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!

Today, a quantum physicist will agree on the statement that the whole gross world is manifested on the foundation of consciousness. A physicist will say that what we see as a building is just atoms moving at such high speed that it seems like it is still. If we go to the foundation of the building and inspect a tiny grain of sand with a microscope, there will be no sand, just atoms. The scientists are still debating whether...

The one who knows and who has realized the truth. The one who knows the scriptures and who has direct experience of the knowledge. The one who dispels darkness and breaks the shackles of bondage. Such an enlightened, liberated being is a Guru.

Grace happens not because of efforts but on its own. It cannot be created or controlled in any way. It is like a glimpse of the aspirant’s goal that’s meant to motivate him to keep treading the path, to keep internalizing the mind, to keep eradicating the vasanas and so on. But more often than not it is mistaken to be a doing – people think that have worked at getting this grace. What they don’t understand...

As per sage Patanjali, yoga is an eight-fold path. It is like climbing a staircase which has eight steps: yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and the final step is samadhi. In order to become a yogi, the aspirant needs to follow these eight limbs, meticulously and step by step. To many people, yoga means just asanas. Thus, they jump straight into the practice of asanas without understanding what the word ‘yoga’, actually means. That is why even...

Human mind is so capricious, ever changing and such a complex, enigmatic entity. What could be more startling that none other than your own mind gives you grief, suffering. But it is very difficult to accept that we make ourselves unhappy. Instead, we keep looking outside, seeking to blame someone else for our troubles. The truth is that problems exist in one’s own mind and not in the outer world. But people tend to blame their pain and...

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....

A child at birth is a little god – he is just who he is, pristine and pure. He loves himself, is utterly absorbed with himself. As a toddler he imbibes things like a sponge, soaking up everything around - ideas, beliefs and values taught to him. Then ‘training’ begins, ostensibly to make him a responsible adult but actually to make him follow the herd, and slowly, his untainted mind starts getting polluted. Rather than guiding, parents often nag their...

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...

Meditation is the gateway to inner awakening. It is the door that opens up the possibility of self-realisation. It is the sword that destroys all ignorance forever. Imagine being free of all bondages and sufferings, not enslaved to anyone or anything, supremely happy and content, mind in perennial peace, having complete clarity of one’s real identity and the meaning of life being crystal clear…can there be anything more precious than this achievement in life? Can any worldly...

Mantra should be the focus; and once the mantra is done then that is your time to sit as long as mind wishes to. It is like those old hand pumps which used to pump water, if you have ever seen one. When it dried up one would just put some water into it and pump until it brought out the water. Once the water started coming then you pumped just once and there was lots of water. Pumping...