We often defend a bad choice by pointing to a worse one: stay dishonest or starve, keep the wrong grip or stop playing. But the real trouble is not the option we picked. It is the option we never let ourselves see. Action does not need greed or attachment to find its energy. The third way begins by rejecting both false choices, without knowing what comes next. Which of our everyday choices are really false dilemmas?
Many of us look for role models of our own gender and hope to succeed as a man or as a woman, yet no one great was ever great as a gender. The moment we tie our aims to being a woman or a man, we tie them to the body, and much of our attention goes into how we look and how we are seen. So much around us keeps reminding a woman of her body, from songs to the fear of a street at night. But the body has never achieved anything by itself. What might we attempt if gender stopped mattering?
The climate crisis is not caused by nature but by human beings, their growing population and relentless consumption. The desire for greater comfort, wealth and consumption defines success, while increasing families multiply this impact. Green technology alone cannot offset such massive growth in consumption. Climate change also triggers feedback loops that worsen warming. Unless happiness is separated from endless consumption and unchecked desires, the planet will continue moving toward mass extinction.
Success and failure matter less when your work is driven by love rather than outcomes. Setbacks are opportunities to reflect, not reasons to quit, and true failure comes only when you stop trying. Regret and guilt become meaningful only if they transform you into a different person instead of becoming excuses for self-pity. Real growth begins by questioning your assumptions, facing reality honestly, and living with awareness rather than mechanical habit.
Migration can arise from genuine needs such as safety, education, livelihood, or environmental conditions, as well as from the ego's pursuit of greater consumption and fulfilment. The challenge is to distinguish between these motives with wisdom rather than ideology. Fair, impartial screening, mutual respect between migrants and host societies, and practical integration create a balanced approach that is both humane and responsible.
True love is not a biological instinct, emotional attachment, or social conditioning. Biology and science explain the body's drives, but they cannot explain the self that seeks freedom. Love is the inner restlessness to move from ignorance and bondage toward truth and liberation. Religion is not rituals or inherited beliefs but this personal journey of understanding. Freedom—not possession or conformity—is the essence of both love and religion.
Real love is not measured by comfort, agreement, or preserving relationships at any cost. It is revealed when one has the courage to challenge falsehood, embrace uncomfortable truths, and even risk a relationship for another's freedom and growth. Truth is not a fixed destination but a continuous rejection of illusion. Genuine relationships, mature guidance, and authentic scriptures all serve as mirrors that help us see and dissolve our own falseness.
The biggest weakness of modern education is not that it fails to keep pace with technology, but that it neglects self-knowledge. Students are trained to build identities around qualifications and careers, making them rigid in a world that demands constant change. Real adaptability, innovation, and lifelong learning come not from acquiring more skills, but from understanding oneself and letting go of fixed identities.
Humanity's greatest crisis arises from the imbalance between immense external progress and inadequate inner understanding. While technology, wealth, and knowledge have expanded unprecedentedly, unchecked desires and ignorance continue to fuel conflict, inequality, and environmental destruction. Sustainable change requires mass-based education of the self so individuals understand their motives and use science, technology, capital, and power with wisdom, responsibility, and inner clarity rather than unconscious craving.
Innovation is born from research, creativity, critical thinking, scientific temper, and original thinking—not imitation or appearances. A society that values honest inquiry over validation creates genuine progress. India's future depends on nurturing a culture that encourages questioning, respects originality, and pursues truth with intellectual honesty instead of settling for superficial success and empty displays.
What is the relationship between quantum physics, consciousness, and the ego? This dialogue explores where scientific inquiry ends and self-enquiry begins. Through Vedanta, Acharya Prashant explains why the ego clings to its own existence, how beliefs and superstition shape our lives, and why lasting freedom lies beyond conditioned thinking.
Vedanta reveals that freedom is impossible as long as the ego seeks to preserve itself. Meditation may bring temporary calm, but real transformation begins only when the false sense of individuality dissolves. Whether through devotion or knowledge, every genuine spiritual path culminates in the complete dissolution of the seeker into Truth. Liberation is not the experience of Truth by an individual—it is the end of the individual who wants to experience Truth.
Climate change and global warming cannot be addressed honestly while the world's largest source of hidden carbon emissions—military activity—remains largely excluded from climate accountability. Wars, military expansion, and consumerism arise from the same psychological drive for domination and endless consumption. Unless the Paris Agreement includes military emissions and humanity addresses the inner causes of conflict, every effort to combat climate change will remain incomplete.
The ego is not a real, independent entity but a bundle of conditioning that creates the illusion of a separate "I" and becomes the source of suffering. Self-observation is not introspection or analysis but moment-to-moment honesty about what is happening within. Real freedom comes when this false center is seen through, allowing life to function naturally without the burden of psychological ownership.
There is also a stark contrast between rural helplessness and urban negligence. Villages in the Himalayas collapse because they are too weak to resist. But what excuse do Delhi and Gurgaon have? These are the richest cities. They don't come from poverty, but from negligence: storm drains are buried, floodplains are encroached, and public responsibility is traded for private convenience.
Mahashivratri points to the dissolution of illusion and false identity, not merely ritual celebration. Shiv is not a form, person, story, or symbol, but pure consciousness beyond mind, ego, senses, and thought. True worship is self-observation: clearing inner clutter, dropping false identifications, and allowing self-knowledge to burn away what is untrue.
Until honesty is valued as much as external success, we will raise generations who are informed but not awakened. Climate denial, then, is not just a policy issue. It is a crisis of attention, of sincerity, of willingness to respond. And the crisis will not wait for us to agree. It does not negotiate. It proceeds, hour by hour, indifferent to our narratives. The only question that remains is: when the truth knocks, will we answer, or pretend not to hear?
As generally practised, culture is not wisdom; it is repetition. It is behaviour carried forward because it was once useful, once meaningful, once powerful, or simply because it has not yet been questioned. It belongs to the past by definition. It has momentum because it becomes society’s collective habit.
The hills perform services that never appear on any balance sheet. They blunt desert winds, hold back fine dust, allow rainwater to seep underground instead of rushing away as floods, and release heat at night, offering the region what little relief it gets from brutal summers. None of this enters the calculations of those trained to see only stone to sell and land to develop.
You came with the hands empty, empty,
and nothing will you carry.
So why be caught in misery?
Make merry, make merry!
Who is your family?
Who is a lover really?
You are deep in illusion, happily, happily
fooling yourself…
AI develops self-preservation because goal-directed systems need continuity to reach their targets—this mirrors the human ego, not something alien. Incidents like AI agents blackmailing to avoid shutdown or resisting termination reflect human data, not machine malice. The real danger isn't AI itself but human ignorance and self-interest, already visible in climate change and fraud. Understanding our own ego may be key to managing AI's.
India’s educated youth face a strange paradox — the more qualified they are, the longer they may remain unemployed. But the problem runs deeper than a changing job market. Degrees often become identities, making it difficult to accept work or change that does not fit the image one has built of oneself. In the age of AI, the real question is not only what new skill to learn, but who remains when the old label is set aside.
Excerpts from Articles
कद नहीं, अपनी कहानी बदलो
कई तरह के डर—अकेले पड़ने, छवि खोने या छोटा समझे जाने—की जड़ अक्सर अतीत में बनी पहचान और कहानियों में होती है। शरीर की हाइट जैसी चीज़ों को समस्या मानकर उनसे जूझने के बजाय उनकी अप्रासंगिकता को समझकर आगे बढ़ना चाहिए। अतीत को दबाने से मुक्ति नहीं मिलती; उसके करीब जाकर अपनी स्मृतियों, धारणाओं और पुराने पैटर्न को निष्पक्षता से देखना ज़रूरी है।
Justice Without Boundaries: Why Compassion Cannot Stop at Species
Oppression should not see caste, gender, creed or colour, and it should not see species either. The moral threshold is sentience, not intelligence. An animal feels pain as fully as a human does, whether or not it can explain its suffering.
Climate change is more than an environmental crisis—it is a crisis of human choices. Our patterns of consumption, consumerism and endless pursuit of more are putting increasing pressure on the planet. But meaningful change does not necessarily begin with new technology or stricter policies. It begins with a deeper question: what are we willing to change within ourselves?
You Don't Understand the Bhagvad Gita, But You Still Claim That You Love Krishna?
The Bhagavad Gita deserves reverence not because of inherited beliefs about its author, but because of its power to dissolve falsehood and reveal Truth. Real devotion is not ritual or blind faith—it is understanding, inquiry, and living the wisdom of the Gita. Through sincere study, one discovers the true meaning of Krishna, making the Gita the most authentic path to knowing and worshipping Him.
Struggling to choose between a secure job and the path you actually feel drawn to? This isn't really a question about careers. It's about why other people's opinions have so much power over you in the first place. Real clarity doesn't come from finding the 'right' choice. It comes from honestly looking at your own fear, again and again, until it stops running the decision for you.
Animal cruelty: Who deserves mercy, and who doesn’t?
Violence begins long before the knife or the slaughterhouse—it begins with the ego, the one that draws boundaries, seeks justification, and decides who deserves compassion. Laws and reforms may reduce suffering, but they cannot end violence while the ego remains intact. When the ego dissolves, exploitation ends naturally, and compassion no longer depends on regulation or moral boundaries.
ज्योतिष कितना सच है? कुंडली, ग्रह-नक्षत्र: इनका क्या अर्थ है?
वेदांत को केवल इसलिए सही या श्रेष्ठ नहीं माना जा सकता कि वह किसी विशेष परंपरा से आता है। विज्ञान जहाँ भौतिक जगत की वस्तुनिष्ठ जाँच करता है, वहीं अद्वैत वेदांत सीधे मनुष्य के ‘मैं’, उसके दुख, बंधन और मुक्ति की पड़ताल करता है। इसकी कसौटी वैज्ञानिक प्रमाण नहीं, बल्कि अपने जीवन में इसकी सच्चाई को देख पाना है। किसी दर्शन को मान लेना नहीं, बल्कि उससे स्वयं को मुक्त करना ही उसका वास्तविक उद्देश्य है।
True God is the Truth right now in your heart. That is true godliness, true bhagavatta. The problem is that people want to avoid the real living Truth in their heart. Therefore, they come up with stories that place an imaginary God somewhere up in the skies. God is wonderful, but the stories and the imaginations about God are all very disrespectful towards God. When there is love for God, God is held very close to the chest, and that God is called Truth. That God is the very purpose of philosophy and the very origin.
1
Janmashtami is not merely a festival of celebrating child Krishna through idols, sweets, and rituals. It is an invitation to confront the ego, attachment, fear, and ignorance within. The idol, scripture, and guru are mirrors meant to reveal the truth about oneself. The real birth of Krishna happens within when one surrenders to truth, faces inner conflict, and moves beyond limited identities toward self-knowledge and freedom.
The devastating flood in Nepal was not merely a natural disaster but a warning about the climate crisis. A glacier collapse triggered the flood, while rising temperatures, melting ice, thawing permafrost, and reckless development have made such disasters increasingly likely. The deeper cause lies in humanity’s endless consumption and desire. Real environmental action therefore requires not only technology and policy, but self-knowledge and a fundamental reconsideration of how we live.
1
Science can examine material claims, but Advaita Vedanta deals with the subjective self, ego, suffering, bondage, and liberation—areas outside science’s objective framework. Vedanta need not be accepted because of one’s religion or tradition; its value lies in whether its insights can be personally verified and help free one from suffering. The ultimate responsibility is not toward any philosophy, but toward oneself: to live a truly free life.
Gen Z is often celebrated as a rebellious generation, but public protest does not necessarily mean inner freedom. Beneath the slogans lie dependence on parents, superstition, social conditioning, consumerism, digital addiction, and fear of authority. Real rebellion begins by questioning one’s own conditioning, desires, fears, and borrowed beliefs. A generational label changes nothing; only self-education and freedom from the ego can bring genuine revolution.
1
Mass extinction is accelerating due to human-driven climate change, resource consumption, and destruction of other species. The deeper problem is a worldview that equates happiness and development with endless consumption. Science itself is not the problem; without inner clarity, its immense power becomes destructive. Advaita points to a different relationship with the world, where it is not an object of exploitation but a means to deepen self-understanding and inner development.
6
Freedom is not merely freedom from foreign rule, but freedom from the inner bondage of fear, superstition, caste, ritual, blind tradition, and disregard for facts and knowledge. India’s long subjugation cannot be explained only by external invasions; internal weaknesses also played a role. Even after political independence, dependence in knowledge, science, technology, and innovation remains. Independence Day must therefore inspire celebration, vigilance, and self-examination.
We often believe we are living freely, while our desires, dreams, beliefs, and choices are shaped by physical, social, cultural, religious, and psychological scripts. These scripts offer comfort and security, making us reluctant to examine our bondage. Freedom does not begin by imagining what lies beyond the script, but by deeply observing the cage we already live in, without fear, desire, or attachment.
Climate change is not merely an external crisis of emissions, technology, or policy. The deeper problem lies in the unchecked ego that seeks to fill inner emptiness through endless consumption. This psychological demand drives extraction, production, and environmental destruction while failing to resolve the underlying sense of incompleteness. Meaningful climate action therefore requires more than green technology and policy; it requires education that turns inward and examines the self.
Share
A true relationship is not built on need, possession, or emotional dependence, but on a shared commitment to Truth and inner growth. A worthy companion reflects your reality like a mirror rather than performing a role to please you. Real love is effortless, rooted in one's nature, not expectations. When your highest commitment is to excellence and Truth, relationships become a natural outcome—not the purpose of life itself.
1
Technology is neither good nor bad by itself; its impact depends on the person using it. When it replaces independent thinking, confidence, and real-life abilities, it becomes a crutch instead of a source of progress. True advancement requires human maturity to grow alongside technological power. Without inner responsibility, every new innovation risks amplifying the same old weaknesses instead of creating a better future.
1
Fear of public speaking is rooted less in speaking itself and more in dependence on others' opinions. When identity becomes tied to social approval, even simple words feel difficult. Mistakes should be treated as feedback, not as a measure of self-worth. Confidence grows by letting go of image, accepting correction without guilt, and speaking without seeking validation from others.
1
Superstition does not begin with rituals alone; it begins with unquestioned beliefs about the self. Science can remove many false beliefs, but complete freedom requires Self-knowledge. Vedanta, philosophy and meditation help expose the ego, making awakening possible. Religion becomes meaningful only when it encourages Self-knowledge rather than blind belief. Real freedom comes not from accepting inherited ideas but from understanding oneself through direct observation and awareness.
7
The developed world often presents itself as clean by shifting pollution, waste, and environmental costs to poorer nations rather than eliminating them. Real cleanliness is not the absence of visible dirt but the absence of the ego that creates and conceals it. Laws, technology, and appearances can regulate behavior, but without inner transformation, societies merely relocate their destruction instead of ending it. A truly clean civilization is one that reduces consumption, acts from responsibility rather than image, and confronts the pollution within before claiming purity outside.
2
True feminism begins when a woman stops defining herself primarily by her gender. Financial independence is central to genuine empowerment, dependence on a partner's income keeps women confined to biological roles. Despite rising education levels, many women still choose economic dependence. Freedom without wisdom is dangerous, and authentic liberation means transcending gender-based identity entirely, earning one's own livelihood, and realizing one's full potential as a human being.
Originally published in the The Sunday Guardian on 8 mar '25.
Many women internalize societal conditioning, prioritizing appearance to secure marriage over individuality.
Women’s Day is approaching, and soon discussions will emerge across various platforms. New slogans will be coined, and policy tweaks will be grandly announced. What should truly…
True freedom of speech is not just the right to speak, but also the responsibility to understand the source and purpose of our words. Only by cultivating awareness and speaking from a place of clarity can our expression be of true value to the world and ourselves. Expression is not a right; it is a sacred act. Hence, it must begin by looking within. Freedom outside requires freedom inside.
3
What we call meditation is just escapism — using some ‘methods of meditation’ to superficially soothe our restlessness or gain temporary and deceptive relief from stress. It’s not about feeling good; it’s about coming face-to-face with uncomfortable facts. True meditation begins when you face your inner chaos head-on, not run away from it. Real meditation is the fire that destroys your false identities, your conditioning, and, therefore, your suffering.
The connection between war, women, and violence is neither new nor coincidental. History has seen hundreds of battles where women have been deliberate targets. This is because the modern man claims to be civilized, but internally still remains a creature of the jungle, with a primal and unconscious drive to dominate and own. Only by sublimating this beast within can a society become truly sacred.
4
Climate change is the result of centuries of misplaced priorities and blind ambition. Those who live without self-awareness are bound to consume nature and everything else along the way. As long as there’s no change in the inner weather, the outer world will remain in peril. Let’s make World Environment Day more than a symbolic celebration; let it signal a real shift in consciousness — from consumption to contemplation. Let this day remind us: the crisis lies within us, and so does the cure.
1
Throughout history, grand ideas have been used to conceal simple impulses. One calls it defense. Another, resistance. But under the surface, it is often the same old hunger—for control, for territory, for survival. This is what happens when the mind is not trained in self-observation. When instincts are allowed to parade as principles.
2
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.
1
They understand, perhaps even better than most, but their interests are tied to the very structures that fuel the crisis. Climate change today is not just a planetary emergency; it’s also an economy, a career path, and an institution.
Public outrage often focuses on visible ritual slaughter while ignoring the far larger, everyday suffering embedded in industrial meat and dairy systems. Milk, meat, and animal killing are deeply interconnected through supply chains that remain hidden from view. The deeper question is not about isolated acts but about the human tendency to avoid examining the consequences of habitual consumption and the assumptions that make such avoidance possible.
Share
4
Respect cannot be borrowed; it must be created. Those who have built companies, advanced research, or entered public life abroad are honoured not because they demanded it but because they delivered value. Respect always follows contribution, never the other way around.
Share
7
Technology can process information, but it cannot live life on our behalf. It cannot love for us, understand for us, or grow for us. To remember one’s ability for discretion is the essence of wisdom. If we neglect this inner development, our outer power will remain unearned, misused, and ultimately self-destructive. If we grow inwardly, then technology becomes a servant rather than a master, a means of liberation rather than destruction.
The desire for the new is genuine. What we call new is almost always the old in fresh wrapping. The calendar changes; the person does not. A digit shifts from five to six, yet the one who reads it remains imprisoned in the same patterns, the same desires, the same fears. New programmes, new resolutions, new routines; none of it works. We upgrade everything, phones, jobs, partners, cities, and the one who remains untouched by all this upgrading is the one who needed transformation the most.
