Acharya Prashant: The desire is to be able to distinguish between the true and the false, the wise and the unwise, the real and the unreal, right action, and the wrong action. That is the desire. The only thing is that whatever will come out of the desire, will necessarily… read_more
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
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… read_more
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.
So, I believe it is ego resistance to my… read_more
Questioner: Sir, what are dreams?
Acharya Prashant: All dreams are about something that is not there, or at least does not appear to be there, but the mind has an urge for it to be there.
“It is not there and I want it.”
Or, “I do not see it.… read_more
“Only the dumb envy the talkative.”
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… read_more
Question: What is the proof that we are still evolving?
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… read_more
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… read_more
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… read_more
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?
You will say something.… read_more
Listener: Sir, why do we lose the value of anything once we get it?
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… read_more
Speaker: There is this water-bottle over there. Can you estimate the number of water molecules in this?
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,… read_more
Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, what does the mind actually want?
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… read_more
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… read_more
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… read_more
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… read_more
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.
The world is anyway… read_more
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: … read_more
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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… read_more
The more you expand your material universe, the more you invest in twenty thousand things around you, the more difficult will it be to walk free.
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… read_more
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.
When… read_more
When you are not alright with yourself, then your attitude towards others, the way your energy flows towards others, is called as envy or desire.
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… read_more
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… read_more
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.
This kind of an entrepreneurship is idiocy, perversion, profanity. The evil was present right in the… read_more
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… read_more
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… read_more
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… read_more
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.
When these pop bestsellers and neo-spiritual … read_more
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.”
Does it mean that once you are identified with an object you can’t be free from this identification ?… read_more
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… read_more
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… read_more
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.
You know what ended the… read_more
Listener: When we are born, the first thing that we absorb into us is it the Truth or the desires?
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… read_more
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.”
In the above lines, Ayn Rand has said that freedom is to not expect and depend on the desired outcome.… read_more
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… read_more
Desire begins when you perceive a world out there, and the world makes a promise. What does the world say? ”Here you will get what you want.”
You cannot desire in absence of a promise. This is the fundamental duality of mind. You desire only because you are hopeful that… read_more
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?
The rose is shining so majestically without earning anything. The animals are leaping and playing so beautifully without going… read_more
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… read_more
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… read_more
Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, what is attachment? How to go past it?
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… read_more
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.
You… read_more
Questioner (Q): I think this is a follow up question of one of your videos, in which you described physical love, and you concluded with a statement that, “Love has to be learnt”. I wanted to learn more about this and how I can cultivate this kind of love in… read_more
You may say that you are in love; you may claim that you have loved somebody. Do you love that man, or do you love what you get through that man? And if you do not get what you want from that man, you start hitting that man. Had you… read_more
Even if you are leading your so-called normal daily life in the usual middle-class way, still you have to make daily decisions, still every little thing calls for consideration, calls for setting of criterion, and ultimately, calls for a decision to be taken. Spirituality, or the field of wisdom, is… read_more
For an animal, sex is just sex—a physical thing. It is not a route to something else. Man is the only one who does not know how much sex he wants. For an animal, sex is the thing and the end of the thing. For man, sex is not merely… read_more
