Mandukya Upanishad

It doesn’t matter whether you talk of *Advait* or *Dvait*. Do you finally admit that you cannot proceed any further with words? If your *Advait* says that I have come to the final truth, then your *Advait* is bogus. If your *Dvait* says that this is the ultimate expression, then your *Dvait,* too, is a fallacy. You may say *Advait,* you may say *Dvait,* you may even say *Trait,* or you may say anything of your choice. You are free to say whatever you want to, but all of that must surrender.

Prakriti, Attention and Truth

5 min

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.

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.

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.

Wisdom Through Songs

27 min

AIR host (AIR): A very good morning to all our listeners tuned in! And a warm welcome to the brunch time show this Saturday morning with your friend Kiran! And this morning we have a very, very enlightened guest with us who is going to be sharing his views and… read_more

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.

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

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

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

Wasting Life on an Unworthy Person?

11 min

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

The Difficult Call of Dear Love

Live against yourself || 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

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....

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

The Mind Is Not Your Own

13 min

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

Nothing Within Us Is the Truth

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

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

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

Great love; Greater Love || AP Neem Candies

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

11 min

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

Finally, What Takes the Seeker to the Truth?

Meet the Most Deceptive Person Ever. Surprise!

Acharya Prashant: A quiver full of the best of arrows but no bow, how do you fight the battle of life? Can you imagine the amusing as well as tragic situation of the person who has a great arrow without a bow? He will be sharpening and sharpening his weapon,… read_more

14 min

Acharya Prashant: If you live on the circumference of life, things will always be fragmented for you. Not that things are actually fragmented. It's just that what you experience is decided by your location. That's why I love to continuously ask, “Are you all experiencing the same thing here?” not… read_more

The Storm Kept Raging, the Sky Didn't Utter a Word

Is Vedanta Only for Hindus?

Acharya Prashant: What's the relationship between immortality, deathlessness, and knowing the Ātmā as the container of the material and the mental world? Not that they are really distinct, still. So, what's the relation between knowing Ātmā as the container of the world and keeping all other thoughts aside, and immortality?… read_more

9 min

Vedanta is a philosophy, and unfortunately, the commonly practiced Hindu religion draws very little from it. How can a philosophy be exclusive to a religion? Religion includes a God, a prophet, holy books, and commandments, none of which apply to Vedanta. It lets one explore 'who I am', what this world is, and how to end my suffering.

The Real Meaning of "All is One"

7 min

The mind suffers because of the choices that it makes, thinking of one object as superior than the other object. “All is one” is not an objective statement. “All is one” refers, not to the objects, but to the subject and the relationship that the subject strikes with the various objects. As long as one thing appears more desirable than the other things, how can “All is one” be true to you? Have you, in your inner journey, come to a point where you do not see anything as excessively desirable and anything as too repugnant?

Prakriti and I

13 min

Prakriti is another name for duality. Prakriti carries two ends. At one end is the perceiver, and at the other end is the perceived environment or objects or the world or the universe. The ‘I’ that exists at one end of Prakriti says, "I am," and no more. The other end provides a name and meaning to the "I am," the ego self. The Prakriti world exists in this ‘I’ for the sake of its enjoyment and liberation. If you can understand this, you will know the purpose of life, and you will know how to live.

The One Thing You Must Never Lose

Discipline and Dedication - Are They Really Virtues? || AP Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant: Chandogya Upanishad — Chapter 3, part 11, verses 2 and 3:

न वै तत्र न निम्लोच नोदियाय कदाचन । देवास्तेनाहंसत्येन मा विराधिषि ब्रह्मणेति ॥ ३.११.२ ॥

na vai tatra na nimloca nodiyāya kadācana | devāstenāhaṃsatyena mā virādhiṣi Brahmaṇeti || 3.11.2 ||

Never does this happen there; never did… read_more

7 min

Acharya Prashant: I might be a very violent man. And my goal is to blast a building off. To learn how to do it, I have to live through stern discipline. I will have to build my body, I will have to learn several skills. I may have the discipline… read_more

How to Know Shri Krishna?

9 min

It is not as if someone spoke or you read the Gita, and you got to know Krishna’s essence. To know that Krishna is birthless and deathless, you need your whole life. In your life, everything begins and ends, while Truth doesn’t. Realizing this takes tremendous sacrifice, not just in words, but in actions.

'I Want to be Free'- Your Eligibility for Spirituality

The first instinct has to be — I want to be free. I do not like my current state. The first thing is — I do not want to be like this and the seeker or the student, if he is not uttering this very basic admission; then he stands disqualified. Your first utterance of your eligibility is — I do not like myself. I do not like the way I am. There has to be a burning intent to not to remain who you are, or the way you are.

Niralamba Upanishad: What Is Heaven and What Is Hell?

14 min

Your deepest dream is to just be what you are, what you really are. And the world gives you a thousand dreams, but not this one. Heaven is the moment when you realize that this dream is possible. Hell is when you have already lost your way, and there are voices around that say, "You cannot go back, there is no home." All that forces tell you not to fly too high, the forces that tell you that compromise is the name of the game-the company of such voices is hell. A point comes where there is neither heaven nor hell. There is just an empty stillness- Beyond.

Waiting for the Right Partner?

16 min

Companionship is not the final thing. The final thing is something else. The companion has to be a medium towards that thing, otherwise the companion is toxic. When you say love is essential, then you get into love of the totally wrong kind because you have taken love as the final thing. Then attraction, sensuousness and attachment become the names of love. So, love is not essential. What is essential is being attracted to someone who elevates you. If your love is of that kind, wonderful.

Let the Words Take You to Silence – Baba Bulle Shah

23 min

There is such great fun in leaving yourself behind and turning a servant to the Truth. It’s almost like Krishna advising Arjuna, “Talk in everlasting words and dedicate them all to Me—*mām ekaṃ śaraṇaṃ vraja, sarva-dharmān parityajya*.” And at numerous places in the *Bhagavad Gita*, he says, “Arjuna, you are not fighting for yourself, you are fighting for Me. As long as you fight for yourself, if you win, you suffer, and if you lose, you suffer. And when you fight for Me, then you are a victor even before the fight begins.”

How to Identify the Real Master?

26 min

It is not others that you have to be cautious of. You have to be cautious of that within you which gets influenced by others, which does not know others but gets influenced by others. It does not live in knowing. It lives in indoctrination. How to know the real master? See, who is treating your disease. How do you know a doctor? Not by his degrees but by his ability to treat you.

Is Enlightenment More Difficult for Women?

17 min

A man has to give up on greed, on this and that. A woman has to give up on the feelings related to the body. On all the assumptions and other stuff related to the body. Leaving the house, for her, is like becoming naked. And then the rest of the journey is very easy for her. If you have a woman who can drop her physicality, who can get rid of the basic woman-ness, then you have a great saint in front of you.

What Is Meant by ‘Leaving the World’?

10 min

Acharya Prashant: Leaving what is not, That is all right, but that leaving is not done with an objective to get joy. Had the thing been so transactional that you could leave one thing and as an exchange offer get another thing, then everybody would have taken the deal. Were… read_more

Ancient Spiritual Practices Relevant Today?

16 min

Practices do not determine the core of spirituality; consciousness does. If someone is feeding you practices in the name of spirituality, then that fellow is either ignorant or cunning or both, which is actually the same thing.

The Secrets of the World

The world is like an open book to the one whose eyes are open; if you cannot read the world, then you have to look at yourself first, then you have to be mindful of your own condition. Read more...

When Friends Prefer Nonsense

People come, take the Upanishads from here and then feel depressed, their parents or spouses are not heeding to the Upanishads. So, I ask them, “Why must your spouse or your parents be the first ones to gain this knowledge from you?” If they’re not listening to you, go and teach this to your neighbour, or to some random person on the street, no? There are so many eligible and willing people, they’ll be very happy to receive this knowledge from you. Read more...

Advait or Dvait?

Chandogya Upanishad: Learning to Dismiss the Mind

Questioner: Shankaracharya proclaimed the Advait (non-dualism) philosophy and Madhavacharya proclaimed Dvait (dualism) philosophy. We cannot say who is correct and who is incorrect. That was their truth. These two are extremely opposite. Which is the exact Truth?

Acharya Prashant: One may put it in words of his personal choice. And… read_more

31 min

The mind of a sage is continuously sensing a reality beyond appearances, a reality beyond limits. There is a constant realization that all the diversities share commonalities and there is something beyond the diversities that contain all the diversities. This feeling is being given a poetic manifestation in this particular verse. What matters here is the sense that there is something definitely beyond; that which is perceivable, all that which can be experienced between the Earth and the sky is of little importance compared to that.

Do We Have the Choice to Surrender?

3 min

You never go and ask real questions. You ask, “How to surrender to the Truth?” but you never ask, “How to surrender to money?” There you very conveniently and easily surrender. Anybody who has faced difficulty in surrendering to fear? Have you seen how easy that is! But in surrendering to Truth you say, “It is so impossible, how do I make that choice?”

Having Achieved a lot, why Am I Still Dissatisfied?

17 min

Questioner: Whenever I succeed in achieving something, I immediately start looking for something else, and when I succeed in finding that something else, again I find myself in the same situation. What am I really looking for?

Acharya Prashant: That which you commonly look for and that which you achieve… read_more

How to Uncover the Unconscious? Do Tendencies of the Mind come from Past Lives?

15 min

Questioner: How can we expose the subconscious mind?

Acharya Prashant: By watching your daily actions very, very closely.

Alright, somebody comes to you and says, ‘Namaste'. Quickly show me how you respond.

[Listeners: Namaste (keeping hands together and smiling)]

So, you are smiling. And the moment the fellow is gone,… read_more

Talk Later of the Truth, First Rebel Against the False

10 min

Questioner: In Katha Upanishad, young boy Nachiketa attained the highest wisdom and immortality by the virtue of dispassion and the firm resolve to know the Truth. Unless I resolve to know the Self, there is no other way it seems. Acharya Ji, kindly speak on the virtues of determination and… read_more

Facing Life Is More Real than Facing Death (Kath Upanishad) || AP Neem Candies