The real Self is our inmost being covered by multiple layers. It is our real ‘I’ hidden and camouflaged deep within. We see ourselves as the body. We love our body and use all our energies to make it stronger, more beautiful, agile and powerful.

The tendency of the senses is to go outward all the times. Sri Krishna says, ‘Your senses are always busy in going out to the objective world. And when you can’t obtain those objects then your mind obsesses over them. This outward driven tendency of your senses is stealing your wisdom.’

We need to understand that peace is not something which is different from us. It is not something we have to find. Our real Self is, peace. You are peace. Peace, which is distant from you cannot be called peace. Peace, in Sanskrit language, is called ‘Shanti’. We say ‘Om Shanti Shanti Shanti’. Om is your real name and Shanti means peace. The peace which is, you.

Once upon a time, there was a king in the ancient city of Kashi (Benares). He had a son, and the king loved him a lot. To commemorate his son’s fifth birthday, the king came up with an idea of getting his portrait done. A stage was set and a court painter was called. However, on this occasion, the queen who always wished to have a daughter instead, thought of dressing her son as a girl!

Every human being seeks happiness. Everybody wants to feel joy inside. We want to smile, laugh and dance. When we are happy, colours of the trees seem brighter, sky looks vaster and you are filled with so much energy that you could scale a mountain. We wish to be happy but because we are under a veil of māyā (an illusion) we mistake fleeting happiness for eternal bliss - and this is the source of all our miseries....

India is a land with a long tradition of great masters and great yogis. And there are countless stories depicting their amazing lives and teachings. One such story is about a yogi from Maharashtra (in central India) called Changdev Maharaj. He entered a state of samadhi and stayed in that state for almost three hundred years. When he came out of samadhi, his age was almost four hundred years. Emerging from the cave, he asked the locals what year...