1.     Observe self without judgment Notice what you feel and recognize your needs. If you could keep a card that contains a list of feelings and needs, the moment you see the list attentively, you’ll likely feel connected. The most important part of this exercise is don’t judge yourself as ‘bad’ if you realize you feel…

If you don’t identify what you want, how will you ever attain it and why does it matter to anyone at all? You are merely a victim of your unconscious state. We assume wrongly that others are responsible for our grief, and it only gets worse with time- the world outside of me is guilty…

At the age of eighty, Srila Prabhupada traveled, wrote, spoke, corresponded with hundreds of disciples world over, and worked more than twenty hours a day. Incredible as it may sound, he relaxed in the afternoons for a massage and went for his refreshing morning walks. He’d smell a flower fully; he ate his lunch alone,…

“Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one’s awareness of one’s ignorance.” –    Anthony de Mello (Indian psychotherapist, spiritual teacher, writer, and a Jesuit priest) Leo Tolstoy is considered one of the greatest authors of all time. When asked what would be his most important advice to humankind, he said, “For God’s sake, stop a moment,…

“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?” –    Albert Einstein Imagine a boxer repeatedly getting knocked by his opponent. He dizzily rises, bleeding from his nose and mouth, and stands like a drooling drunkard. Again, he’s beaten, and he crashes on the rope.…

“The obsession with instant gratification blinds us from our long-term potential.” –         Mike Dooley (Best-selling author, speaker and entrepreneur) We live at times of an excessive fascination with Happiness. We want to feel good and experience pleasure, now and always. If I am not happy, I doubt if I am doing things right. Ironically, it’s doing…

Often, in our exuberance to serve we may neglect essential self-care principles. A gnawing vacuum then bites us and to fill the gaps in our emotional world, and we may resort to unacceptable practices or cultivate harmful habits. Don’t we regularly hear of spiritual leaders or well-known personalities as perpetrators of abuse or victims of…

Many spiritualists, in their youthful zeal, take lifelong vows, not realizing the hardships involved over time. With advancing age, when the severity of their undertaking hits them, a sense of failure envelops their consciousness. It begins with a little personal compromise, and soon their effectiveness is negatively affected. That’s why it’s important to periodically take…

An incident some time ago helped me and my friends develop an action plan to live more compatible with our inner selves. Our bus trip to Vrindavan’s holy sites took much longer than expected. We were tired and hungry. As the sun set and the dusty roads added to our misery, the monks tried their…

The devil inside If our inside is different from our outside, eventually the inside would take revenge. One day, in our yoga center, we cooked delicious sweet rice for our young men and women. When we served the feast one young resident refused to eat it, even as others around him devoured more helpings. As…

What’s inside can’t be hidden for long The first verse of the Bhagavad Gita reveals this principle. Dhritarashtra said: O Sanjaya, after my sons and the sons of Pandu assembled in the place of pilgrimage at Kurukshetra, desiring to fight, what did they do? (1.1) The blind king Dhritarashtra declared he loved the sons of…

“O serpent heart hid with a flowering face! Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave?” –    William Shakespeare in his play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (16th century playwright, often regarded as the greatest writer and dramatist in the English language) The assembly sat stunned. “Who is he?” wondered the learned ministers as Akbar realized his…