Narad Bhakti Sutra

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.

The More Alone You Are, the More Loving You Are

7 min

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

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.

Beware of Those Suggesting to Avoid Reading Scriptures

9 min

It’s far easier to sit on a greatly decorated stage and talk about the virtues of Rudrākṣa, and what kind of water to drink, and why copper is useful; and all kinds of pseudo-scientific nonsense. But to really speak upon a Kabir or an Ashtavakra requires a tremendous understanding which does not come to everybody. If you are a spiritual teacher and you are saying you have not read any scripture, that raises questions on your love for the Truth.

How To Build Healthy Relationships?

A healthy relationship is possible only when you are healthy. A healthy being is not restless, not continuously suffering, and not wandering in tension. When you are settled within, this sureness, power, peace, and completeness reflect in your relationships. What I have within me shines through all my relationships. The relationship of a healthy being is called Love.

The Gap Between Understanding and Action

Understanding expresses itself through action. And understanding knows no other expression. Words are a very poor substitute for the right action and that is what Gibran is talking of here. He says that which is understood claim for its final expression as action in life. The poet often lets his understanding become his words. To that extent, there is a flow but if the words remain mere words and do not turn into life then there is no freedom yet. The imprisonment continues. Live what you love, otherwise, the punishment is tremendous.

The Role of Love and Acceptance in Defining Your Relationships

You decide with whom to spend your time. You choose your boyfriend or your girlfriend, right? So, all of this, at least most of this, is happening as a result of my own decisions, my own choices. If I do not like my choices, then de-facto what is it that I dislike? The one who is making the choice.

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

Why Do People Commit Suicide?

9 min

Questioner: Why do people commit suicide?

Acharya Prashant: They still have a lot of hope. They feel that suicide would redeem them. They have not given up everything. They are still carrying a lot of hope. If I do not know what is beyond life, how can I enter that… read_more

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

Not Enlightened, Not Even a Seeker || AP Neem Candies

2 min

Acharya Prashant: “He who claims liberation as his own, as an attainment of a person is neither enlightened nor a seeker. He suffers his own misery.”

Beautiful. “He who claims liberation as his own, as an attainment of a person is neither enlightened nor a seeker. He suffers his own… read_more

How to surrender?

22 min

Questioner: Due to my conditioning and fear, mind tries to perceive some ‘thing’ to surrender to. This stops me from actually surrendering. With this conflict, how to understand if there is any movement towards the centre, or is it all at the periphery?

Acharya Prashant: The inner and the outer… 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

Why Others Can't Fulfill Your Expectations

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

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?

What Is Desh Prem Divas?

To Love Somebody, Love Like a Nobody

Acharya Prashant: Before we say love for the country, we should know what is this thing called country. If we don’t know what is country then whom do we love? If we don’t know what country is then what do we call love as?

This is just a machine (pointing … read_more

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

Litmus Test for Exploitative Relationships || AP Neem Candies

Hurt by Those Around You?

Acharya Prashant: Only in aloneness can you have relationships that are not exploitative. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what name, or what color you give to your relationship; your relationship will definitely be one of exploitation. Have you ever looked at your relationships closely? Do you ever want the other? No,… read_more

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

Why Is It so Difficult to Forgive and Forget?

How to Make Oneself Do the Right Thing?

Questioner 1: Why can’t we forgive some people, even though I know that thinking about them, I’ll hurt only myself? How to forgive and forget them, so that it will bring me peace?

Acharya Prashant: You see, you’ve checked into a hotel, the experience there is not good enough, right?… read_more

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

How Will You Have a Fairy-Tale Affair? || AP Neem Candies

5 min

Acharya Prashant: Had you been completely broken from the inside then there would have been nobody left inside to experience the hurt. What you call as the inside is just the ego inside and the ego is a very magical thing. It becomes stronger when it gets hurt. It is… 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

Vedanta and Bhakti (Devotion)

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

17 min

Questioner: Namaskar Acharya ji. Acharya ji, I have been listening to you for quite some time now, and one thing that I have noticed is that whenever you speak on any topic, you always speak in the light of Advait Vedant. One thing also on which you have spoken a… 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

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

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

5 min

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

Wasting Life on an Unworthy Person?

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?

Religious Fanatics and Bigots - Where Do They Come from?

17 min

Questioner: Sir, I am Saurabh Kumar from Rajdhani College, Delhi University. My question is that there is one or two days ago, there was Ram Navami. Some people were going and cheering Ram, Ram at the mosque and figuring out some flags at the mosque. And they are looking like… read_more

Hell is Full of these People - You might Recognize Some of them || AP Neem Candies

Be Committed, even to your Wrong Choices || AP Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant: Hell is a place where you get a lot of sympathy, consolation, condolence, and commiseration. You're told that we agree that you are in a miserable state. Your neighbor comes to you, puts his hand on your shoulder, and with a grave face tells you that you are… read_more

Do I Know You? || AP Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant: Whatever you are doing, there has to be honesty in that. What is important is that you do not say one thing and do another thing. If you look at the great scientific discoveries or inventions, the scientist or the explorer would be busy in his chosen area… read_more

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

Please Remain without Love || AP Neem Candies

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

The Helpless Teacher || AP Neem Candies

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

Acharya Prashant: I was six years old. My sister Pragya was three and my younger brother was being born, mother was in the maternity ward. So, we two kids were having good fun. We had been relieved from school for a month because mother had gone to another city to… read_more

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

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.

The Joy of Being Drenched in Love

13 min

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

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.

Why Do You Want to Get Married?

What Is the Price of Freedom?

Questioner: Acharya Ji, Pranaam. Currently, there is a lot of pressure on me to get married. I am completely confused about this decision, I am not mentally prepared for it right now. I feel incompleteness in my life, and I want to settle things in my life.

There is a… read_more

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

Are These Absurdities or Miracles or What?

19 min

Brother, I have seen some astonishing sights. A lion keeping watch over pasturing cows; a mother delivered after her son was; a guru prostrated before his disciple; fish spawning on treetops; a rooster is eating a cat; a gunny sack driving a bullock cart; a cat carrying away a dog; … read_more

How to Make the World a Better Place?

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.

Career Crossroads: Finding the Right Path Forward