Profound in Profane

The Bhagavad Gita is not a separate spiritual path or an escape from everyday life - it is a mirror that reveals the truth of your present life. Real spirituality begins with self-observation, not rituals or temporary practices. Lasting transformation comes when work, relationships, career, and personal growth become one integrated life driven by awareness, love, and freedom rather than ego, fear, money, or social pressure.

The Bhagavad Gita is often accused of supporting caste and misogyny through selective quotations that ignore context, grammar, and the text's central teachings. A closer reading shows that its emphasis is on inner qualities, conscious action, and spiritual equality rather than birth-based hierarchy or gender discrimination. Misinterpretations arise when isolated verses are detached from their broader meaning, while the Gita consistently points toward self-knowledge, freedom from ego, and the universal possibility of liberation for every human being.

Kabir Saheb's message questions the very act of searching for fulfilment outside oneself. Whether through religion, relationships, success, possessions, or identity, people keep assuming that what is missing lies somewhere else. The problem is not the destination but the belief that fulfilment exists at a distance. Real freedom begins when the search turns inward, recognising that the seeker and the sought were never truly separate.

Love is not a special emotion reserved for selected people or relationships but a way of relating free from self-interest, possession, and psychological dependence. Most relationships become transactions driven by insecurity, where the ego seeks completion through ownership and exchange. Genuine companionship arises without the urge to control or claim another, allowing affection to exist naturally, freely, and without conditions or expectations.

Modern relationships often create more insecurity, not less, because people are conditioned to seek completion, validation, and identity through another person. Social institutions, media, culture, and tradition continuously reinforce the idea that fulfillment lies in romantic attachment. As a result, relationships become driven by dependence rather than love. Real companionship becomes possible only when one is inwardly at peace and not using another person to fill an inner void.

Love is not attraction, possession, dependency, or a transaction driven by personal gain. As long as relationships arise from insecurity, ownership, or the desire for psychological completion, they remain centered on the ego. Love is simple, natural, and free of self-interest, flowing without preference or exclusion. The ego seeks security, continuity, and suffering because they preserve its identity, while freedom and joy threaten its existence. A meaningful life begins when one stops repeating old patterns, accepts uncertainty, and chooses freedom over the comfort of familiar cages.

Climate change, population policies, and social conflicts often arise from a common source: narrow love. People, communities, and nations justify actions that benefit their own group while overlooking broader consequences for humanity and the planet. True care is not exclusive or identity-based; it is expansive and inclusive. Even motherhood, patriotism, and family concern can become limiting when reduced to narrow self-interest rather than guided by wisdom, freedom, and universal responsibility.

The climate crisis is not merely an external environmental problem but a reflection of inner human greed, desire, and psychological disorder. Drawing from the Gita’s idea of yagya as desireless action, it says real ecological healing requires inner transformation. Outer pollution, exploitation, and destruction mirror the ego’s inner confusion, making personal consciousness and planetary health deeply inseparable.

Love has to be seen as the need of the mind, the attraction of the mind towards Peace, towards rest. All attraction is there only with a desire; the hope is of fulfilment. So when the mind says ‘love’, along with love it has a picture of love. How do you know that somebody loves you? Only if he behaves according to set patterns. When real love comes to us, we close our gates to it. Love is not with a particular man or woman; Love is the natural state of the mind.

The kinds of meanings that we associate with love are actually quite demeaning. It’s not your own self-interest that you think of in love. Love is not an emotion; love primarily is a spiritual understanding. Saint Valentine would not be quite pleased with the meanings we have associated with his name and his day. The saints laid down their lives so that our faulty definition of love could be corrected, and that is probably the best use this day can be put to: correcting the definition of Love.

Superficiality offers pleasures. Superficiality offers cheap salvation. Therefore, it is easy to be attracted to superficiality. On the other hand, true spirituality challenges you to pay a heavy price. So, you see, all this knowledge has existed since antiquity. Yet there are people who do not want to read the Gita.

Real Love is a very pure thing. It is pure and it purifies. If you really love her, forget about the families, you won’t even bother whether she loves you, because Love does not demand anything in return. Forget about marriage or anything else. You love, you know love, and that is all, sufficient. Love unconditionally, and then a way will emerge. Unconditional Love is very, very intelligent, and knows no fear. It knows where the solution is, it will find a solution.

There is no revolution possible without the Gita. That’s the reason why even those who are not remembered particularly for their spiritual inclination, people like Subhash Chandra Bose, even they founded their core on Gita. What kind of revolution can you do if it’s the body that’s always at the top of your mind? You require a Gita to tell you that this body is perishable and would anyway go. Gita only teaches you, "Endure and fight."

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.

That’s the purpose of life, no? To know your real destiny beyond your physical limitations and social conditioning. Most people do not know that such a dangerous thing is surreptitiously happening to them. I have found that we are quite big on media and social media now, so comments flow in their hundreds. And women actually have a self-righteous position when they say that we are not supposed to work and you better not expect that from us. Equally, men are conditioned about the roles they are supposed to play in life at home, in society, and how they are supposed to feel about themselves.

I have desires and you are the means to fulfill those desires. That’s why I come to you and I say I’m a loving person. This is not love. Most of that which we call love is actually just self-interest. A lot of our comforts, conveniences and identities depend on the other; therefore, we want to hold the other. Real love is possible only when you know that the other cannot bring anything to you. You relate to the other to share, not to gain.

That’s what the entire spiritual process is about, collecting the airfare. So that you can rise up, otherwise, you stay crawling on the highway. Life is not so that you just remain a crawler, a creeper. Life is so that you can take off.

“I love my job as long as I'm paid for it.” Can you work without being paid? If yes, then probably there is some beginning of love. There are ten things we all like, and all liking or disliking is conditional, and the mark of love is that it survives all conditions. If you come to something that is dearer to you than life itself, then you know what love is. Love is dangerous, because it would mean you have come to something that's more precious to you than life itself.

Drop the center of confusion, come to the center of clarity. Drop what the masses practice, come to the direct route of self-realization. That’s what it means.

When you do not like human beings, you must also remember that they do carry the potential to be lovable. Not just the potential to be loved, but the potential to be lovable. Beyond likable, lovable. So, along with not liking humanity, also comes the responsibility to maybe help them become lovable, to whatever extent one can.

Some battles need to be fought just because they deserve to be fought, not for the sake of victory but for the sake of the fight itself. And victory is indeed possible. We are not fundamentally evil. We are all hypnotized since birth. That’s what is called Maya. Just as somebody can hypnotize us, somebody can also break the hypnosis. It is possible! Never, never lose Faith.

Our definitions of beauty and greatness are all egoistic. Something is beautiful if it corresponds with our likes and with our taste — then we call it beautiful. Whereas the real definition of beauty is that which silences you, that which does not leave you even in a position to utter a "Wow!" That's beauty. That which takes you beyond yourself — that's beauty.

You are the subject, Puruṣa, and everything you can experience, perceive, speak, imagine, or think is Prakṛti. The only real spiritual question is to determine the right relationship between Puruṣa and Prakṛti. India came up with a beautiful answer: Worship Prakṛti with reverence, but do not try to possess or exploit her. The Shakti tradition with the Devi-puja is nothing but an answer to this question of right relationship. Durga, Ambika, and Kali — they all represent Prakṛti.

The object of love is so big, so total, so filling, so occupying that it leaves no space for the subject to hide and survive. The task is so damn big that it can’t be done if you protect yourself. If you protect yourself, it won’t happen. Love involves a lot of bloodshed and demolition. And there are fireworks. Great structures collapse. Formidable enemies have to be defeated. All that is love.

Acharya Prashant (AP): Jayant has initiated, and he is saying that he used to lead a mechanical life that starts the story, and then he got into spirituality, now he wants to be in love always but that does not always seem possible. Right?

Love is neither molecular nor even…

Because you underestimate Maya. Because maybe you are in the illusion that you have conquered, that you have left her way behind. Because probably you do not perceive that you too are still threatened. You feel, 'Oh, the thing is so easy, I overpowered it. Why is my dad not able to accomplish this simple feat?' Maybe it's actually so difficult that not only your dad is failing—even you have not fully succeeded.

An ignorant person is a dangerous thing, made even more dangerous by a relationship. An ignorant person, even if he is walking alone on a road, is a dangerous thing. What if you bring that person to your bedroom? How does it matter? You start calling him your husband or wife. He has remained equally ignorant. Or, does wedding change things so much? It doesn't. Very stupidly you can go round and round the fire, how will that change anything within?

There is the observer, there is the observed, and there is a distance between them; that distance is called fear, attachment and the rest of our misery. The separation between the observed and the observer is human suffering. In witnessing, this separation goes away. Both the observed and the observer are gone — finished. Now there is a very new quality about them. You can call that quality ‘love’, or you can call that ‘witnessing’. And that’s beautiful.

Overview

Fighting Duryodhana is Dharma. Fight Duryodhana in the way you can, that is swadharma. Dharma is the same for everybody, but swadharma varies according to your physical, social, temporal conditions.

But remember that swadharma can never be in contradiction of Dharma; swadharma will always be something…

DANCE NAKED

Dance, Lalla, with nothing on

But air: Sing, Lalla,

wearing the sky.

Look at this glowing day! What clothes

Could be so beautiful or

more sacred?

~Lal Ded

Acharya Prashant- what does it mean to dance with nothing on?

L1- No causes.

AP- What does it mean to…

Try it out, go get an experience. But you must have the intent to really test it for what it really is. Experience is one thing and realization is a totally different thing. You can live your entire life without knowing even a moment of love. Real love is a purely spiritual thing. You cannot have real love without having paid the price to earn spiritual education.

Figuratively, we say that Om, comprising ‘A, U, M’ (Akār–Ukār–Makār), representing the three states of consciousness, dissolves into silence, and silence is the target. Similarly, the mind, leaving behind all its three states, disappears into the target. Pass through all that you can experience — all that is possible in waking, dreaming, sleeping — and then transcend into 'non-being'. Within the three states, you are you, but when you leave the three states behind, you have left yourself behind. And when there is no you, then there is no mind, no ego. That is. That is.

Love and realization are things that roar aloud. They are extremely intimate, yet if they are there, there is no way you can hide them. These are not things that you can ever prevent from getting expressed. So, don’t even try. This expression means living it. Every thought is an expression, every action is an expression. You just express. By blocking it, you are blocking the thing itself. You don’t allow it to be expressed, and it’s gone.

Acharya Prashant: You will see that I'm repeatedly stressing on Shri Krishna as the demolisher, on Shri Krishna as someone who not only does not accept our prevalent definitions of right-wrong, true and false, humility, authority, right action, non-violence but, in fact, unabashedly and actively demolishes them. It is one…

When your expectations are not fulfilled, that is the situation you call anger. Your expectation is nothing but a desire that the other person should behave according to your image of him. You create images because you are afraid. If you are not afraid, you cannot be angry. All these diseases come from a basic fountainhead — ignorance. They go away once ignorance goes away.

Sex, whether premarital or postmarital, depends on the people who are engaging in it. Even in postmarital sex, there can be a lot of violence. Equally, there can be a very bad kind of sexual encounter before marriage. The word marital does not matter. If two people are not meeting in actual love, then it doesn't matter whether the thing is postmarital or premarital — it is simply abominable. If you love someone, give them wings, light, and self-knowledge. Liberation is the foremost indicator of love.

The prerequisite is love, and love is an openness. Love is a vulnerability. Without that, all you will have is dry and meaningless and violent argumentation that yields nothing.

Questioner: “Acharya Ji, my whole life, I treated sex as fun due to my early age experience. I would treat it as fun-just to relax my body. But now, at my mature age, I feel that it’s a responsibility to have a son or a daughter for humanity, to strengthen…

You look in the mirror, and if there is a speck or blemish on your face, you want to change something. If you look at the Gita and that doesn't result in changes in your life, then you are misusing it. Anybody who holds the Gita must be ready to look within and discard all that which is unnecessary, borrowed, antithetical to life. If that is not happening, then that's disrespect to the Gita.

Acharya Prashant (AP): Great things are happening on the screen, don't get so excited, it's just the screen. Irrespective of what happens on the screen, it's not real. That's how you have to look at things. Great silence on the screen. Is it silence? No, it is the silence of…

The wise ones say, “Love arrives only when the right, clean, and honoured space has been prepared for it.” So, you can never find love — you can only rid yourself of all that blocks it; all that is needlessly and coincidentally present in your mental space. And you can’t predict how love will arrive, but you can do your homework to clear the inner clutter.

Love is always dedicated to the purpose of liberation, whereas desire forgets the highest and remembers only the object. If, in the process of love, desire, or attraction, you find that you have never lost sight of the Truth — rest assured, you are loving. But if the object becomes so dominant that you have totally forgotten the Truth, know that this is not love.

We often feel that the Mahabharata war was about avenging the atrocities that Duryodhana had been committing. But in fact, the war was to stop Duryodhana from wreaking havoc on the entire country in the future. If the state policies themselves promote Adharma, then the effect on the population would certainly be derogatory. Therefore, despite the likely great loss of lives, it was still important to fight the war.

Obsession with the future is a compulsion with the ego. The only way to be free of the future is to be free of yourself. Be free of yourself and flow like the wind. But will the right things happen to me then? Can you assure me? Is there a guarantee? So desireless, motiveless action and faith, they always go together. Somebody who's asking for guarantees, somebody who is craving for assurances, he is unfit to even touch the Bhagavad Gita. This is only for the courageous ones.

Sex has to become something small, something not very important, not a great monster that you are fighting all the time. Just as you do not remember what you took for breakfast yesterday, sex is something you do not even remember. If it is instead present in the mind all the time, what to do?

How does it matter whether you are homosexual or heterosexual? You're still body-identified. The lust for the body is still there. If one has homosexual desires, they are desires. If a man lusts after a woman, that too is a desire. And neither of these desires takes you anywhere. The superior being is the one who stops running after the body.