Pingla Gita

Is Meditation Really as Beneficial as People Claim?

Questioner (Q): Sir, if we do something to make someone else happy by deceiving our own self, is it worth it?

Acharya Prashant (AP): No, you cannot make someone else happy by deceiving your own self. That kind of a thing cannot exist; that kind of a thing exists only… read_more

13 min

Meditation is a way of life. Meditation is the most beautiful love affair you can have. People talk of romance, why not romance the truth? Romance is your unending date with the truth. You see, when you are on a date, it’s not as if you are looking at the other person all the time. Especially if you are meeting that person frequently. It could be a working date then. “Fine let’s meet somewhere, let’s sit across a table, you have your own laptop, I have mine and we work.“ And that’s a date.

Can Multiple Sexual Partners Fulfill You?

All your relationships are deeply your attempts to fill an inner void. Whether you relate sexually to one person or many — will sex give you what you truly want? The body is a shallow means to attain that which your consciousness craves. There are beautiful ways of relating to men and women; relate to them in higher ways.

Prakriti, Attention and Truth

You rather have to be relaxed and just receptive. It comes to you. You don't have to chase it. You simply have to unlock your door, and these two are very different approaches. What does the devotee do? He just opens his doors and waits, calmly waits. He doesn't want to enforce his will. Non-resistance. Active pursual would all be within yourself. You are actively pursuing the beyond within yourself.

Why Do Partners Cheat?

20 min

Marriage founded on the body alone is bound to suffer from cheating, as one body can never satisfy anyone. Your association with the other person should be based on love, friendship, and inner fulfillment, not the body. If you are physical and bodily, no loyalty is possible. Loyalty is fundamentally spiritual.

Are You Against Marriage?

We are all born married to our desires, despair, and desperation. A woman or a man is not responsible for making us feel bonded or suffocated. It is the feeling of attachment, loneliness, and dependency that troubles you. Get rid of these, and then, if someone comes into your life, it’s alright. If you feel like marrying them, do it; if not, don’t.

How Do I Retain This Beautiful Silence?

Silence is not just the absence of sound. Sound has its utility. Let there be a lot of sound and yet let there be silence and that silence is not cultivated through discipline. It is just a matter of the mind being aware of anything outside it but also of itself.

God's Presence Everywhere: What Does It Really Mean?

Gita and philosophy and Vedanta have nothing to do with God. They are in search of Truth, not God. These are different things — Truth and God. Secondly, all the objects that you look at, you look at them in search of something. In search of the Truth, you look at all these objects. In that sense you could say, I am looking at everything in search of the absolute. To the ego, everything carries a promise, a possibility of the absolute. That does not mean that all the objects that you look at contain the infinite or something.

Live-in Relationship or Marriage?

There is not much difference between a live-in relationship and marriage. When you are living with somebody, that person gains enormous power to affect your life in all kinds of ways, and you too gain that power. You cannot do justice to that responsibility if you are not a spiritually evolved person. Be very, very conscious of your personal space. It is sacred; not everybody must be allowed to enter it.

Why Are You Scared of Truth?

There is nothing more scary than the Truth. The primary function of Truth is to negate all your falseness, to show you that you are living in lies. Truth supports you in the sense that, without its help, you cannot even see falseness. Truth cannot be pleasant to what we are. Truth can only be pleasant to the Truth. Before the Real can come, this false one must disappear.

How to Handle Disagreement in Relationships?

10 min

Whenever disagreement arises, don’t see it as something unwanted. A conflict of opinions can help broaden one’s perspective, provided the intention is to reach the fact. Most often, however, the intention is to defend one’s position, which is driven by ego. Talk and don’t take it personally. If you don’t know how to interact—even with the best of people—you won’t grow. You must know what to take and what to totally ignore.

Are You in a Right Relationship?

There are only two kinds of relationships that are right in this world. If you connect with someone at a higher level of consciousness, hold their hand so they can uplift you. If you connect with someone at a lower level of consciousness, hold their hand to uplift them. Any other kind of relationship is junk.

How to Save Your Relationship?

7 min

Relationships get spoiled when people cling to each other. If you truly want heart-to-heart contact, give each other adequate space. At times, disappear from each other’s lives—go on a vacation alone. Then, when you vacation with your partner, it will be delightful. We all need space, and only a free mind has the right and the capacity to love.

The Great Power That 'Om' Points To

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 Dilemma of the Spiritual Path

16 min

Why is it that what you call the ‘spiritual path’ must be equated with leaving something? Do you find any renunciation in existence? Do you find anything in existence that is bent upon giving up something, or dropping something? If life were meant for dropping, then that whom you call as ‘God’ should have first of all dropped the universe. When he is running the universe, not dropping it, in spite of the world being as silly, as pointless and as rotten as it is, then why must you think of leaving all the desires behind, and going to the spiritual life, leaving all material behind, and doing something else?

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.

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 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

Fighting your Weakness is more Important than Fighting the Enemy

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

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

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

Are Women Sexually Passive?

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.

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.

Things I Wish I Knew Before Having Sex

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.

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

Secrets of an Authentic Personality

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?

You've Had Enough of This Person

Where Science and Spirituality Converge

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

To Love Somebody, Love Like a Nobody

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

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

Why Is It so Difficult to Forgive and Forget?

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

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

Why Become a Woman, Why Become a Man?

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

How Will You Have a Fairy-Tale Affair? || 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

Wasting Life on an Unworthy Person?

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

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

Want Satisfaction? Maximise Consumption || AP Neem Candies

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

7 min

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

Please Remain without Love || AP Neem Candies

The Helpless Teacher || AP Neem Candies

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

Live against yourself || 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

Do Attractive Girls Get More Love?

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

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.

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....

Why Do You Want to Get Married?

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

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

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