Concentration

Swami Vivekananda has said, “First of all, our young men must be strong; religion will come afterwards. Be strong, my young friends; that is my advice to you. You will be nearer to heaven through football than through the study of the Gita.”

Swami Vivekananda was no soccer evangelist. His…

Both the genders have become even more anchored to their physical identity. The more you do that, the more you are in misery because, really, the body is not who you are.

There are places better and higher than the place of your gender specific hormones. Why do you want…

If your goals are small, they are no goals. You will be frustrated if you don’t achieve them, and you will be doubly frustrated if you achieve them. Having achieved them, you will find that the next goal is waiting for you, and that is deep frustration. You will feel…

When you are serious about victory, you do not strike at the enemy without being fully prepared. Those who just plunge themselves into battles without having checked their preparedness are the ones who don’t love victory too much. Because this battle is important, and because this battle must be won,…

Real relaxation is about relaxing even in the middle of activity. You are relaxed even as you exert yourself. You are relaxed even as you are running. You are relaxed even as you are drained out. You are not waiting for a special activity like going to bed or sitting…

Every young person who is about to choose a career, decide on work in life, must keep this in mind, my humble advice: See what is it that really, really troubles you, and then work should be the medicine for your trouble. That’s the way you must choose work.

Therefore,…

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

If you are angry, it tells you that there is something within you that is resisting the world now. Why is it resisting the world? Go into it. Try…

If the mind is a diseased organ, then why do you trust it so much? If it is a diseased organ, then whatever you see through it, why can’t you just reject it? Why do you trust this unfaithful servant so much? If I have a machine that continuously gives…

If you want to know an atom, you have to go to nuclear physics. There you do not just proudly claim, “Oh, I know atoms. Everything is an atom. I have been with atoms since my birth!” There you want to read a book. There you want to consult somebody…

As long as the goal is not tremendously big, life has no real purpose. If your goals are small they are no goals. You will be frustrated if you don’t achieve them, and you will be doubly frustrated if you achieve them. Having achieved them, you will find that the…

I’ll tell you what the rape of the mind is. When the mind has nonsensical purposes, that is rape of the mind. When things like stuff that happened in the childhood or teenage attracts you and dominates you, then the mind is being raped. Forgive me the clichéd expression, but…

The past is a great resource. It is not to be wasted away or thrown away or forgotten. If you do not really decode your past, you are bound to repeat your past. Forget all the propaganda coming from the neo-spiritual circles that say that the past is something to…

“Enjoy the moment! Go with the flow!” What is that flow? Where is it coming from? Why should I go with it? Why don’t you just pause and ask, which flow are we talking of?

The tsunamis are coming to take you away, and the great master is teaching you:…

As long as the goal is not tremendously big, life has no real purpose. If your goals are small, they are no goals. You will be frustrated if you don’t achieve them, and you will be doubly frustrated if you achieve them. Having achieved them, you will find that the…

Money is nothing on its own. Money cannot bring you peace. But established in peace, money and material and the world can be perfectly dealt with. Now you neither need to renounce money nor do you get attached to money, because your real need is peace not money. Now you…

Even if you want a deeper pleasure, you will have to go deeper into the mind, and going deeper into the mind is what the spiritual process is all about.

If the fellow is a lover of the good things of life, let’s say a complete hedonist, then encourage him…

If a bad thought is persevering in your mind, continuing in your mind, then it means that you are just calling it a bad thought. Deeply you are supporting it; deeply you think that it is a good thought. We call them bad. We actually do not consider them bad.…

If you have to invest your hours, your months, your years, invest them on a cause. The cause could be your own development, or general development, social welfare, whatever. But let it be a cause, not a person. Let the cause occupy you fully.

This applies to both men and…

There is something honorable about dying against a major enemy. But what honor is there in being consumed by the little?

Set a great goal. Even if you lose, it will at least be a great defeat. And if you set a timid, scared, conventional, narrow goal, then even if…

Christmas Eve again, Jesus says to his disciples, “I am going to be killed soon.”

One of his disciples, Peter, starts weeping and crying, and he gets a good scolding from Jesus. Jesus says, “Had you had anything to do with God, had you learned anything from me, how could…

You have been entrusted with time not so that you while it away.

Somebody once asked the Satan, “How do you corrupt a being?”

He says, “It’s easy. I just whisper into his ears: your time is your time.”

And that’s the assumption we all have bought into: “I have…

Success does not lie in doing any random thing. Do you know why you are doing a certain thing? Are you sure what is worthy enough to be done? That’s the moot question.

Choose the right option. Make the right decision. Fight the right battle. And now it doesn’t matter…

We really do not know how to spend a Sunday, but we want to live two hundred years. If you are given one free day, you do not know what to do with it. You start looking here and there, wondering, “What to do? Some free time is there. How…

Before you excel, ask yourself, “What must I excel in? What is worth it?” Before you speed down a road, ask yourself, “Which road to take?” Speed comes later; choice of the right road comes first.

It is far better to be slow on the right road than to be…

All the economic theories, all the economic systems are predicated on this premise, based on this assumption that the goal of man’s action is to have more money. This they call as welfare, or even luxury. In some theories, they say that maximization of luxury is the objective of man’s…

One of the things in the Japanese manufacturing philosophy is JIT, ‘Just in Time’. They say that inventory hides mistakes, so we will not carry any inventory. Everything has to be just in time. The process has to be lean enough, smart enough, and efficient enough.

For example, a video…

It is a very common and a very harmful misconception to take dhyāna as something. Dhyāna is nothing. Dhyāna is not an object. Dhyāna is not a thing. Dhyāna is not a routine, not a practice, not an exercise. Dhyāna, rather, is on all these things. Dhyāna is what…

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…