Physical weakness does not stay physical. It becomes mental weakness, and the ego, which turns everything into an identity, starts saying “I am weak” because that line brings support and spares it responsibility. Visible strength works even unused: it keeps the opponent outside wary and silences the one within, who can no longer claim to be helpless. Keeping the body strong is therefore a spiritual matter, not vanity. Are we holding on to weakness because it is convenient?
Superhero films appeal to our desire to escape inner inadequacy through external power. The fantasy of an ordinary, fearful person becoming extraordinary reinforces the ego’s belief that more strength, money, possessions, or status will bring happiness. Consumerism follows the same pattern, endlessly adding objects to fill an inner void. Real freedom does not come from becoming more powerful or acquiring more, but from honestly seeing and understanding the ego that feels incomplete.
So, if you can do away with the old object, you have done away with the old ego. It's not that straightforward, but I'm pointing at something—changing the objects that you have been habitually associated with is a necessary but not sufficient condition. It is quite possible that you change all the stuff around you, but the stuff inside you still remains the same. But if you refuse to change even the stuff around you, then it is almost guaranteed that the stuff inside will never change.
The ego does not need an entire purpose of life. It's so much in pain and so full of immediate distress that it's enough for it to pay attention to its immediate surroundings. And the most immediate to the ego is itself. So words like ultimate mean nothing to the ego. The ego is like a patient on a ventilator. That fellow is looking forward to the next hour. Will I see the next day? Will I survive the next hour? That's the ego so much in distress that even the next one hour is difficult to to predict or see through or navigate.
Acharya Prashant: It has been told to us that there exist two centers. I suppose it has been very freshly told to you right? Very recently. He says, “How do I know that I am living out of the right center? How does a young man know whether he’s not
Acharya Prashant: Man, as he is, is bound to kill. Killing is necessarily associated with the human form. That’s how we are, and that’s why the saints loathed the human form. They didn’t say that it is a great joy to be born as a human body. They said, “Please,
Acharya Prashant: So, we find two processes always and concurrently at work in the domain of the Ego. One, the Ego says, "It feels insecure." So, it is constantly seeking vistas of security, that's the first thing. And secondly, all the securities that the Ego arranges for itself are necessarily
Who am I?' arises from a relatively unconscious state, simply meaning, 'I will not remain the one who asked it.' You will have to become conscious. So the one who asks this question will have to disappear to get the answer. 'Who am I?' is for the wise, who are no longer interested in remaining troubled.
Questioner: I heard you say that when people say, put the ego aside, don’t pay any attention. I thought maybe I misunderstood. I thought the practice was to see the falseness of my actions — I say one thing; I do something different, and, in that way, reduce the ego,
Questioner: Why do we get so easily convinced by just anything? Few of my family members and friends follow things like energy healing and some fraudulent spiritual teachers just because they sound spiritually, scientifically, or logically convincing. I want to convince them that what they are doing is not right.
A world champion asks why she cannot sleep when a teammate outperforms her, and why even big wins leave her restless. The restlessness is not a problem but unspent energy, a sign that we have more to give. When every bit of our time and attention goes to what we have chosen, there is no surplus left to worry with. The right fight is never only against an opponent; it is against the ego within. What would it mean to fight so fully that nothing is left to celebrate or mourn?
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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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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?
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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.
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.
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.
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।
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?
Science and philosophy arise from different kinds of inquiry. Matter seeks continuity of state, while the ego seeks continuity of existence and constantly changes identities to preserve itself. Fear, danger, and suffering are rooted in the ego’s sense of “I,” not in material reality itself. Questions are valuable because they expose hidden beliefs, and genuine learning requires challenging assumptions through inquiry, dialogue, and self-examination.
Global conflicts stem not from geopolitical interests but from the ego's fundamental incompleteness. Nations are merely expressions of collective egoic consciousness. Leaders represent humanity's worst tendencies, not its average. The ego requires duality and boundaries to survive. True disarmament means detoxifying the ego itself. External wars reflect internal disturbance. No diplomatic solution addresses the root cause, only wisdom and self-knowledge can dissolve the ego's need for conflict and separation.
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The only principle that truly runs this world, created by all of us, is the principle of greed and power. What do you think that fellow has earned his billions for? He didn't become a politician to be noble. The only thing that separates us from animals is the intellect, not the center the intellect is operated from. Don't locate the problem and the responsibility somewhere out there. We change ourselves; the world changes.
There can be no self-respect without self-knowledge. And we have been repeatedly saying that the ego survives only in lack of self-knowledge. The less you know yourself, the denser and more crystallized your ego is. Self-respect is nothing but self-awareness. The more you know yourself, the more you realize who you are not, and that brings you to who you are. That is real self-respect, knowing oneself.
Every living being, from humans to the smallest species, is trying to change the world to suit its own needs. But this is not intended to do any good to the world, it is just coming from the little ego. And the ego will not say, “I'm not all right;” it will try to change the world. So, if your idea of ‘good’ is only relative to your personal self, is it right to impose it on others? You must be clear about why you aspire to change the world, and whether you have brought about any change in yourself first.
Joy is not a problem. Suffering is a problem. I am the sufferer. And if this ‘I’ is the problem, the sufferer, then firstly the ‘I’ itself has to be approached. And when I find that my efforts are getting saturated, I will have to go to a book that talks exclusively of the ‘I.’ The Upanishads are such books, because their subject matter is nothing but the ‘I.’ So, if you come across something that is dealing in stories, beliefs, and deviating from the self, you must know that it is not Vedanta at all.
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The theoretical reply would be that if condemnation hurts you, then somewhere you are looking for praise. Even if it’s implicit praise or subtle praise, there is some hunger for praise. Or the inner condition that the ego has set is, don’t give me praise, but don’t condemn me either. So there is some condition that the ego is setting on the world. The fact is, the world has a movement, a flow of its own. You cannot set any condition on it. If you are getting hurt, it means there is an expectation, a condition.
At the level of the body, this world will have an influence on you, and there is no need to even contest that. Let it happen, because it is going to happen anyway. But inwardly, let there be a place so sacred that nobody is allowed to enter — not even you. And when that is there, you can freely participate in the world because you'll no longer be afraid. You'll say, “Come what may, I'm secure within.” Then you will live in deep security, and we all know how pleasing security is.
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The self is a hollow, incomplete thing by its own admission. It has no free existence of its own; it is nothing but associations with the objects around it, absorbing its worth from the environment. To hide this absence of self-worth, you keep running after all kinds of things, yet the promise of fulfillment is never kept, and you are deceived. Therefore, to have any self-worth, you must have clarity about the self. All wisdom literature is about clearing away your false notions of the self.
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Question: If love is death of ego, then how will we live? Man is made of only these things. So, the only thing left will be ‘soul’. So we can say that we have moksha (liberation).
Speaker: The question is: If love is death of ego, then a loving man…
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Questioner: If love is death of ego, then loving man will be just soul. So, is love Moksha (Salvation)?
Acharya Prashant: Everything that you just said, is a concept in your mind. Ego lives on concepts; ego lives on thoughts—concepts are thoughts.
What is the definition of a concept? Where…
You are the quality of your present action. You are, right now, attention itself, if you are indeed listening to me. Unfortunately, this identity won't last. Soon you will be distracted. You'll become somebody else. The discipline lies in holding on to the highest identity possible, that which you know to be the highest, given your limited capacity. That's who you should be. That's the answer to — ‘Who am I?’
In the universe, there is no good, no evil. Ask instead, ‘To whom is good, and to whom is evil?’ The self, the ‘I,’ the ‘me,’ the one who wants to define good, the one who wants to define evil — he is evil, because he does not exist. Spirituality is giving the evil something right to do. If you do not give the evil the right thing to do, it will pick something else, making itself feel relevant, whereas the fact is that it has zero relevance. Work to remove yourself. That's your task.
Doing or not doing — both are functions of the doer. The doer is the instrument. Is the instrument, first of all, reliable? Know who you are. Know what it is that you lack. Know what it is that you need to shed. And then the deed is right. Then you know the one right direction for you — choicelessly. It's not just about doing something. It's about knowing the doer.
A common misconception that many of us have is that ‘ego is pride’, but it is far more pervasive than pride. It is the sum total of everything that we have taken from the outside and accepted as our beliefs and identities without applying intelligence. But we are not a sum total of external influences. Even if everything external is taken away, the pure existence still remains — we have an existence of our own. Ego is this forgetfulness of our pure existence.
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Questioner (Q): I watched your recent video - “Loving your fake lifestyle.” In that video you talked about two things. One is abuse of consciousness and another was that corporates are dehumanizing the employees.
In that context I wanted to ask you, this dehumanization actually is not only happening in…
As long as one is alive, habits will remain. Nature gave us habits for the sake of efficiency. In habits, there is no decision-making involved. You just do it. So habit is not a problem, the problem is that we are habituated in the wrong things. Be habituated towards the Truth. Towards Freedom. Be habituated towards keeping it simple and straight. Let these be your habits.
And you can extend this observation to all the things in the world in the sense of our relationship with them. If we are highlighting something in this world, chances are we are going to destroy and distort it. We do not highlight things because they are virtuous or truthful. The ego does not want virtue. The ego has nothing for the truth. For the ego, its own security and preservation come first.
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You know, the ego fights so many battles. The ego is always surrounded with problems, is it not? Every problem is a battle, right? The ego is always surrounded with problems. Do you know why we love problems? Because they secure us. There are so many problems, and that proves that I exist. And if the problems disappear, then the logic of my existence disappears.
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If all that the Ego wants is liberation from itself, which means coming to see its own non-existence, then the only way to see its non-existence is by paying attention to itself. The more the Ego pays attention to itself, it sees that it does not exist. The more the Ego remains attached to this and that, all the sensory inputs, the Ego feels that is real and this is real.
When you know that you can not be harmed, then you let the change come to you. Then, you do not lose your inner poise in front of changing conditions. This is equanimity. For equanimity, you require a very good driver, a totally dependable driver. Our driver is the Ego. It does not allow the Absolute to drive us. The Ego is so arrogant that it goes and sits on the throne, the sacred place, that is reserved only for the Beloved, only for God. It has no right to be there. Dethrone it!
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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…
Acharya Prashant:
You could say, the robot does have an ego planted into it by its designer. Therefore, the ego of the robot is totally in
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Acharya Prashant: You can not win the mind, you can not cater to the mind, you can not control the mind. And you are not responsible for everything that this ancient mind does. A thousand squirrels are sitting here, and five hundred monkeys, and the extinct dinosaur, and all the…
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Acharya Prashant: You are walking along an empty street in the middle of the night—nobody around you, nobody to really disturb you, nobody to talk to you, nobody to point to you, nobody to intercept you, nobody to remind you of anything, and still do you see how much keeps…
Ego tendency is when things start dancing all over the mind. Kabir Sahab says, “Maya is that which occupies your mind.” You are attached to the brain. The “I” tendency attached to the brain is called the mind, and therefore she comes to the mind. To merely the brain, she will not be big trouble, but to the mind, she is a big attraction or distraction. One question that needs to be asked to all the unwelcome guests, “So many unwelcome guests have arrived, but Who is the host?" And then, you will hear a resounding order, ‘I am.’
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We came from the jungle in the hope of doing better in our villages and cities, but our villages and cities have failed. Man had the potential to either rise above the animal or fall way below it. Man has continuously been making the wrong choice. If you cannot build your cities and your social systems on spiritual foundations, then it is better to stay in the jungle. If your family, your workplace, your institutions do not run on spiritual grounds, then they better not run at all.
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It is not arrogance to expect the highest for yourself. It is not at all your destiny to remain small. Arrogance lies in expecting the highest while remaining exactly as one is. The Vedas say, “If you underestimate yourself, you are doing a disfavor to yourself. If you overestimate yourself, you are still giving yourself a raw deal.”
There is no being in the world that does not try to change the world. I'll go around declaring that I’m the savior of the world. I want a world in which I am recognized, wealthier, successful by my own definitions. There are so many people who want to change the world, very few who want to change themselves. Given the state of the society, shouldn’t one try to bring some positive change in it? Now, first of all, if you have not understood yourself, how will you know what the state of the society really is?
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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.”
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…
Free thought as a tool to negate frozen thought, stale thought, is good, is useful, but it needs to know its place. It needs to have some humility. Thought is just thought, movement of the brain. It won’t get you too far.
“Before I can drop the ego, before I can disassociate myself from the incompleteness, I, the one attached to incompleteness, have to first get attached one last time.” And this last attachment is the attachment to the Guru. It is the end of all attachments. That’s the Guru. Read more....
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When you stop taking yourself seriously, the world loses its power to hurt you. If someone can hurt you, they can also control and possess you. But you don’t want to be controlled, right? You are not the person who is controllable. The real ‘you’ is beyond hurt and domination. Ask yourself, do you want to be dominated? No! You are the one who cannot be controlled, and that is your true strength.
