Values

किससे मिल रहे हो? किससे नहीं मिल रहे हो? कहाँ रोज़ पहुँच जाते हो? कहाँ से पैसे ला रहे हो? पहली बात – क्या ईमानदारी से काम रहे हो? दूसरी बात – जो कमा रहे हो, उसको खर्च कहाँ कर रहे हो? छः घण्टे से कोई खबरिया चैनल लगा कर…

You cannot love someone or something you know very little of. The nation at its root represents a community of people united through certain values. A nation does not become admirable or respectable or lovable just by the dint of being a nation.

If you are to fall in love…

No situation is too bad to make a right choice in, and no situation is so good that you no more need the right choice—in a good situation, in a bad situation, in apparently easy situations, in apparently tough situations. Anything can happen anytime.

It’s a matter of your choice,…

Let your situations, your circumstances, your possessions, your particular destination in life not become important enough or significant enough to define you. Let your self-worth not be dictated by things that are external.

But since everything is external, let your self-worth not be dictated by anything at all. Which means,…

If you want to know why you kept working, slogging for the thirty days, the most effective way is to see what you are doing with the paycheck. What you are doing with the paycheck will very loudly demonstrate why you kept working the thirty days. See what you do…

We need to see a lot of young people traveling on their own. We need to see a lot of young people living all by themselves for very long years, many, many long years. We need to see these things.

And we need to see young people who are much…

The planet has already given you as much as it could. You cannot draw any more from it. So, we can very safely and very confidently say that for the world, in general, the future is internal growth. If economics is about welfare, then further welfare of this planet and…

Physical nearness has to be the tail of the elephant. Once the entire elephant has passed through, only then you must see the little tail. Only that much importance it must have.

Instead of that, the sexual aspect becomes the elephant. As far as the real, truthful, spiritual aspect is…

Living totally does not mean that you need to have a flamboyant lifestyle, that you need to be lavishly spending or lavishly consuming. Living totally means that you remain the same in the moment of your deepest fulfillment and in the moment of your deepest frustration.

Living totally is something…

This is the hallmark of gutter knowledge: it will have neither science nor spirituality. This is the hallmark of the gutter person: his words, his convictions, his values will correspond to neither science nor spirituality; it is coming from an altogether different place—the gutter.

He will talk unscientific and unspiritual…

Do not forget that that which you want from the world is not the world but satisfaction.

You do not want a new car; you want peace through the car. And you have never bothered to examine whether the car coming from the world can ever give you peace.

You…

‘Save the girl child’ campaigns, many of these campaigns say, “If today you kill the girl child, how will you find a bride for your son tomorrow?” So, the girl has no independent worth of her own, right?

If we go by the government propaganda, even if she is to…

Respect is not a permanent tag that you give to someone. When they are in a frame of mind that is worthy of respect, respect them. And when they have ganged up with unworthy ones, with debauched ones, in that moment, are they still worthy of respect? When they are…

What does true nationalism mean in India’s case? Nationalism is founded on truly Indian values. What do I mean by Indian values? I am being very specific here. By Indian values I mean the values enshrined in Vedanta.

As long as the youth remains in touch with the essence of…

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…

“He who, setting aside the scriptures, acts under the impulse of his own desire, he attains not to perfection nor happiness nor the gold supreme.”

Who is an āsura? An āsura is one who keeps the scriptures aside, detests them, ignores them, even derides them, and says, “What I…

Money is a very important indicator. See where you spend your money, and see where you do not spend your money. See where you want to cut corners, and see where you want to be lavish. Have you not heard that little phrase, “Put your money where your mind is”?…

What a life it is? Woke up in the morning, had breakfast, took a bath, went to work, came back, again had a meal, watched TV, scratched someone here and there, and slept away again. And repeat next morning. So, to sum up, what did you get this month? Nothing!…

Do the utmost that you must do in any situation, and you will find that there is just the joy of right action. Wails and tears are for those who are guilty of abdicating their responsibility. If you are fulfilling your responsibility, your responsibility will consume you fully. It will…

One day has infinite time, you know. You are able to say it has twenty-four hours only because you have defined the hour in a particular way.

A day has just twenty-four hours, but how many minutes does a day have? See how time has increased.

Oh, you want even…

One spends eight, ten, twelve hours of the day working; add to that the time that you invest in commuting and thinking about work. What does all that do to you? Consider that.

If money helps you get a suitable environment for yourself, only then money has some practical value;…

You have to see what the other person has started meaning to you. Has the other person assumed some kind of a larger-than-life importance in your eyes? Ask yourself, if someone else were to objectively evaluate this person, what kind of value would he give to him, be it purely…

You may not want to admit to the other that you are actually neurotic—which most people are. I am not talking of the fringe five percent. I am talking of the bulk of the world’s population. We all are neurotic. So, that disease has been there all throughout. It’s just…

Don’t you see you are bound to have a midlife crisis after forty? Why? Because of the ways you have gone through your youth. The most wasteful period of one’s life is often the time between twenty and thirty-five.

You are at the peak of your powers between, let’s say,…

This is the age of mass production. The fellow who is owning and running the machine, the corporation, the empire, out of his greed wants you to consume.

“I am producing so much, but people are not buying it. Why? Because they do not need it. So, what do I…

Nobody can help you in the entire world if first of all you don’t like, or respect, or love yourself. What is the point in admiring a great personality if first of all you cannot admire yourself? And most people become admirers or fans because, firstly, they don’t admire themselves.…

Spiritual practitioners, those who have really wanted to know and live life fully, have invited pain. Knowing fully well that the road they are taking would hurt them, they have still gone down those roads.

To the common man, pain is incidental, uninvited. It comes as a surprise: “Oh! Pain…

You have to be cautious towards the investment of all your resources. But among all the resources, the prime one is time.

Be careful about everything that you spend. The other things that you spend can be regained—money lost can probably be regained—but there is one resource that is not…

In Saint Valentine’s case as well, there is a man, there is a woman, and the man has developed affection for the woman. Now, see what happens there. What is this that you gift to your beloved? What did he gift her? He gave her light. So, that’s the Valentine’s…

Beauty is the eye that doesn’t label the world and people into beautiful and ugly. When the beautiful is beautiful and the ugly is equally beautiful, then there is a beauty in your heart, not in the object, not in the hillside. When there is beauty in the heart, then…

Before you accept or reject something, before you get wildly drawn to something, or before you just ignore something and move on, pause for five seconds, just five seconds, and ask: What is in it for me? What is the real importance it holds?

Do not be carried away by…

Success does not lie in doing any random thing. That’s the first, the most important, and probably the last thing. You must know who you are and what you really need.

Victory lies in choosing the right road to walk. If you fight the wrong battle, isn’t victory worse than…

You are the one who is allotting time, and you allot time according to your values. You are spending time exactly according to your values. Not even a second is spent otherwise. Be convinced, time does not slip away; time strictly follows your values.

If you say, “I don’t know,…

The one who always follows you is worth following. The one who is always with you on his own accord is worth being with. The yogi is the one who knows whom to follow. And that knowledge the world never gives you. If sitting here your consciousness is full of…

Creating value in the economy means creating goods and services and an environment that uplifts you in the direction of the right values. A thing is valuable if it can add value to your inner life. Why am I saying ‘inner life’? Because what is valuable in your outer life…

For the wise, nothing has any meaning; all things are just playthings.

For the fool, even playthings become very serious.

Have you not seen kids, adolescents getting into a brawl over a game of soccer? That’s how the worldly mind is. For him everything is important, everything has a meaning,…

You talk of responsibility. Is your wife a duty to you? She probably is, and that is so tragic. Do you relate to that woman in love or in responsibility?

If you have little love for your wife, would it pay to arrange for her security through another house, or…

Hacking down forests is a compulsion with us. You cannot have the kind of civilization and values that we have and not hack down forests. Given the way we shop in the markets, we will necessarily hack down forests. Given the way we choose brands, given the way we choose…

Especially in today’s world, you do not need a person for physical survival or physical security. There is the economy, there are systems, and there is security. You do not need a male or a female to be around you for all those reasons. You can earn for yourself. There…

Don’t ask how to manage time. Don’t ask how to utilize time. Ask yourself, how do I manage myself? Because it is the self that is wasting the time. It is the self that is wasting everything that is around it. There are a thousand opportunities that come to you,…

There is nothing sacred as such about any profession. A profession is made sacred by the touch of reality. If your profession is arising from your reality, then the reality renders it, bestows upon it a sacredness. Otherwise, there is nothing great about any profession—any profession.

Change the profession…

That’s one mark of a toxic organization: people would be all required to wear a certain uniformity. Speaking your heart out would be unwelcome. You would be encouraged to be a regular fellow, you know, not one of the outliers. The moment you digress a little, you will be called…

You must have a very, very high purpose in life, the kind of purpose that can never actually be fully attained. If it can never be fully attained, you will be working towards it all your life without ever having a final satisfaction that you have arrived. That dissatisfaction is…

You just want good to happen to the next generations of Homo sapiens. And what about the millions of other species? Where is your compassion?

But such is man’s lot: he cannot do anything selflessly. If he talks of saving the rivers, he says, “Let’s save the rivers so that…

A leader is seeking satisfaction by looking at the twenty thousand bodies gathered to listen to him. Where is he getting his satisfaction from? Twenty thousand bodies. This is sexual activity, but you will not call it as sex. You will say, “Oh, it is just a leader addressing an…

The little man is not to be blamed for being little. He is to be blamed for remaining little. The great man is nothing but the little man who at some point says, “It’s no fun remaining little”—and he is born exactly similar to the little man.

Now, that puts…

In our society, in this distorted culture that we have nowadays, there is just too much emphasis on public speaking; there is just too much emphasis on confident expression. A clear extrovert—that has become the ideal of this age. Speak, and speak without content; speak, and speak without knowledge. Your…

You want to find time for something, but you say, “I can’t find time for it. It is important but I can’t find time for it.” Please be assured that somewhere you are convinced that that thing for which you cannot find time, you are convinced that that is not…

Sex is beautiful only if you can see the divine in the other. Sex is beautiful only if the body is not just body but a temple, a temple at the center of which God himself sits.

Don’t try to have sex with someone you cannot see as a god…

People are entitled to comment on your speech, on your looks, on your clothes. But when it comes to your deep, deep value, nobody else should ever be judging you. Only you can be your own judge. Be your own good judge, strict judge, and then you will not be…