atma-Jigyasa.’ It is a philosophy of the mind that gives a purpose to life.
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We don't really look at a woman as a human being, but rather as her physical identity. Even in murder, we fail to see the human being. The sexual lenses are always on. Sri Ramakrishna Paramhans, the great saint, used to say that the ordinary person is driven by two objectives — kanchan (money) and kamini (lucrative girl). Sex is not so much a need of the body, it's a need of the mind. Unless this thinking changes, we'll have to live through the pain of seeing more such incidents.
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Question: What is the difference between science and technology? What is science? Where does science come from? Is science the mother of technology? Is science the logic behind technology?
Answer: Science comes from direct observation of the fact. One pays attention to the thing right in front. One looks deeply…
What’s happening in the Israel–Iran case is mostly about religion. Israel–Iran relations were far more cordial until 1979, when Iran got a new Islamic constitution, and Iran declares Israel as the “Little Satan” because Israel is a Jewish country. Had both these countries been Muslim, would there be a strife? Had both these countries been Jewish, again, would there be a strife? But we want to close our eyes to the bare fact that religion gone wrong is the worst thing possible to human beings.
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It is the most critical moment for the plane, when it is taking off. Even after that, if we are constructing something as sensitive as a hospital right next to the airport — then only God can help. This can only be found in India — where there's an airport, and right next to it are buildings, and we accept it. Until we understand that living with dignity is more important, we will keep finding it acceptable to sell off our safety and self-respect.
Now comes the deeper symbolism of Shivlinga. It says—look, if you have taken birth, then you are there in the body. But even while living in the body, you have to live as if you are without a body. So, the shape of the Yoni that you see in the Shivalinga is actually the world or the body, and this Lingam that you see in the middle of it is the Consciousness—the Consciousness which is located in the body.
