Emotions

A thousand feelings: envy, fear, hatred, competition will come to you. You cannot fight them all, and there is no need to fight them. Be courageous when that feeling comes, and sit down like friends and talk. Be honest that you are the one who is nurturing that feeling all the time. Be aware that it is coming. Let it not enter like a thief. And when it comes, don’t feel small. You only need to understand, not control.

Acharya Prashant: Vineet says, if mind is brain plus intelligence, which of these is in present moment, and he has used a word reaction.

Question: Sir, when we lose a loved one in the form of a body, what happens actually is that the love remains intact but we lose that loved one in that physical form – the body. Please guide.

Emotions, they can do whatever they want to do. It doesn’t matter how I am feeling. What matters is what I must do.

Do not let your inner welfare be conditional. If your inner sense of well-being is dependent on favorable external conditions, then it is a very sorry state to be in, because conditions are never under our control and, I am saying, I will allow myself to feel alright only upon

Is lust a thought, or is lust more or less instantaneous? Does lust even give you space to think? In fact, if you could think in the moment of great lust or anger, then you would act better.

Questioner (Q): How can negative emotions be expressed healthily? Can expressing negative emotions like crying be maladaptive? Does gender have a relation to mental health?

The man has seen the emotional side of the mother, so the man knows the woman’s emotionality. But the woman has never seen the sexual side of her father, so the woman really does not know man’s sexuality that much.

When you don’t operate from a spiritual center, then you operate from an emotional center. These emotions are causing this climate change. You are so emotional about that next foreign holiday, right? That is carbon intensive. You are so emotional about having a good, nice nest of your own—that is

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.

Pay attention to all your thoughts, emotions, actions. Something unknown is waiting there for you. Most people know nothing about themselves.

Hurt is not automatic. Somewhere there is an admission from you that you are hurt, and that you would be hurt, and that you would call yourself as hurt. Don’t call yourself as hurt, and see what happens.

We all have arguments in favor of our weaknesses, no?

The woman is her own worst enemy because she is very, very biology-driven. Man, too, is biology driven but he abides by his intellect much more than the woman does.

Before you accept or reject something, before you get wildly drawn to something, or before you just ignore something and move on, pause for five seconds and ask, “What is in it for me? What is the real importance it holds?”

Instead of proceeding with a packaged product like meat, why don’t you slaughter the thing yourself? And when you slaughter the animal yourself, why don’t you know it fully even as you slaughter it? After all, even from a perspective of self-interest, if something is going into your body, it…

The belief that life is just crumbs and dredges thrown at you—that’s your undoing. You are content with too little.

For us, support just means weeping with the weeping one. We totally forget that in most cases the ones who are weeping do not need to weep. The ones who are weeping are needlessly weeping, and if you support their tears, you are supporting their false centers; you are making…

Questioner (Q): On one hand, I want to spiritually grow towards enlightenment, but at the same time, some side of me wants to have earthly freedom, experiences, like traveling. Even though I know that those things won’t bring me True Joy.

Acharya Prashant: Emotional outbursts to settled living.

Questioner: Is getting devoid of all emotions a part of feeling contented?

“Why are women so emotional? If we are saying that it is okay for a man to be emotional, there is an implicit assumption that men are not emotional but women are.”

“You have said that women and men both have emotionality but they express it differently. I have noticed women tend to be more indirect and coy when they talk. Is that again a same trait that is coming out differently?”

Questioner: How can negative emotions be expressed in a healthy way? Can expressing negative emotions be maladaptive? Does gender have a relation to mental health?

Acharya Prashant: You see, it does not matter whether you call the emotion negative or positive. The first thing to understand is that when you…

Channelize your desire. You must know what you are really hungry for. Your central and primary desire is not sex. Sex may appear overpowering, tempting, but that is really not what you ultimately want. Figure out what you really must have, and then sex will be assigned automatically, inwardly, its

Weakness is such a great strength. The child controls the mother—how? Not through his strength, but through his weakness. Decades and decades of the mother’s life are controlled by the child through the child’s weakness.

Many of us interrupt, rush to make our point, or change the topic when a conversation comes too close. We call it a lack of patience or discipline. But impatience in a conversation is often fear: when what we hold within is borrowed belief, every question could shatter it. The same confusion makes us take our instincts and feelings as ourselves, though they are only the body’s chemistry. If we looked honestly at what we hold, would a question still feel like an attack?

Many Indian parents keep their children, and especially their daughters, away from sport, even where coaches and facilities exist. The barrier is often not outside but in the parent’s own ideas: poor returns, uncertainty, and fixed notions of what a girl’s life must be. Blaming our own parents does not help either; our life is now our responsibility. Parenting is a decision of the greatest responsibility, and it begins with self-love. Can we love a child if we cannot love ourselves?

Many of us promise our parents high marks, and when the result falls short, the guilt can feel heavier than the exam itself. But no one controls results; they depend on far too many things outside us. What is in our hands is our intent, our effort and our honesty with what we study. The Bhagavad Gita says the same: our right is to action alone, never to its fruit. What if the only promise we made was to study honestly and with love?

Sisyphus pushes a rock up a hill forever, knowing it will always roll back down. A regular workman does the same thing inside a job: he keeps pushing too, except he hopes it will eventually pay off, a promotion, a house, a better life. This hope is often just a comfortable lie. Sisyphus, who expects nothing and still keeps going, is actually more honest than we are. The real question is not whether the effort is worth it, but whether we can stop lying to ourselves about it.

Questioning pseudo-science and superstition is the first step toward genuine freedom. Beliefs such as *Vastu, Kundli,* and *Muhurat* should not be accepted merely because they have been followed traditionally. Fear and attachment to privileges often prevent people from questioning authority. A truth-seeker must be willing to challenge age, status, and authority. Human progress has come through curiosity, inquiry, experimentation, and reason—not through blind obedience.