Krsna's Teachings

Yesterday when I was asked by my disciple why does a person have to be in front of his Guru to get knowledge and not behind a phone or a video? The Ashrams in India and worldwide teach us to stay in the vicinity of the Guru so that we can get correct knowledge. The Ashram life is not the same as the life we spend in our own house. We do not have strict disciplines at home. We get up when we want, take an off when we want, laze around, procrastinate, take too many things for granted, know that someone is there around us who will bail us out and take our load on his/her head. And so on! You can shut a video chat down or pause a YouTube download or cut the phone line also. You do not have a decorum or discipline of standing or talking to this persona. You maybe just lying and talking or be in the loo for all you care. Ashram life is full of discipline and tough one to live. There is always someone to keep a tab on you. You can never address your Guru lying down or sleeping. You ne...

I was very surprised to see this comment in my inbox yesterday and it was written by one of my dearest friends. He said that he did not like what I do! In spiritual! So why did I join the spiritual bandwagon and what is it that makes me write such stuff on this topic? He truly seemed flabbergasted and wanted to know the whys and the wherefores of it! Spiritual does not happen to a person the way you may get married or pass your school or college. It is mentioned in the holy texts that urge and desire to know God or Self comes about very rarely. Every individual knows about God from his own parents or relatives or friends. His knowledge is as trivial as theirs. None of these are qualified to talk about God. Since no one has seen or experienced Him, how can anyone talk about Him? The knowledge that they profess to have is as trivial as their forefathers since neither of them have experienced Him ever. The knowledge of Self or the longing for liberation happens to someone by the ...

Though I have written many times on this topic, there always seems to be no percolation and seepage happening so I write again about this topic called swadharma. Swadharma can be loosely defined as that which comes to you naturally as your duty in this creation. Now we tend to think that there are things that we need to do by which we can save million lives or save humanity from the evils of this world. Having an indomitable spirit and braving all calamities we need to do some unimaginable task. There are people who have the never say die attitude and then they go out of their way in achieving things in this world. None of the above comprises the swadharma. So you think that you went out of the way in getting the rarest blood for some poor guy, scoring the ton in a test cricket, collecting food and clothes for flood victims, etc does not comprise that set also. Now let us see what we can do normally in our daily lives. Getting up early, doing the morning ablutions, maybe cooking fo...

In Brahma Vaivarta Purana there are the following verses. "Marriage purified by sacred mantras will no longer exist.  There will be no truthfulness and no forgiveness. Men will  associate with women only for sex." "No woman will be chaste. In home after home the wife will be  unchaste, always running after men. The wife will treat her husband like her  servant. She will always rebuke him and make him tremble in fear." "Everyone will do as they please. Devoted only to belly and  genitals, they will be greedy, degraded, tormented by diseases,  and dressed in rags."  When I read the above lines I knew that the yuga must have come about. Today we write about love marriages and arranged marriages and then we insist on divorces and separations. With which yardstick can we measure good happy marriage today? There is no truthfulness in marriages or even in relationships. Every human fakes in that institution. When we see old married couples and ask...

Just a few days ago one of my friends wrote to me about the death of his mentor-Lalit Sheth. He asked me why such type of things happen to people and if I can make any sense in it! Shankara says to us in the beautiful treatise Vivekachudamani in the opening lines as much on the importance of this human life. The most difficult thing for us is to get a human birth and that is the foremost thing in the goody bag. Now that you are reading this, thank the great God for giving you this human birth. Just imagine if you were born a stone, how many lives would it take for you to become human? A billion or Zillion? So thank your stars for getting up here to read this stuff. Next in hierarchy is the strength of  body and the will to run it. If you were born with bodily or mental defects, then the progression is extremely tough. Now have you noticed the sages have complete indifference towards anyone who has physical or mental disability? That is because they know the law of karma ha...

Some folks came to see me a few days ago and joined in a satsang with their own questions. I was answering a few queries when they said that they are thankful to God for getting their dear daughters married off. God has been kind to all of them and so on.  I told them that God was in no way responsible for their daughters marriages or for their upkeep. They were flabbergasted and got a bit provoked by what I said. So here goes the explanation for what I said to them. You are free to disagree or just log off but that still does not change a thing. The Vedas are the final word of God as we all know. It is the framework on which this entire creation and all that you do not understand has been cast on. Sounds difficult to follow?  It is like the Indian Penal Code written and enacted in 1860 or so. That is the framework on which anything and everything to do with law is based on. Likewise the Indian Constitution on which all the laws governing this great nation is based...

Yesterday one of my disciples came and asked me to say some words for her future. She was celebrating her 20th birthday. Though I speak on spiritual I told her that I will talk about her career and other such opportunities. I asked her what she would like to do after she completes her studies and the answer was-I don't know! I told her that it is useless playing football without the goal posts and opponents, so she better have a goal in life. The next was whom would she like to emulate in material worldly success and the immediate answer was Mark Zukerberg, Bill Gates, Mittal and the like! They are highly successful people in this world. Then I asked her whom she would not like to emulate or whom does she consider the most unsuccessful person in life? That was difficult to say. I prodded her! Unable to pin point anyone, I told her the people I would not like to emulate or copy are my parents! That shocked her completely and immediately the heckles stood up. But frankly look a...