A young athlete says she knows she should not be attached to winning, yet she is, because her coach, family and country are invested in it. Wanting to win on the court is fine; that is what a contest is for. But we never know who the next opponent will be, and the one opponent always present is ourselves. She also fears that starting at 14 was too late. The past is fixed, so what is left is to play the cards we are dealt. Where does our real contest lie?
People talk of personal time as opposed to professional time, right? They forget that the profession that they have chosen has also been chosen by the person. So, even that which they are mistakenly calling as professional time is only personal time.
Time is already short, and you cannot waste something you already are short on. And Duryodhana lost out on it. And it's the most regrettable thing when you observe a life gone waste, that too a life like Duryodhana's. Duryodhana is a very dark example of that wasted opportunity, and he realizes that. He was not ‘Duryodhana’ from the beginning, he was named as Suyodhana- someone who would be glorious in war-someone who could win the internal war.
Acharya Prashant: Please, understand the nature of attachment. When two things get attached, do they disappear into each other ever? Attachment means continuity of separation. Attachment means that the two in spite of appearing proximate would still be separate. They would appear to be near but still they would continue
Questioner: I have strong ego resistance and my ego resistance is health issues. Sometimes, I wake up at 4’o clock with this heavy migraine and today I woke up with this eye infection and these things, they come and go.
Question: Sir, when one tries to see the mind, and when the thought is contained in it, when it seems that the thought is running, then this running is suffocating. The thought finds another direction to move. Then again it finds another direction, again mind sees it, and again it
Speaker: Wanting something is a question of values, right? But where do your values come from? Who has taught you what to want? And don’t we have that basic intelligence through which we can enquire whether there is any substance in that which we are wanting?
Questioner: Acharya Ji, my mind is fully occupied and surrounded by one person. A problem is there. When I am away from him, I am totally free, but when I will go back to him, how will I be myself? Not sure where the problem is, within me or somewhere
What is the nature of a gymnasium? The gymnasium only gives you obstacles. Have you ever noticed? You want to raise something—what is the gymnasium giving you? Weights, and weights are obstacles against the rise. The gymnasium really does not support you, it actually obstructs you.
Question: Sir, I would like to ask something from a topic which was touched yesterday but that has been revolving around in my mind even today. We were talking about self-improvement, and all the time, I try always, to see, what’s wrong in me and bring about some change.
One can become an entrepreneur, for example, in the field of killing animals, cutting animal flesh, and supplying freshly cut flesh to people at their doorsteps. And this might be a successful business model.
Questioner: Is pleasure a necessity for humans? Do we as human beings need pleasure for survival, to be sane?
Acharya Prashant: What is pleasure, first of all? See, we all operate at a certain level of the mind, call it the level of consciousness—you can take that as our current…
Acharya Prashant (AP): 'I' tendency is not what gives you an identity. The 'I' tendency is what hides your real identity from you. 'I' tendency is not what gives you your face. It only gives you a mask. It hides your real face from you. It gives you a false
Silicone implants, false bras, false eyebrows—what else is there? That thing that removes the wrinkles, botox. The entire time is being spent in this nonsense. I don’t know the details, but there is so much. You can read all that on the menus of the saloons—this treatment, that treatment, and
Questioner (Q): The Bhagavad Gita says, "Don't focus on the outcome of your work," but the book entitled 'The Secret' says, "Visualize a positive outcome of your work." Which of these is true?
Acharya Prashant (AP): You are comparing fine apples with rotten oranges.
Question: One of your quote says, “If you are identified with an object, you have given it control over yourself. This control itself will prevent you from being free from identification.”
Acharya Prashant (AP): We have a fear of darkness. Being the physically evolved creatures that we are, darkness has always been a threat to us in the course of evolution. A part of our primordial psyche continues to remain afraid of darkness even to this date irrespective of our technological
Desire defeats all the petty evils. Desire is the great evil that defeats all the petty evils. For the sake of desire, you can shake hands with your worst enemy. Don’t you see that happening every day in politics? In national politics, in geopolitics, everywhere.
Questioner: In The Fountainhead it is said, “I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom. To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”
What is it that we are usually engaged in? Feeding our stomachs, and feeding the stomachs of those who are related by blood to us. That’s what our life really is: fulfill your desires and fulfill the desires of those who are related to you by blood and semen. That’s
Is poverty something that existence gave you, or is poverty something that the society has given you? If existence were to be blamed, then ask yourself, why is nothing else poor?
When I look at people who are in the race for money, the first question I ask them is: Tell me, really, what are you compensating for? What hole are you trying to fill? There is surely some bottomless pit and endless well that you are trying to fill.
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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?
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मन को संसार, लोगों और वस्तुओं से नहीं, सत्य में स्थिर रखना ही वास्तविक एकांत है। अकेलापन शरीर का नहीं, मन का होता है। जब मन दुनिया से पाने की आशा छोड़ देता है, तभी वह मुक्त होता है। वस्तुओं और रिश्तों का आकर्षण भी अंततः भोग की इच्छा से ही पैदा होता है, जबकि सच्चा प्रेम केवल सत्य, मुक्ति या श्रीकृष्ण के प्रति हो सकता है। संसार से आशा दुःख देती है, इसलिए मन को केवल सत्य की ओर लगाना ही योग है।
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The other must exist in your life, and vice versa, only for the sake of internal elevation, to make you into a better person. Don't you see the impact the other one is having on your life? Seeing is the key. What does seeing mean? Seeing implies understanding. See and ask yourself: What is the impact upon me? And if you see that, you'll just push it aside. It will be spontaneous. You won't even require to think, because now you have seen.
Our culture has turned attachment into value, very proximate to love. However, attachment is poison and has nothing to do with love. We don’t feel ashamed admitting that we are attached, as if something beautiful is happening. If you are with the wrong one, and not even prepared to see that you are with the wrong one — that’s attachment. And you can never be attached to the Right One; there is only dissolution.
Excerpts from Articles
अंधविश्वास असल में झूठ को स्वीकृति पाने की चाह है
एक पुजारी जो रोज़ भूत-प्रेत, तंत्र-मंत्र और वशीकरण के नाम पर आए लोगों से मिलता है, आचार्य प्रशांत से पूछता है: जब वो ख़ुद जानता है कि कुछ भूत-चुड़ैल नहीं होता, तो लोग बार-बार इसी झूठ की शरण में क्यों जाते हैं? जवाब अंधविश्वास से कहीं गहरा निकलता है — यह हमारे भीतर के उस झूठ की कहानी है, जिसे हम हर कीमत पर बचाना चाहते हैं।
रक्षाबंधन केवल भाई-बहन के रिश्ते और सुरक्षा की रस्म तक सीमित नहीं होना चाहिए। आज असली रक्षा उन चीज़ों की ज़रूरत है जो कमज़ोर और संकट में हैं—गौरैया, नदियाँ, पहाड़, पेड़, महासागर और पृथ्वी। साथ ही ईमानदारी, आत्मज्ञान और मानवीय मूल्यों की भी रक्षा जरूरी है। धर्म कर्मकांड नहीं, अपनी शक्ति और उससे जुड़ी व्यापक ज़िम्मेदारी को समझना है।
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?
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।
फ़ालतू खर्च छोड़िए, अपनी ज़िंदगी पर खर्च करना सीखिए
आचार्य प्रशांत बताते हैं कि क्यों हम सही खान-पान, स्वास्थ्य और अपने ऊपर ज़रूरी खर्च से बचते हैं, लेकिन दिखावे और फ़ालतू सामाजिक परंपराओं पर पैसा बहा देते हैं। अधिकांश लोगों के लिए समस्या सिर्फ़ पैसों की कमी नहीं, बल्कि विवेक और सही प्राथमिकताओं की कमी भी 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.
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.
Attachment is just a promise. A lack of fulfilment. It is a substitute for love because the real thing is not available. If you find yourself attached, it means there is a desire for love; it means there is a call for love. Know that a fake is presenting itself as a substitute for the real thing.
Our lives have only personal time. To be…
Attachment is not a problem; the problem is being attached to something totally unworthy. If you are attached to someone, check out the facts of their importance. Ask yourself, “Does this person bring Truth, Fearlessness & Light into my life?” If you have been wise enough, or simply lucky enough to have the right person in your life, then continue to remain attached. But assess them well with Truth at your core.
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Don’t ask, “Why did I get angry?” Ask, “Why does guilt arise? Why this divided mind? Why can’t my anger be complete?” Does resisting anger not fuel it? In trying to control yourself, are you not giving yourself energy to act the same way? That’s duality’s principle—what you try to control, you energize. By saying, “I do not want to get angry,” you’re still thinking of anger. But anger is seductive. Anger attracts. So, now I think of anger through the other route. I think of anger by telling myself not to be angry.
Wherever you spend your time and whatever you spend your time with is called attachment and the brain is very eager to get attached. Once attached, it wants to remain attached. And this want that the old pattern must continue is called expectation. So, expectation arises out of attachment. Out of that dead coincidence arises the dead attachment, and out of this dead attachment arises the dead expectation. Now, when the expectation is something so mechanical, so dead, is it wise on our part to run after expectations?
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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…
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So, I believe it is ego resistance to my…
Khalil Gibran, Sand and Foam
Question: Sir, who are being referred as ‘dumb’ and ‘talkative’?
Speaker: Khalil Gibran says, “Only the dumb envy the talkative.”
So, there are those, who talk a lot. And there are those, who simply cannot talk. Khalil Gibran…
Speaker:
Who says that it is not happening anymore? That process takes millions of years. There is enough proof. If you go hundred years back, the human brain has become larger. The overall size of the body has decreased because
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Question:
In one of your videos you say that attachment is the result of space and time. But, often in a situation, if somebody talks to us politely or sweetly, we tend to want to spend more time with that person. On the contrary, if somebody abuses me or throws
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You will say something.
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Acharya Prashant:
What’s your name?
L: Kritika.
AP: The question is “Why do we lose the value of anything once we get it?”
Obviously the question is contradictory, it is stating a paradox. If I want…
Listeners (everyone): No, Sir.
Speaker: One mole of water has how much grams of water?
Listener 1: Eighteen grams of water.
Speaker: This water-bottle has not less than four grams of water. So,…
Acharya Prashant (AP):
Man’s mind with its great search for freedom and an equally great determination to never be free - so you are trying all kinds of spiritual tricks with the ostensible objective of meeting peace or freedom or
…
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Love is when you start seeing the deep desire beneath all your superficial desires. Love is when you start seeing what you are really really thirsty for. Superficially, the desires of different people are different. Deeply, we all share one desire.
So, what is it that happens in love? In…
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If you see an animal being slaughtered for somebody’s diet and something within you cries out, then the animal has been saved; maybe not that particular animal but several other animals. Why was the animal killed in the first place? Because somebody wanted it killed. So, the want led to…
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The world is anyway…
Somebody asks Raman Maharishi, “It is an established rule that so long as there is the least idea of ‘I am the doer’, self-knowledge cannot be attained. But is it possible for an aspirant who is a householder, to discharge his duties properly without this sense?”
Sri Raman Maharishi says:…
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Question: Are we born with destiny or choices? Why don’t things happen as per our wish?
Acharya Prashant: Is it not a great mercy that things don’t happen as per our wish? Do you really want existence to punish you by granting all your wishes?
Your wishes…
You go to a normal middle-class, upper middle-class household, and you see all those things, and each of those things needs to be taken
…
When…
If you are envious that somebody has something, then rest assured, you too desire that something. Envy and desire go together. Unless the other has
…
Questioner (Q):
Is emotional attachment so powerful? Why does it have such deep effect?
Acharya Prashant (AP): Do you know what is attachment? Attachment is—when your unconscious nature prevails, without you knowing anything of it. Attachment is nothing but the movement of our material nature. Yes, we are talking about…
This kind of an entrepreneurship is idiocy, perversion, profanity. The evil was present right in the…
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When these pop bestsellers and neo-spiritual
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Does it mean that once you are identified with an object you can’t be free from this identification ?…
Desire is the great evil that defeats all the petty evils. For the sake of desire, you can shake hands with your worst enemy. Everything has been consumed by desire. Everything.
A point comes, you know, when it doesn’t hurt to pay any price to fulfill your desire. It just…
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You know what ended the…
Acharya Prashant: It is not as if desires come to you after you are born; only desires are born!
It is not as if desires come to you after you…
In the above lines, Ayn Rand has said that freedom is to not expect and depend on the desired outcome.…
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The rose is shining so majestically without earning anything. The animals are leaping and playing so beautifully without going…
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Insecurity is there only when there is desire in the relationship. And desire, as you know, is self-centered. Are you relating with the other for your own personal pleasure or gain or happiness? Then does the relationship have much substance at all? And if it doesn’t have much substance, what…
You want some money? It is a little desire, and it is a harmless desire. The problem starts when you start wanting peace through money. Money is harmless. But when money becomes a proxy for peace, then money is very harmful.
People do not chase money; they chase peace through…
Acharya Prashant (AP):
Pankaj, attachment is a quality of
Prakṛti
. Where there is stuff there is attachment. Things get attracted to each other and things repulse each other. You cannot find two molecules in the entire universe
