Attachment

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…

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…

The approach of self-help is: “I am sad because my desires have not met fulfillment. So, the way to help myself is: fulfill desires.” It’s a dimensional difference. Therefore, self-help pleases but helps not. It is not then ‘self-help’; the genre should be more correctly called ‘self-gratification’.

And if you…

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…

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…

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.

Our lives have only personal time. To be…

The mind is not evil; it is just stupid. You cannot put somebody to the sword just for stupidity. And how will you kill the mind? Does the mind stand independent of you? Does it?

The mind is your shadow. If you change, the mind will change. And that is…

सेक्स अगर तुम्हें शांत कर सकता होता, दो बार, चार बार में कर गया होता न? यहाँ तो लोग अपने जीवन काल में हज़ारों बार कर जाते हैं और उसके बाद भी लालायित रहते हैं, प्यास ही नहीं बुझती।

अधेड़ हो गए, साठ के हो गए, अस्सी के हो गए,…

डिप्रेशन तब तक नहीं हो सकता जब तक अपने-आप को बहुत मजबूर अनुभव ना करो । और मजबूर हम नहीं होते, मजबूर हमें हमारी अंधी कामनाएँ बनाती हैं। अन्यथा कोई मजबूर नहीं है। कामनाओं में भी कोई दिक़्क़त नहीं है, अगर वो अंधी ना हों। कुछ ऐसा माँग रहे हो…

तुम्हें क्या लगता है नर्क वो जगह है जहाँ बड़े-बड़े कड़ाहों में तेल उबल रहा है और लोग उसमें पकौड़ो की तरह तले जा रहे हैं? ना! नर्क वो जगह है जहाँ सब खूब मेहनत करते हैं, कमाते हैं, खाते हैं और सो जाते हैं। नर्क बड़ी साफ़-सुथरी जगह है…

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…

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…

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…

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…

If you are someone who is a serial relater—one relationship after the other or several relationships at a time, whatever, it is one and the same thing really—you must tell yourself that you really have not a physical but a spiritual urge. And therefore, you should stop your mad, nonsensical…

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…

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…

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…

In order to get satisfaction, man has burnt down the entire world and is still not satisfied, and will never be satisfied, even if the entire universe is burnt down to ashes. Man will still not gain contentment because man is choosing a false route. You can never get contentment…

Do you know why pizzas are so overpriced? If a pizza is selling for 400 bucks, 100 is the cost of the pizza and 300 is the cost of the peace. That is why you pay so much for the pizza.

When you go to a luxury hotel and pay…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

We never face the full consequences of our actions. Or even if we face them, we don’t face them in one go. We never get to see a big wound on the chest. Instead of that big wound, our security systems ensure that we have a hundred little cuts.

Had…

Have you ever seen somebody come up and say, “You know what, my hormones get activated on looking at you”? The fellow does not say that because he does not realize that. Instead he says, “Darling, I have fallen for you. It’s love!”

Have you ever seen anybody falling in…

The question was, why do bad people seem to enjoy? If he is enjoying, he can’t be bad. The thing is, he is not even enjoying. What you call as enjoyment is some kind of entertainment or titillation; that he can have, but that itself is the punishment. If you…

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.…

Questioner (Q): Many of my friends say that optimal allocation of resources is the best way to achieve success. How can spirituality help us achieve the optimal allocation of resources so that we may achieve success easily?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Let’s say I am drunk and I am to allocate…

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…

प्रश्नकर्ता: हमारे मन का स्तर उठता क्यों नहीं? हम बेहतर होना चाहते हैं, पर चाहते हुए भी बेहतर हो क्यों नहीं पाते?

आचार्य प्रशांत: देखिए जो ये शब्द होता है न 'चाहना', ये थोड़ा भ्रामक शब्द है। हम साफ़-साफ़ जानते नहीं हैं कि हम चाहते क्या हैं। आप पूछेंगे तो…

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…

प्रश्नकर्ता: आचार्य जी, गहरे रिवेंजफुल यानि प्रतिहिंसा से भरे हुए विचारों से मुक्ति कैसे पाएँ? बहुत सारी ऐसी भावनाएँ हैं जो हम प्रकट नहीं कर सकते लेकिन वो बहुत पुरानी हैं, उनमें बड़ी जान है।

आचार्य प्रशांत: बदले की भावना। बार-बार याद आना कि अतीत में किसी ने हमारे साथ…

आचार्य प्रशांत: लोग पूछते हैं, “अध्यात्म की ज़रूरत क्या है?"

तुम अगर आध्यात्मिक नहीं हो तो ऐसा नहीं है कि तुम्हारे साथ कुछ अच्छा घटेगा, कुछ बुरा घटेगा। हमारे साथ जो तय है होना, जो डिफ़ॉल्ट (अकारण) है, वो प्राकृतिक है; और वो हमारे लिए अच्छा नहीं है। ये बात…

Acharya Prashant: In ‘Karma’, in normal action you feel you have a choice. In ‘Akarma’ you feel you have no choice at all rather you are feeling that you are acting out of compulsion, obligation. You have convinced yourself that this is something that I have no control over. So,…

कस्यापि तात धन्यस्य लोकचेष्टावलोकनात्।

जीवितेच्छा बुभुक्षा च बुभुत्सोपशमं गताः॥९- २॥

~ अष्टावक्र गीता

हे पुत्र! इस संसार की (व्यर्थ) चेष्टा को देखकर किसी धन्य पुरुष की ही जीने की इच्छा, भोगों के उपभोग की इच्छा और भोजन की इच्छा शांत हो पाती है।

आचार्य प्रशांत: इच्छा को शांत करना कोई…

प्रश्नकर्ता: समस्या ये है कि आत्मा भी चाहिए और अहंकार छूटता नहीं।

आचार्य प्रशांत: 'अहंकार' को आत्मा चाहिए समस्या ये है। 'अहंकार' कहता है मुझे चाहिए। उसकी नियत में ख़राबी नहीं है उसे चाहिए पर वो कहता है कि 'मुझे' चाहिए। वो ये नहीं कहता मैं उसको मिल जाऊँ, वो…

प्रश्नकर्ता: पिछले बाईस वर्षों से मैं एक साधना कर रहा था। अब ऐसा लगता है कि मैं ग़लत रास्ते पर साधना कर रहा था। तो इस संबंध में एक चौपाई आयी है कि शिव जी कहते हैं कि,

उमा कहूँ मैं अनुभव अपना।

सत हरि भजन जगत सब सपना।।

आचार्य…

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…

प्रश्नकर्ता: प्रणाम आचार्य जी, 2011 के आसपास मुझे डिप्रेशन की समस्या हुई थी। उस समय घर में अशांति की वजह से मानसिक संतुलन थोड़ा ख़राब हो गया। एकदम से 'डर' आ गया जीवन में, और उसके बाद से वैसे ही चल रहा है। डर एकदम से हावी होता ही रहा,…

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:…

Question: Acharya Ji, Charan Vandan!

It is getting hard these days. I keep remembering you every moment. First of all it is difficult for me to realise that I was wrong in so many aspects, but there is no option, so I am working on it.

Secondly, you taught me…

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, an intense desire for liberation, is a prerequisite?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Classically, it has been put that way. The Scriptures talk of mumuksha (desire for liberation). But that intense desire is not a desire with the same quality as that of normal, ordinary desires. It is…

प्रश्न: आचार्य जी, प्रणाम! अभी तक जितना जीवन जिया, सब भौतिक वस्तुएँ एकत्रित करने में बिता दिया। आपके वीडियोज़ सुनने शुरु किए आठ-नौ महीने से, तो झूठ दिखता है कि कितना बेहोशी वाला जीवन जिया है। फ़िर, कहीं-न-कहीं उनका आकर्षण बना रहता है। जब परिवार में अपने परिवारजनों को देखते…

प्रश्नकर्ता: आचार्य जी, क्या ज्ञान प्राप्ति के लिए कर्म अनिवार्य है? कर्म के अलावा ज्ञान प्राप्ति के कौन-कौन से साधन हैं? ज्ञान की प्राप्ति के मार्ग में बाधा क्या है?

आचार्य प्रशांत: ज्ञान की प्राप्ति का सबसे बड़ा साधन तुम्हारी मुमुक्षा है। साधन तुमने कहा न। स्वयं आदि शंकराचार्य ‘साधन…