The Bhagavad-gita (7.16) describes how most of us cultivate devotion for Krishna primarily because we feel that devotion has some survival value: it helps remove the miseries that we feel are threatening our survival or It bestows the wants that we feel are necessary for our survival. Lord Krishna appreciates our devotion even if we…
In the Bhagavad-gita, when Arjuna asks Krishna about what his activity should be, Krishna’s sequence of answers indicates that the question of identity takes priority over the question of activity; only when we understand correctly who we are can we figure out properly what we should be doing. The Gita helps us to understand that…
The Bhagavad-gita begins in its first chapter with Arjuna asking a series of rhetorical questions meant to justify his views and choices. Lord Krishna responds to Arjuna by questioning those questions, by challenging the materialistic presumptions that gave birth to those questions. After showing Arjuna how his materialistic paradigm was fundamentally, fatally flawed, Lord Krishna…
As spiritual seekers, we may at times feel apathetic or averse to the spiritual practices like meditation or prayer that connect us with Krishna and nourish us spiritually. This absence of devotional appetite symptomizes that we are afflicted with spiritual anorexia. Anorexia is a peculiar bodily disorder in which the patients need food, but don’t…
In our time of troubles, we may doubt, “Does God really exist?” Gita wisdom turns this doubt on the head by prompting the doubt, “Does the world around me really exist?” To the response, “The world obviously exists because it tugs and pulls at me, making real demands and bringing real consequences,” Gita wisdom counters:…
Is the metaphorical interpretation of the Gita’s battlefield setting authorized? Question: In your article on the battlefield setting of the Gita, you said that its metaphorical interpretation is not wrong. Does this statement have any basis? Are there any precedents for this sort of interpretation? (Paraphrase of a comment to the earlier article posted by…
The Bhagavad-gita (4.9) describes that the result of understanding Krishna – his divine birth and his sublime activities – is liberation and reinstatement in his kingdom. This extraordinary result underscores the difference between familiarity and understanding: we may be familiar with Krishna, having heard about his activities through family traditions or entertainment media or pious…
The trout is lured by the worm on the hook of the fisherman, the mouse by the cheese in the mouse-trap. A tragic irony of the struggle for existence is that living beings are often destroyed by what they desire. But at least the fish and the mouse have excuses: the bait and the cheese…
The Bhagavad-gita (8.15) declares the world we live in – the here – to be a place of temporality and misery and so deems the spiritual world – the hereafter – as the destination that the intelligent should aspire for. But the Gita’s actual message is connection, not rejection: the connection of the here with…
The British Legacy The British may have left India, but every morning brings a jarring reminder of their continued rule over India. It’s tea; the ‘slow poison’ drink that is their post-independence legacy. Tea is alien to the original Vedic culture. The British started extensive tea-fields in India to meet the demands of the Western…
It is television that we are talking about. Television has become an integral part of every modern house. It is thought by most modern people to be an indispensable necessity that offers them a much-needed break from the tension and boredom of modern, high stress life-style. Although a few whispers are often heard here and…
Meet Mr. Befooled. He has a broad smile on his face. He is thinking, “Just see how clever I am! I have outwitted my doctor.” Sometime ago, he was afflicted by a severe pain. His doctor prescribed an expensive medicine and a cheap painkiller. After he started the treatment, his pain subsided. A few days…
The various rituals that comprise spiritual life – chanting, praying, worshipping and meditating – are opportunities to spend time with God. If we forget or neglect this core purpose of the rituals, then they become hollow shells; their performance becomes a boredom and a burden that brings little spiritual purification or enlivenment. Worse still, the Bhagavad-gita…
Answer: The Bhagavad-gita calls not for violence, but for transcendence. It may seem to call for violence because of its battlefield setting, but it uses that setting to demonstrate that its call for transcendence is practical, responsible and dynamic. Let’s see how the setting serves these three purposes: The practicality of spirituality: Many people feel…
We live in the age of technology. We commute by automobiles and airplanes and communicate by emails and mobiles. The media and the Internet provide us the latest information from all over the world. Movies filled with hi-tech special effects entertain us. Air conditioners and room heaters keep our life comfortable despite climatic inconveniences….The list…
Pascal’s Wager The famous mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal offers an interesting ‘thought experiment’ concerning religious belief. The scriptures state that if we follow God, we will dwell with Him in the realm of eternal happiness. And if we refuse to follow Him, we are making future appointments with suffering. Taking an agnostic position, Pascal…
The Bhagavad-gita (18.78) concludes with the proclamation that success is guaranteed for those who harmonize their human will with the divine will. This proclamation is based on the understanding that success has two dimensions: internal and external. According to Gita wisdom, internal success refers to success in establishing a loving relationship with God and external success…
“We have controlled machines and uncontrolled men,” declares a slogan depicting the potential threat of global disaster due to the misuse of technology. It catches the tragic irony of modern society. The last century has seen amazing advances in science and technology, by which, “the world is at your finger-tips”, as some ads put it….
“We have guided missiles and misguided men.” This poignant remark by Martin Luther King, Jr., about the state of the modern world rings strikingly true. In recent times there has been an amazing increase in human ability to control the outer world through science and technology. But with that has come an alarming decline in…
The Bhagavad-gita (18.73) expresses the summit of humanity’s faith in divinity when Arjuna declares to Krishna, “I will do your will.” Our faith in God begins with the feeling that there exists a higher being who will help us if we petition him through prayer. This level of faith is characterized by the primary spiritual…
Martin Luther King, Jr, stated in his From Strength to Love, “The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.” Little did he know how prophetic his words would be in a literal sense several…
This new year greeting mostly remains a wish. Can this sincere wish be transformed into a reality? As we live in the age of science, let us first analyze this greeting from the perspective of science. What’s A Year? Let’s begin with the word ‘year’. A year is a unit for measuring time. And what…
Love is one of the most spoken and least understood words in our daily vocabulary. Love is commonly equated with sensual enjoyment, but does such superficial titillation offer substantial satisfaction to the heart? The suffering of the stomach hungry for food is well-recognized, but the agony of the heart hungry for love is often overlooked….
The New Garb of Faith Many scientists today propose the big bang theory – or some modified version of it – to explain the origin of the universe and, thus try to do away with the need for a designer. According to the big bang theory, in the beginning (or before the beginning, if you…
Gita Banning: Krishna’s side of the story In the backdrop of the present sad controversy over the banning of the Bhagavad-gita in Russia, we present Lord Krishna’s side of the story. His take on the controversy is presented as a song based on poetic translations of four important Gita verses that express its message of…
(This article was written when the Maharashtra government. attempted to produce, with much fanfare, artificial rains through cloud seeding) ‘Artificial rains soothe Maharashtra.’ Headlines like these have been a frequent sight in recent newspapers. The image of a political leader and a scientist flying in an airplane, shooting a chemical spray into the clouds and…
Typists all over the world, beware. Your jobs are in danger. You have competition….from monkeys. That’s what the atheists would have us believe – at least those atheists who advocate the chance theory. Chance is a popular word today in the world of science. And why not? It is the one- word answer to all…
John walks into his bedroom on his tenth birthday and hey presto! The first thing that catches his eye is a new easy chair that’s just the right size for him. He looks around and is elated to sees a brand new jacket that fits him exactly. Also there are shoes and stockings that are…
The Unparalleled Factory Imagine a symbiotic factory setup, involving two hypothetical factories A and B. Suppose the two factories could be arranged such that the waste product of factory A would serve as the raw material for factory B and the waste product of factory B would serve as the raw material for factory A….
(A reflection on the brainlessness of labelling the Bhagavad-gita as “extremist”) The Bhagavad-gita presents an open-minded worldview that integrates all people, no matter how diverse their values, goals and paths. According to their level of spiritual evolution, the Gita assigns them an appropriate position on a universal continuum that extends downwards to total spiritual ignorance…
The Bhagavad-gita (13.9) states that an essential characteristic of wisdom is sustained contemplation on the intrinsic mortality of our present existence. The Gita integrates this pessimistic-seeming contemplation into an optimistic worldview that explains how all of us being eternal spiritual beings have a right to immortality. We have lost that right due to being covered…
What is karma? How does it act? Questions like these are much more common today than a few decades ago. This is evident not only from the fact that the word ‘karma’ has a place in the English dictionary, but also from the fact that Gallup polls show an increase in percentage of people, not…
Our present existence is bi-dimensional: we are spiritual beings residing in material bodies. Harmonizing the material and the spiritual dimensions of our existence is a perennial challenge. If we wish to make spiritual advancement, our aspirations have to be primarily in the spiritual realm: the development of selfless, spiritual love for God and all his…
In the Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna’s instructions begin (2.11) and end (18.66) with a call to give up lamentation. Between these two calls is another call: the call of divine love. The Gita’s setting indicates that the nature of the world is such that events will sooner or later impel us to lament, but the Gita’s…
Many people feel that the world would be better off without religion. We can understand their sentiments when we consider that modern times have seen large-scale violence in the name of religion. But is religion the only cause of violence? If it were, then parts of the world dominated by atheistic views should have been…
The Bhagavad-gita (13.8) mentions humility as the first among the twenty virtues that comprise wisdom. This indicates that humility is the doorway that enables us to enter the house of wisdom. Humility activates our awareness that, no matter how much we know, there is so much more to know. This humble awareness catalyzes within us…
10 friends lived together on top of a 100-storied building. Once when they returned after an outing, they found, to their dismay, that the lift was not working. Having no alternative, they decided to lighten the arduous climb by narrating a humorous story each. By the time it was the turn of the last person,…
The impenetrable shell of the tortoise, the breathtaking swiftness of the leopard, the incredible color-changing ability of the chameleon: the variety in nature is amazing. Every species of life has a special gift from nature, an ability that is vital for its survival and success in the struggle for existence. The Strange Irony Compared to…
“Is this just the way I am? Am I a prisoner of my past?” Gloomy thoughts like these often cross, even possess, our mind when we succumb repeatedly to an undesirable behavioral trait that we had indulged in the past, but had subsequently decided to abandon, having recognized that it was detrimental to our best…
Question: When the world offers both pleasures and pains, why is the Bhagavad-gita so pessimistic as to call the world a place of misery? Answer: The Bhagavad-gita is not pessimistic, but realistic; the reality is that the pleasure-pain balance of the world is tilted heavily toward the pain side. We can get an insight into…
It’s relatively easy to love ideal people: those who have only virtues, no vices. And we do need to love them so that we develop the inspiration and aspiration to become ideal like them. However, as we live in a world where ideal people are few – even among spiritualists striving to become ideal, we…
Transcription (edited) by- Keshavgopal Das Question- It is difficult to summarize ISKCON’s position and I have not seen any official note from ISKCON about the difference between Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu. There is a reference in Skanda Purana which mentions that there is no difference between Lord Vishnu, Lord Brahma, and Lord Shiva. However,…
Caste system is probably among the most talked about and most misunderstood current social controversies; misunderstood because it is based on a false premise – caste determination by birth. . The Social Body – Discrimination or Cooperation? Interestingly, the original Vedic scriptures don’t consider birth – the basis of casteist discrimination in modern Hinduism –…
Worldly pleasure tantalizes us by its apparent reality and frustrates us by its actual unreality. It is unreal in the sense that its experience never lives up to its hype: it never lasts more than a few moments and leaves us feeling dissatisfied, having exhausted our capacity to enjoy, but not our desire to enjoy….
When faced with financial challenges, we often worry, “What do I live with?” When the bottom line doesn’t look good for our lifestyle, that situation may be the impetus required for us to look at the top line of our life: “What do I live for?” The eleventh canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam describes the…
(This article was written in Jan 2005 soon after a tsunami wave struck the Indian subcontinent) The tsunami wave that lashed several Indian Ocean countries has taken a toll of over a hundred thousand people. The magnitude of the disaster has shocked the whole world. Many countries have rushed to offer humanitarian aid. Scientists are…
How can a spiritual seeker stay peaceful amidst tempting circumstances? The Bhagavad-gita (2.70) shows the way with a metaphor from nature: just as rivers flow into an ocean without flooding it or causing it to overflow, desires flow into serious spiritualists without disturbing their inner calm. Significantly, the metaphor talks about desires flowing inwards, not…
Imagine a farmer who gets a Mercedes Benz as a gift. The only vehicle he has ever seen is a tractor, and the only purpose he knows for any vehicle is plowing. So he hitches a yoke to his new Mercedes and starts driving it over his field. Of course, not only does his attempt…
Every day, several times a day, every living being, in whichever part of the world he may be, enjoys a universal ritual – eating. Most people decide what they eat based mainly on taste, cost, habit, nutrition and convenience. But for those who are a little more thoughtful, here are some other points worth considering….
The increasing availability of obscene, even pornographic, material in the media, the abortive governmental attempts to legislate it and the criticism of this moral policing by some sections of the media – all these have brought to the forefront the vexed issue of what constitutes acceptable behavior in a rapidly changing world with mutable moral…
The Bhagavad-gita (11.32) describes that time is a manifestation of God. Overall, the eleventh chapter of the Gita demonstrates the dynamic connectedness of God with the material world: he is not just a passive cosmic presence, but also an active universal agent who is shaping history according to his benevolent will for the gradual purification…
The Bhagavad-gita (16.2) mentions aversion to faultfinding as a characteristic of the godly-minded. The godly know that all faults originate in godless behavior; they are spiritually astute enough to recognize that their own godliness will be diminished if they dwell on the godlessness of others. They realize that eagerness to find faults is a symptom…
The essential effect on Arjuna of hearing the Bhagavad-gita was a thorough re-evaluation of his own role and relationship with the Supreme, Sri Krishna. Before hearing the Gita, Arjuna saw himself as the controller and Krishna as the cooperator. After hearing the Gita, Arjuna saw Krishna as the controller and himself as the cooperator. Often…
A concise yet systematic overview of the Gita focussing on the theme of Krishna’s love as expressed consistently from the start to the end of the Gita. To hear, click here Given below is a transcript of the lecture: Introduction So he describes prapanna parijataya, for the surrendered soul that Lord is the evergreen…
Question: When God is spiritual, how can we use material analogies to explain his nature and related spiritual truths? Answer: Material analogies serve an important but intermediate step in assimilating spiritual truths. The process of assimilating spiritual truths involves the following broad stages: Know about them through scriptural revelation Understand them through reasoning that uses…
“Does practicing and sharing spirituality benefit society in any practical way as social service does?” Practicing spiritualists often face this question. In this article, we will address this question by analyzing a widespread social problem, starvation, and generalize the principles understood therein for other problems. The Causes of Starvation On seeing a beggar starving, a…
“You’re saying your research proves this higher reality exists?” asks writer Vince Rause. Prof Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania replies, “I’m saying the possibility of such a reality is not inconsistent with science.” “But you can’t observe such a thing in a scientific way, can you?” Newberg grins. He hasn’t simply observed such…
The Bhagavad-gita (4.35) explains that when we become illumined by spiritual knowledge, our level of insight goes far beyond believing in God to belonging to God. When we believe in God, we often tend to think of him as our facilitator and expect him to make things work for us. When we belong to God,…
“Man proposes, God disposes” has been the cause of immense frustration for humanity since time immemorial. The best plans are often foiled forever in a single moment by factors beyond human control. Misery can be said to be the condition in which we are unable to get what we want and / or are forced…
Just as a beautiful painting can be appreciated only through refined aesthetic emotions – not through emotion-less scrutiny, the Bhagavad-gita reveals a beautiful conception of God that can be appreciated only through refined devotional emotions – not through emotion-less physical gymnastics or intellectual polemics (11.53-54). Before developing these refined emotions, the Gita recognizes that we…
Whether or not God has a form is a perennial philosophical question perennial philosophical question with arguments on both sides. The way we pray to God, the way the saints address God in their devotional prayers, it seems that God is a person whom we are calling by our prayers. But then God is said…
The genius of the Bhagavad-gita is that it takes a specific real-life situation, examines it philosophically and offers a universal pragmatic solution. The Gita begins with Arjuna’s weak-hearted capitulation: at the end of the first chapter (1.46) he puts aside his bow and thereby expresses through his actions his intention: “I will not fight.” The…
Daily news reports of things like corruption, nepotism, favoritism, and infidelity have us fed up. Politicians say, “Education in ethics and values is the solution.” But don’t most people already know right from wrong? I think so. They just feel they’ll fare better in life without following moral codes. And exhortation by moralists or legislation…
All of us strive to achieve something worthwhile and wonderful in life, yet whatever we gain materially leaves us prone to the twin miseries of hankering and lamenting: hankering because, no matter what we gain, the feeling that there’s something more to be gained keeps dogging us, and lamenting because the upheavals of life inevitably…
Prayer is the universal language by which humanity connects with divinity. This connection yields two empowering effects: 1. It raises the human consciousness to the divine level so that the human mind becomes unaffected by the disturbances at the material level. 2. It brings the divine power down to the human level so that human…
People whose emotional faculty is predominant tend to be hotheaded. People whose rational faculty is predominant tend to be coldhearted. Integrating both these faculties in a healthy balance is one of the greatest challenges for leading a productive and fulfilling life. The Bhagavad-gita (8.7) guides us toward achieving this balance when it urges us to…
(This article was written soon after the archaeological findings of an ancient city under water off the coast of Dwarka, India) Once a poverty-stricken descendent of a once-prosperous clan went to a foreign land in search of better prospects in life. He struggled hard to succeed there. Meanwhile a resident of that foreign land heard…
According to a popular self-help notion, all that we need to do to become happy is change our state of mind from negative to positive. Changing the state of mind may help us feel better, but it doesn’t change the reality that the entire material level of existence is temporary and unsatisfactory. The Bhagavad-gita offers…
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