Profound in Profane

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.

The More Alone You Are, the More Loving You Are

What Are the Four Ways to Krishna Darshan?

Acharya Prashant: The more you are capable of aloneness, the more you are capable of love. It is a paradox, but go into it.

Meet as you meet a lover. Don’t take the other for granted. Don’t expect that the other would answer the doorbell. Don’t expect that the other… read_more

The first way, the topmost one, is the Sahaja way (natural way). Krishna prescribes no method there. He says, “Arjuna, just come to Me and be seated in Me, be affirmed in Me, pretty steadfastly. Just do it. Simply, obviously, instantly.” That is the Sahaja way. “Do it directly, Arjuna. If you really are sincere, and if you really have love for Me, then do it right now, right here, right away. What are you waiting for? What do you require a method for? Nothing is needed. You have the intention, you really want it, you aren’t fooling yourself. I am here, come and be settled in Me and that’s it.”

Is Sex and Meditation Just an Escape of Ego?

8 min

The ego says that my first priority is to remain, exist, and after that comes everything else. Even the Truth must be subservient to my first priority. So, liberation is alright as long as it is a second of liberation. Peace is alright as long as it is five minutes of peace. But if silence threatens to take over the entire life, if peace starts dominating noise to the extent that the noise might be completely annihilated, then the ego rejects. The ego wants Truth, but only a modicum of Truth. The ego wants peace, but only a sliver of peace.

Men Desperately Trying to Understand Women - and Failing!

2 min

Questioner: Thank you for meeting with me again, Acharya Ji! I have a question.

Every time I see an attractive woman, I’m gonna feel the impulse to drop everything and look at her.

Men’s headspace is occupied with conquering women. Can I train myself out of it?

But I have… read_more

Fighting your Weakness is more Important than Fighting the Enemy

3 min

Acharya Prashant: A fly comes and sits on my arm here (pointing towards the arm), I reject it, I discard it – Is the game over? Is she not ever going to return? Why? Because I discarded the fly and not my arm, so irrespective of how strong your resistance… read_more

You May Be Wrong About Death: Bhagavad Gita’s Answer

17 min

We have to investigate the meaning of the word ‘death’. When Shri Krishna says ‘death’, what does he mean? Is Shri Krishna looking at himself as a body? No. There is no way the author of these lines takes himself as a corporal being. Is Shri Krishna referring to himself as merely the Ātmān here? Well, yes and no. He does refer to himself as the Ātmān here, but the role that he is playing is not of Ātmān but of Avatar. Had he been merely the non-doer, Supreme Truth, then he would not have been found mortally present on the battlefield instructing Arjuna. So, discount these two and see what you are left with.

Are Women Sexually Passive?

3 min

Man keeps on fantasizing about sex as the ultimate remedy to his mental chaos. And to get this remedy, he must have the woman’s body. To ensure that the woman’s body is available, the man must keep the woman in bondage. Otherwise, she may, or she may not acquiesce.

Things I Wish I Knew Before Having Sex

12 min

Your partner looks into your eyes, does something to your consciousness. How long lasting is the sexual pleasure? What does it leave you with? It leaves you with the need to get a shower and it leaves you with a stained bedsheet. Whereas, if you spend a day with the right person, a day, and a night, then you are left with something that might last your lifetime.

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

Why Others Can't Fulfill Your Expectations

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

The movies tell us that unless there is a special person in your life, you are really missing out on something big and you are seized by FOMO. What is FOMO? Fear of missing out. "Oh my god! Everybody has that. I am the only one left behind. I must also have a partner, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a husband, a wife, something. Hey, go grab somebody." So you go out and grab some Johnny next door. He was busy washing his sandals, and you went up to him and threw your most seductive smile and then he too was infected by FOMO. He said, "Now that I have the opportunity, why shouldn't I capitalize?" And thus, came about the relationship. And you call it a holy bond made in heaven. Why do we do that?

To Love Somebody, Love Like a Nobody

15 min

Questioner: (Reads out the following)

If you love, love openly

Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were practicing meditation with a certain Zen master.

Eshun was very pretty even though her head was shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her.

One … read_more

Why Become a Woman, Why Become a Man?

Can There Be Self-Love Without Self-Knowledge? || AP Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant: What if you were never, never trained in womanhood? How would you live? You can’t even think because right now, every bit of you is a trained bit. How do you know that a woman must have long hair? How do you know? That’s how it is! Nine… read_more

Want Satisfaction? Maximise Consumption || AP Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant: Pleasing oneself is not at all an example of self-love; if at all, it is an example of lack of self-knowledge. You cannot have self-love without self-knowledge; it is a great misconception that must be cleared very very thoroughly, very very finely. Making yourself happy is not at… read_more

Please Remain without Love || AP Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant: You might just say, “Well, no I am not looking for flesh, I am looking for money. I am looking for material success. I am looking to have another factory. I am looking to have a bigger house with better furniture.” You might talk of material things other… read_more

3 min

Acharya Prashant: Do not think that all the care that one takes to appease his body, all the lust, and all the bodily vanity is for nothing. It is a very, very calculated thing. Lust is needed so that you never get liberated. One requires one episode after the other… read_more

Do you Know what to Love? || AP Neem Candies

Afraid of Being Judged by Others?

Acharya Prashant: Do you love the flesh called the eyes or do you love the sparkle in the eyes? Do you love these hollows called the eyes or do you love the light that shines through these hollows? Do you love the window or do you love the sun shining… read_more

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.

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The Joy of Being Drenched in Love

Acharya Prashant: If anger besets you, look at your entire life, the full spectrum. Nothing short of that would do. Anger is not a disease in itself; anger is an indicator. And, anger is a very powerful and gross indicator.

Anger becomes necessary so that you may see how bad… read_more

Bhagavad Gita Quotes, Chapter 1, The Grief of Arjun

Love clouds have gathered, it is raining down on me; my entire soul is soaked in it, all around there is greenery.

~ Kabir Sahab

Questioner: Could you please elaborate on the meaning of this poem?

Acharya Prashant: Just sing what Kabir Sahib is saying. Just sing! I may keep… read_more

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

16 min

Kauravas are scattered on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, not unified. Bheeshm is there because of promise. Dronocharya is there because of loyalty to the state. Karna is there to replay an old debt. Pandavas, on the other hand are unified by Dharma.

~ Acharya Prashant, commentary on Bhagavad Gita, Chapter… read_more

Career Anxiety: Follow Your Heart or the Market?

Work. Where is the time to devote to anxiety? Where is the space to be anxious? If you are anxious about something, that thing is obviously important to you. Else you wouldn’t be anxious and if that thing is important, work. Work for that thing. The thing is not only important but also stands incomplete. That’s the reason you are anxious. Correct? If it stands incomplete, work, bring it to completion. Somebody said action is the antidote to despair. Action. Don’t just sit and brood, work. And life will become intolerable if you are not a worker.

Do Attractive Girls Get More Love?

If the girl is physically attractive, the boy will feel physical attraction. Where does love come into the equation? Love is harder towards someone attractive because physical attractiveness overpowers everything else. If someone comes for your body, it’s not love. A wise woman laughs when a suitor praises her beauty.

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.

He looks Handsome, and She looks Sexy. Why? || AP Neem Candies

Sex That Heals and Sex That Bleeds || AP Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant: Women like burly guys. Why do they like burly and big and muscular guys? Because they are likely to have a higher level of testosterone. Unless you have testosterone, you cannot build muscles, right? And that is why you cannot build muscles, let's say after 50 or 60.… read_more

Career Crossroads: Finding the Right Path Forward

Acharya Prashant: The punishment for not having a girlfriend is that you will keep fantasizing about girls. Does that not happen? Who are the ones who always keep salivating? The singles. And you meet someone who is in a relationship, he won't want to look at girls or boys, for… 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

Love is Enough. Hari Om!

Great love; Greater Love || AP Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant: The disappearance of sound into silence, as it happens in Om , is analogous to the disappearance of the arrow mind into the Brahman target. What is Om ? Sounds finely dissolving into, tapering off into silence. That's how it happens.

And then figuratively, we say that Om … read_more

Acharya Prashant: We want something, right? We want the Ultimate. There’s nobody who wants to stop at something small. We want something as big as possible, right? That’s the nature of desire, correct? It doesn’t want to stop anywhere. Probably it can stop only when it gets something immeasurable, infinite.… read_more

Loneliness and Love

Embrace the Dangers of Love

Questioner: I have a question on an excerpt from you.

“Aloneness is not about being free of others and living without others. Aloneness is to live without oneself. Aloneness does not have much to do with the so-called others; aloneness has everything to do with the one called oneself.”

I’d… read_more

16 min

Acharya Prashant: Most people are not liberated by suffering, instead they are pushed into deeper suffering by suffering. One wrong relationship does not kindle wisdom in a person to stay cautious of any more wrong relationships. Instead, what we see happening is that one wrong relationship breeds a hundred more… read_more

Maya, Fully Explained

Meet the Most Deceptive Person Ever. Surprise!

Questioner: Acharya Ji, the concept of Maya, or the idea that the whole universe is an illusion, is at the core of Advait Vedant . However, Maya as a concept is unfathomable to many of us. So, how can your book help the general audience, who do not having deep… read_more

14 min

Acharya Prashant: If you live on the circumference of life, things will always be fragmented for you. Not that things are actually fragmented. It's just that what you experience is decided by your location. That's why I love to continuously ask, “Are you all experiencing the same thing here?” not… read_more

Is Not Wanting Sex Abnormal?

The mind is fed up of its daily, boring, routine, fettered and frustrated life. But it has no faith or courage to break away from this life. It is very necessary for it to keep looking towards the future. Some special day must always lie ahead: New Year, Valentine’s, Holi, your birthday, Diwali and so on. This cycle keeps up the illusion that something great is coming.

Mark of False Dharma According to Bhagavad Gita

There is only one Dharma. And that is to attain liberation or peace, to gain freedom from your bondages, to gain freedom from your inner chaos and noise, to gain freedom from your inner falseness. Gaining freedom from inner falseness is more commonly known as Truth realization. It is a euphemism—a very decorated euphemism. It’s not really Truth that is really realized; it is falseness that is dropped.

What Is Faith?

15 min

If your trust has an object, it is mere belief, like saying, "I’ll be rescued because my friend will come." Faith is: "I do not bother whether I’m rescued; I am alright either way." Faith is not dependent on a person or reason; it reflects a fulfilled Self that is unbothered, when you are alright without an objective reason to be alright.

Only for Those Seriously Suffering in Relationships

20 min

Acharya Prashant: The question is from Sonali, “I got married after six years of relationship and five years of married life now. Due to contrasting personalities, my husband and I fight a lot. In April, we had a very big conflict and the police got involved. Now we are living… read_more

India Lost Gita, West Got Gita

10 min

Questioner: So thank you for organising this session. So, talking about Bhagavad Gita is important so I was just reading about one American naturalist named, Henry Thoreau.He says that every morning I bet my intellect in the stupendous philosophy of Bhagavad Gita in comparison with our modern world and… read_more

Is Patience Really a Virtue?

Do not use your life as a waiting room. Do not wait even a second for things that merely promise but won’t deliver, as it's in the future which is unseen. Having seen that what you hope and expect will never materialize, do not wait another moment. Drop what is false. Don’t be kind or liberal; have no patience with falseness.

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Janmashtami Special: Now, Arjun, Fight! || AP Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant: Everybody in his own personal way is seeking fulfillment and that is love. If you are young you may seek fulfillment in somebody's body, if you are middle-aged you may seek fulfillment in wealth and prestige, if you are old you may seek fulfillment in security and property… read_more

Discipline and Dedication - Are They Really Virtues? || AP Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant: Where Arjun was standing, Krishna could see that the right action for him was to fight.

Remember that it is already a battleground. Remember that Krishna himself has tried the utmost to avert war. He himself has gone as a messenger to the court of Duryodhana and tried… read_more

Old Boy! Drop Those Wild Tricks || AP Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant: I might be a very violent man. And my goal is to blast a building off. To learn how to do it, I have to live through stern discipline. I will have to build my body, I will have to learn several skills. I may have the discipline… read_more

The difference between your intellectual position and your evolutionary position is increasing day by day. So, technology is giving you great stuff, but you are responding to it in a chimpanzee way. So, here you have these cameras, wonderful things, but what do you do with this? What do you do with this technology? You do all the monkey stuff with this technology. Read more.....

Worse Than a Dog, Higher Than a God || AP Neem Candies

If dogs were to write a holy text, would they say that “We are inferior to humans”? If chickens were to write a Bible of their own, would they say that “We exist so that we may be slaughtered in factories and packed”? Read more....

Don't Chase, She Is Yours (What Is It that Slips Away?) || AP Neem Candies