How our desires shape us far more than we realize — Desire management series 2
Suppose we are driving a car through dark, difficult, dangerous terrain. To drive safely, we need the car’s engine and front lights both to function [...]
Why is it so difficult to feel grateful?
If asked specifically to list things we are grateful for, we all can easily list several things. Yet during our daily life, we don’t so [...]
Not everything that comes in our vision is worth our attention
Suppose we are driving a car. In the path of our vision come so many objects: trees, houses, passers-by, billboards and landmarks. If we pay [...]
Spirituality complements talent with temperament
Success requires not just talent but also temperament. Many talented people crack under pressure due to their weak temperament. While temperament has many components, its [...]
Don’t defy nature, but don’t deify it either; glorify the Deity behind nature
Overzealous materialists exploit technology to pursue their egoistic agenda of conquering nature. They define technological progress in terms of how much it controls a supposedly [...]
See the pleasure that ends in trouble as trouble, not pleasure
Education enables us to see things as they are, irrespective of how they appear to be. Thus for example a well-informed person, as contrasted with [...]
Those who judge a horse by its harness can’t harness its potential
When people want to get a horse, they look at the pedigree of the horse – not the quality of its harness. The harness’s quality [...]
The vision of the one in everyone grants liberation
Addiction is a result of fragmental vision. Alcoholics see only the pleasure of the drink, not the pain of the consequent hangover. Although they may [...]
To understand God’s provision, first understand God’s vision
People sometimes ask, “If I devote myself to God, will he provide for my needs?” Yes, definitely; but to understand his provision, we need to [...]
Is our sight causing us to lose sight?
When we see a blind person struggling to find the way with a stick, we often feel compassion for that person’s condition. We consider our [...]
What is the medium through which we experience the world?
In our culture, we mostly experience the real world second-hand: not by directly interacting with it using our senses, but by receiving it as depicted [...]
How the world sees us is not as important as how we see the world
We often worry about how the world sees us: “Do people notice me? Which way do heads turn when I arrive?” This outside-in approach seems [...]
The eye to see the I
We see not with our eyes but with our knowledge. Where our eyes see a line graph curved sharply downwards, our knowledge of economics helps [...]
Rise from touch-me-not to touched-me-not
We all need a sense of security in our lives. Often, we seek that security by trying to build a cocoon around us, by trying [...]
“Seeing is believing” reflects trust in the untrustworthy
The Bhagavad-gita (15.10) warns us against unwittingly subscribing to the childish idea of “seeing is believing.” This idea, known in philosophical parlance as naïve realism, [...]