Maya

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

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: 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

Questioner: Namaste Acharya ji. My question is that I see many institutions are fueling the concept of Maya. Because I have seen on many premier institutions having Upanishadic phrases as their mottos—Na hi jnyānen sadṛushan pavitramih vidyate , Téjasvi nāvadheetamastu , sā vidyā yā vimuktaye . But at its… read_more

Questioner: What is Duḥkha ?

Acharya Prashant: The thought, the desire of all that which is fleeting, ephemeral is Duḥkha . Why is it Duḥkha ? To whom, is it Duḥkha ? Few things have to be understood. Everything likes to be in its most stress-free state. That's what even… read_more

Acharya Prashant: Māyā is only as powerful as you want it to be.

You are not being puppeted by Māyā ; Māyā depends totally on you for her sustenance. If you ever find her dominating you, you must know that this is what you have wanted.

Never forget your essential… read_more

सभि जीअ तुमारे जी तूं जीआ का दातारा

नितनेम (रहरासि साहिब)

All living beings are Yours. You are the Giver of all souls.

Nitnem (Rahraasi Saahib)

Speaker: “Sabhi jeea tumaare jee tuun jeea ka daataara (All living beings are Yours. You are the Giver of all souls).”

The question is:… read_more

Questioner : Our education system is at fault because it has been designed to make you a worker, not to live life the way it should be.

Speaker : Yes, yes. It is designed to make you into ‘something’. At some places, it is designed to not to make you… read_more

Acharya Prashant (AP): Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā , chapter one, verse 21.

We have seen so far, the predicament of the one who finds himself hopelessly caged against the Truth. We have seen the anxiety and the nervousness of Duryodhana in the first half of the first chapter. In spite of… read_more

Questioner (Q): Isn't everything just Māyā ? Then what is God? What is the relationship of God with Māyā ?

Acharya Prashant (AP): You see, Māyā becomes all things, correct? Māyā becomes all things. So, you find it expressed in both ways. Sometimes, it is said—Māyā becomes all things… read_more

Questioner (Q): My question is about renunciation. I find within me the response about what I have to do, like renunciation and poverty. I see in myself inside but somehow I am fighting very strongly with the opposite in the opposite direction. And I never find the bravado to really… read_more

सदृशं चेष्टते स्वस्याः प्रकृतेर्ज्ञानवानपि।

प्रकृतिं यान्ति भूतानि निग्रहः किं करिष्यति।। 3.33 ।।

sadṛiśhaṁ cheṣhṭate svasyāḥ prakṛiter jñānavān api

prakṛitiṁ yānti bhūtāni nigrahaḥ kiṁ kariṣhyati

Even a man of wisdom behaves according to his own nature. Being follows by their nature. What can restraint do?

~ Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 3, … read_more

Questioner (Q): When I read what is happening in the environment, about the irreversible damages and how it is in the end my generation and the people who are going to come that have to suffer because of this; there is this kind of anxiety that you know, occurs from… read_more

Questioner: Earlier you were talking of our current systems being a whitewashed extension of what already exists in the jungle. My question is, if the animal nature is so innate, natural and core to the human experience, then does one need to embrace it and perhaps enhance it in one’s… read_more

Yesterday I was reading that the male snake chases the female snake following her scent, the trail of her odor. Snakes can’t generally see much. They can’t even hear much. So, the deodorant that you use is Prakriti and the purpose, too, is prakritik . The odor of the female… read_more

Question: Acharya Ji Pranaam! Once we are attached to anything, there is so much of suffering.

Please help me understand this.

Acharya Prashant Ji: End of suffering is just an idea for us. Let’s rather talk about suffering – that is a fact, that is our daily experience. The questioner… read_more

Acharya Prashant: Māyā and Brahm are beginningless for you. ‘For you’ because the question is coming ‘from you’. So, to you, these two are beginningless. Why are these two beginningless? Why can’t their origin be known? Because Māyā does not comprise of an entity called ‘Māyā * ’. * … read_more

Questioner: My question is not about concept, it's more about attitude. I see in the spiritual community, normally we spend a lot of time talking about thoughts, about god, about concepts, about the subjectivity of things and when we go back to our daily life, we just do as everybody… read_more

Questioner (Q): I want to know, essentially, the relationship between the material world and consciousness. Is the body, you know, just like putting together a few chemicals? And, how does consciousness come from an unconscious body? Or.. is it the other way around?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Obviously. Yeah, yeah! Obviously,… read_more

Questioner (Q): When we were studying for IIT, we used to think that everything would be sorted after getting into IIT or BITS. But it didn’t happen. Can such a thing actually happen at some point in life? Can I come to a point in my life where I can… read_more

Question: Sir, daily life puts forth so many insane demands and expectations that it becomes difficult to understand what to follow and what not to follow.

Answer: We all have felt that occasional boredom while reading our texts. We all have often felt that inertia to stay back at home… read_more

Questioner (Q): All experiences unfold in consciousness and are fundamentally subjective in the sense that there is no objective world out there independent of consciousness. This brings me to the concept of illusion. If the world and our experiences of it are illusions, then the world is devoid of meaning;… read_more

Questioner (Q): Lots of layers of Ego are dropping and I wake up in the middle of the night and realize that I cannot trust anyone, anything including myself. My mind is going crazy and underneath it, I think I know all the answers to my questions. It feels so… read_more

ब्रह्मब्रह्म तं परादाद्योऽन्यत्रात्मनो ब्रह्म वेद क्षत्रं तं परादाद्योऽन्यत्रात्मनः क्षत्रं वेद लोकास्तं परादुर्योऽन्यत्रात्मनो लोकान्वेद देवास्तं परादुर्योऽन्यत्रात्मनो देवान्वेद भूतानि तं परादुर्योऽन्यत्रात्मनो भूतानि वेद सर्वं तं परादाद्योऽन्यत्रात्मनः सर्वं वेदेदं ब्रह्मेदं क्षत्रमिमे लोका इमे देवा इमानि भूतानीद सर्वं यदयमात्मा॥

~ बृहदारण्यक उपनिषद (श्लोक ०६)

Context:

What these Verses mean? What is this world? How… read_more

Question: When I sit in open Sky, I see the vastness, and the vastness feels like Freedom to me. It gives me lot of calmness and peace. The cool breeze, the rains, the Sun, these elements of physical nature give a lot of peace.

These elements of nature, especially the… read_more

Questioner (Q): Man is typically a social animal who seeks to coexist with the society around him. I am a vegan but many people around me are not, and that creates a difficulty for me. I want to speak out my thoughts on animal cruelty and get into animal activism,… read_more

Questioner: It’s well known that simple living and high thinking are what we should aim at, but how do we know what is simple living and high thinking?

Acharya Prashant: You talked of simple living and high thinking, and you said that it's well-known that simple living and high thinking… read_more