Jivanmukt Gita

What is the world? You will see the world exactly as you are. As the subject changes so do the world. As the subject becomes lighter and lighter, the world also keeps becoming lighter and lighter. And as the subject dissolves totally, the world too, in its present form dissolves totally.

Does Following Myself Lead to Freedom?

If following others is slavery, the mind quickly wants to conclude that following oneself is freedom. No, following oneself is deeper slavery because what we call the 'self' is just an aggregate of internalized, pervasive influences, like a crow mistaking a cuckoo’s eggs for its own. True freedom is to be free of others and, more importantly, yourself.

What Are the Four Ways to Krishna Darshan?

13 min

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?

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.

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.

The Biggest Obstacle to a Spiritual Life || AP Neem Candies

1 min

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

The Total Is Neither Masculine nor Feminine, Hence the Search and Summit of Both

There is hardly any need to give special attention to the so-called masculine and feminine because neither the masculine really exists nor the feminine really exists. We talk about them because our mind is obsessed with gender, with sex; with women, with men; all dualities are the same. In fact, there is only one duality, called “duality”. The two ends of that duality can be given any name.

Is Knowing the Truth a Never-Ending Quest?

41 min

“The significance of a man is not in what he attains, but rather what he longs to attain.” -Khalil Gibran, ‘Sand and Foam’

Question: Once during a discourse on the Bible, you too have said, “The more you know the Truth, the more you want to know; such is … read_more

Love or Knowledge: Which is More Powerful for Liberation?

The Hypocrisy of Climate Warriors

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

You've Had Enough of This Person

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

12 min

Questioner: Namaskar Acharya ji! I am reading a book called “Freedom from the Known”, where the author, Jiddu Krishnamurthi, talks about removing authority to be free from the ego. What does he mean by authority? Can we take anything to be the authority and then say, “I’m not going to… read_more

Where Science and Spirituality Converge

5 min

Questioner: Is there some scientific context to spirituality? Because, at the end of the day, as you said, ‘Religion forms a boundary, an outer shell, within which spirituality remains.’ Because this has to be something that stops you from doing something wrong or something that is fundamentally upsetting. So, how… read_more

We Exist, and We Do Not

23 min

Questioner: Sir, it is pretty evident that I exist and you exist, but you have also stated that the ego does not exist. So, when someone calls you Acharya Prashant and you reply, isn’t that an identification that reflects an ego?

Acharya Prashant: It is a thing that is useful… read_more

Hurt by Those Around You?

12 min

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

How to Make Oneself Do the Right Thing?

7 min

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

For Those who Want Freedom

Stay Cautious with Such Energies

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

What is Clarity?

Spontaneous, or Carried Away?

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

Wasting Life on an Unworthy Person?

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

The Difficult Call of Dear Love

Questioner: I was in a relationship with a person from the last eight years. Last three years while being with me, he was also seeing and dating other women. I have always been honest and loyal to him. After knowing that he is so mean, so dishonest, why am I… read_more

12 min

Questioner: Acharya ji, today I realized that without love in my heart, I cannot find joy in my life, however wonderful my external situations are. Just listening to, and singing a Kabir bhajan brings me so much joy, love, and tears, I really want to know this Love, and what… read_more

Women in Revealing Dresses: Liberation or Titillation?

9 min

To those who articulate that women should mind their clothes and dressings, the question arises: what kind of person are you, man or woman, if anything is able to disturb or provoke you so easily? The allegation is that when watching a woman dressed skimpily, it becomes a disturbance, a distraction, even a provocation. How will you insulate yourself, and how much will you insulate yourself from the world? And what are the limits to what you want to see and not see? Today, it is said that a woman’s legs or thighs provoke you. What prevents you from saying tomorrow that her ankles and fingernails provoke you? Would you then demand that she should cover up from head to toe?

Do I Know You? || AP Neem Candies

3 min

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

Live against yourself || AP Neem Candies

Bhagavad Gita Quotes, Chapter 1, The Grief of Arjun

Acharya Prashant: One hallmark, one unmistakable quality of right action would be that it would require all your guts. It is only a false action that you can comfortably undertake. Falseness is never troublesome; Truth always is. Whenever you would be doing something that would be real, you would know… 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?

7 min

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.

The Mind Is Not Your Own

13 min

The ego likes to settle matters too soon, the ego likes to conclude too soon. Wherever there is a conclusion, wherever there is a settlement, wherever there is an ending that thought can grasp, it is a false ending, it is a false realization. I have no interest in talking about what true realization is like. True realization is anywhere not a subject matter of this course. We should rather warn of that which is false. Read more....

Does Law of Attraction Work?

The ‘Law of Attraction’ is based on the premise that you know what is truly worthy to attract. But do you really know? If a drunkard uses it, he would attract a truckload of beer, making things worse for him. Often, what you try to attract is just your disease. Can you use this law to bring peace to you? The real thing is not an object of attraction.

What Is the Price of Freedom?

5 min

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

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How to Make the World a Better Place?

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

18 min

If you want something extraordinary like Liberation to happen in the society, then you have to take extraordinary care as a society. You need that kind of a society that chooses the right kinds of rulers and brings up the right kind of institutions. To get the society to do that, you have to teach the society.

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Agree With Freedom for Freedom Is Your Nature

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

7 min

Questioner: What is the role of persuasion in teaching? Is it alright if teaching involves a certain degree of persuasion? If yes, why must one be persuaded?

Acharya Prashant: Freedom is available only to a free mind. A mind that has been conditioned, deeply enslaved, moves from no other factor… read_more

For the Right Reason, Be Tactful and Clever || AP Neem Candies

You Can Respect the Formless Only by Respecting His Forms

Acharya Prashant: The spiritual soldier, the religious warrior has to be extremely intelligent. You could go to the extent of saying that he has to be cunning in the service of Truth; I’m choosing this word with all deliberation.

He has to be cunning in the service of the Truth;… read_more

Nothing Within Us Is the Truth

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

10 min

Acharya Prashant: The truth is not a side of you; the truth is not a part of you. The truth is the absence of this fictitious thing called ‘you.’ That's how the false survives by calling a part of itself ‘the truth.’ You know, yes, of course, I'm false, but… read_more

Don't Discard Opinions, Discard the Opinionated Mind

Intellectual gorilla or a simple human being? || Neem Candies

नाना मतं महर्षीणां साधूनां योगिनां तथा । दृष्ट्वा निर्वेदमापन्नः को न शाम्यति मानवः ॥

nānā mataṃ maharṣīṇāṃ sādhūnāṃ yogināṃ tathā dṛṣṭvā nirvedamāpannaḥ ko na śāmyati mānavaḥ

Where is that man who having observed the diversities of opinions amongst the seers, sages, and yogis, and thus becoming completely indifferent, does not … read_more

1 min

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

Love is Enough. Hari Om!

5 min

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

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New-Age Truths || AP Neem Candies

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

2 min

Acharya Prashant: Real spirituality is about rejecting the false. Real spirituality, therefore, is uncompromising, harsh, ruthless. Just reject the false—that's what real spirituality is about. But if you are living in an age, in an era, in a society, in an economic system that is dominated by forces of falseness,… read_more

Prakriti and Purusha

Finally, What Takes the Seeker to the Truth?

Acharya Prashant: For a woman, the lips of a woman are something very commonplace and ordinary. It is only the eye of the Purusha (consciousness) that worships the Prakriti (physical nature). That is why these two must be found together. If the masculine is not there, who will praise and… read_more