Thought of the Month Archive

The mind wills, yearns, prompts and insists on effort and action. This process is named sankalpa. These are like shasanas (commands). Everyone has to be aware of the variety and validity of the actions

Be he a student, a celibate, a householder, or a renunciant, the goal is one and same for all. Contemplate on the principle of so-ham [that I am] that your inner voice teaches. Say

The mind is like a clean mirror. It has no intrinsic power of its own to directly experience the sense objects, except through the concerned sense organs. For instance, it can see only through

To get at the core of God at His greatest, one must first get into the core of himself at his least, for no one can know God who has not known himself. When

The human body is the most wondrous machine in the world. It has a bewildering multiplicity of limbs, organs, veins, nerves, and cells that co-operate to maintain it under varied conditions. If any one

People speak about moksha [liberation]. What is it from which they have to be liberated? Is it from family, wealth or position? No. Liberation from these is an easy affair. Liberation is from the sense

God is the echo of the hills, the flutter of the leaves, the whisper of men, the babble of children, the Om (primordial sound) that is wafted everywhere. God is present at all places, but

The Isaavaasyopanishad [Hindu scriptures] declares that whatever bhoga (pleasure) one wants to enjoy, he should do so in a spirit of renunciation. In daily life, enjoyment and renunciation do not go together. The tyagi

When Jesus was a child, during a visit to Jerusalem, he was lost in the crowd. After a frantic search Mary found him in a temple listening intently to the speech of a priest.

Most people today have no real idea of what is devotion and what is spiritual discipline. Different forms of worship, pilgrimages, meditation, and the like are equated with devotion. These are not the indices

To develop one’s moral and mental strength, one should practice sadhana (spiritual exercises) for disciplining the mind. For this purpose, one has to promote ten kinds of purity (satwa). First: The first is purity of the

Every person is apt to commit mistakes, without being aware of it. However bright the fire or light, some smoke will emanate from it. So also, whatever good deed a man might do, there