Two assumptions the idea contains:

• The idea that there is a definite moment when a person finally becomes enlightened.
• The belief that, once attained, this state will remain permanent, leaving no possibility of further egoic movement.

I see this as a fantasy of the ego. The ego imagines its own future perfection and wants to possess enlightenment as its ultimate achievement.

“One day, I will achieve enlightenment. Then I will be permanently free, and I will have attained the highest state.”

The “I” exists in the present, works toward a goal, and imagines itself possessing a final achievement in the future. Enlightenment has simply become the ego’s ultimate object of attainment.

The irony is that the ego seeks its own dissolution while imagining that it will be the one to enjoy the achievement. It wants to disappear, yet it also wants to remain as the one who can claim, “I have become enlightened.”

🌺 Navratri Day 1 with Me and My Darling Rosie! 🐻❤️

Nine days of Navratri, nine forms of Maa Durga, and plenty of adventures with Rosie! 😂

Join us as we celebrate Navratri with prayers, dance, laughter, and some deeper questions inspired by the teachings of Acharya Prashant.

This isn't just about festive celebrations. It's also an opportunity to look within, observe our desires, and understand what is really driving our lives.

🙏 Watch, enjoy, and share your thoughts in the comments.

📺 Acharya Prashant's related video and book link are included in the description.

Come join our little celebration!

📢 Join this community to stay updated and never miss an episode of our Navratri and Dussehra series!.

Let's make this festive season fun, thoughtful, and a little crazy! ❤️🙏

Jai Mata Di! ❤️

Source :

YouTUbe Video -
https://youtu.be/Kjqbwk9398w?si=6PFFWzkOtomkB4Dr

Amazon book link of Durga Saptshati for USA https://www.amazon.com/dp/9392657544?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback

Amazon book link of Durga Saptshati for India

https://amzn.in/d/0ioeuoPv

Countries across the Indian subcontinent are paying a steep and rising price for a climate crisis they did very little to cause, and the numbers are honestly hard to ignore.

India alone ranks as the ninth most climate-affected nation globally, with over 80,000 deaths and nearly $170 billion in economic losses from extreme weather between 1995 and 2024. In the first nine months of 2025, extreme weather hit India on 99% of days, claiming over 4,000 lives and destroying millions of hectares of crops. The economic damage could get even worse, with climate losses projected to cost India up to 9% of its GDP by 2050 and potentially 23% by the end of the century under current policies. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka are facing worsening heatwaves, floods, droughts and disease outbreaks too, despite their relatively small contributions to global emissions. And this is what gets me. Countries that industrialised and emitted carbon for generations have contributed disproportionately to the problem, yet countries like ours are left dealing with so much of the damage.

How long will we keep paying the price for emissions produced by first-world nations while the same economic system continues to reward endless consumption and greed? And how long will we keep calling this progress?

Was watching this scene from The Dictator where “Aladeen,” the protagonist, explains what a dictatorship looks like, and it’s hilarious!!

But honestly, so glad this is all just satire and none of it resembles the real world. We live in such a wonderful world. Everyone cares about everyone, the powerful always look out for the vulnerable, and nobody puts money over human life. Nobody exploits anyone’s fears or uses others for personal gain.

We’ve clearly evolved so much as a species. Humanity is doing great. Nothing to see here. :))

There is a Korean folk tale called

The Mirror That Made Trouble.

A man named Kim buys a mirror in the capital, Seoul, and brings it home. His family has never seen a mirror before.

His wife looks into the mirror and sees another woman there. She thinks her husband has brought another woman home. Their daughter sees the same face and sides with her mother. The grandmother sees an old woman in it, and the grandfather sees an old man.

Very quickly, a huge fight breaks out in the house. Kim’s wife drags him to the judge. But the judge too looks into the mirror, sees his own face, and gets confused.

Finally, an official explains to them that there is no other person in the mirror. Everyone was seeing only their own reflection.

Not one of them had tried to examine the very thing they were taking as the truth and fighting over.

Now look at your own life.

Someone criticizes us, and we immediately feel that the person is against us. We build a flattering image of ourselves, and then we start interpreting every event according to that image.

We are more in love with our image than with seeing our mistakes.

That’s why, when someone points out our flaws, instead of looking at those flaws, we get busy proving that the other person is wrong. We justify our anger, label our selfishness as a “need,” and give our fear the respectable name of “wisdom” or “prudence.”

But knowing yourself and having a good opinion of yourself are two very different things.

To know yourself, you have to see what desire is really driving your decisions. Do we truly want to be right, or do we only want to prove that whatever we say is right?

As long as we don’t question our own thinking, we will keep seeing others through the lens our mind has already prepared for us.

Ask yourself:

When someone points out a mistake of yours, how do you respond?

Today, I was just taking a break and opened YouTube. This was the first video I came across, and it made me smile at first.

In the middle of heavy rain, some stray dogs were taking shelter under an elephant’s huge body. The elephant just stood there, letting these little beings stay close to him.

But then I noticed the chain around his leg.

It made me sad to think that this huge animal, offering shelter to others, might not even be free himself. Perhaps he is used for carrying heavy loads or for tourist attractions like elephant rides.

We humans often think we are superior to animals. But are we really? Do we even deserve to call ourselves the most evolved species?

The elephant didn’t have to be kind to those dogs, yet there it was, sharing its space with them. And we, despite understanding freedom and suffering, often take freedom away from other beings.

Just because we have a developed prefrontal cortex and the freedom to choose, is this really what we choose to do?

As Acharya Prashant teaches us, our ego makes us see everything through me and mine. We start believing that everything exists for our comfort and use, forgetting that other beings have their own lives and deserve freedom too.

As Acharya Prashant says, Even animals do not like slavery.

Maybe it’s time we question our ego and stop confusing our power to control other beings with the right to own them.

Let’s not just feel sad when we see animals suffer. Let’s make choices that respect their freedom. Maybe true compassion begins when our need to control ends.

~Posted by Gita student.

I was driving on the Confederation Bridge in New Brunswick, Canada, at around 5:30 in the morning, singing this bhajan that I just absolutely love, and I started recording it. The Confederation Bridge of Canada connects Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick and is 12.9 km long. Just so you know, below it’s all ocean!

I came across this bhajan through the Indian philosopher Acharya Prashant, whose interpretation really attracted me to this bhajan. I think I am still trying to grasp what exactly Kabir Sahab is trying to convey, but this is simply my personal take on it.

The lines I am singing in the video are:

“जुगन-जुगन समझावत हारा, कहा न मानत कोई रे।
तू तो रंगी फिरै बिहंगी, सब धन डारा खोई रे।”

“For ages, I have been trying to explain it; yet no one listens. You, like a bird, keep wandering coloured by the world, and in doing so, you lose all your real wealth.”

What I understood:

My understanding of these phrases of Kabir Sahab is that the truth has been spoken and reiterated over and over, but the mind is not willing to listen. It only seeks to keep moving along the path of seeking in colors, pleasures, possessions, achievements, etc., hoping that the next thing it will grasp will complete it.
He seems to be speaking to the ego: wherever the ego goes, like a chameleon, it takes on the colors of everything it encounters, be it consumerism, materialism, objects, or desires. In trying to fill its own emptiness, the ego keeps stuffing itself with more things that, sooner or later, it becomes burdened by.

However, whatever the ego takes on is not permanent. Objects, desires, relationships, even our dreams and worries, are all temporary. And in chasing after fleeting things to fill a void within ourselves, the ego has lost sight of what truly matters inside. Kabir Sahab’s metaphor of the mind as a bird, colored by the world and flitting from place to place, is what I think is trying to capture that sense of longing to fill this inner emptiness.
My personal reflection

What I feel is that this has been exactly the same with me in life. Five years ago, I was a completely different person; the things I desired, feared, and thought about don't really concern me much today. However, many new desires and fears have emerged in their place. What I thought was real and what I was fixated on is gone. I feel that today, I am worried about completely different things than I used to be.

This makes me ask myself: if my internal desires, ideas, and dreams can change so drastically, how can any of these things that are ‘mine’ be considered permanent? Isn’t everything that concerns me in life just like the mind changing from one color to another, from one desire to another, and confusing those to be permanent while wasting time and life doing so?

I don’t have an answer, but this bhajan makes me reflect on what I am chasing and what it is that I am really looking for. If there’s a stop to this endless running around, I would love to hear your personal take on these lines, and also to know if this interpretation is close to what you think Kabir Sahab could have meant here.

Full bhajan:

तेरा मेरा मनुआ कैसे एक होई रे।
मैं कहता हूँ आँखन देखी, तू कहता कागद की लेखी।
मैं कहता सुरझावनहारी, तू राख्यो उरझाई रे॥
मैं कहता तू जागत रहियो, तू जाता है सोई रे।
मैं कहता निरमोही रहियो, तू जाता है मोहि रे॥
जुगन-जुगन समझावत हारा, कहा न मानत कोई रे।
तू तो रंगी फिरै बिहंगी, सब धन डारा खोई रे॥
सतगुरु धारा निर्मल बहै, बामे काया धोई रे।
कहत कबीर सुनो भाई साधो, तब ही वैसा होई रे॥

Youtube vedio: https://youtu.be/08zoPSOtV6w?si=EzNUs7AXbBfavlAq

Imagine the year is 1967. The place: South Africa, deep in the brutal grip of the Apartheid regime.

​A young woman of Tamil descent, born into a poor neighborhood in Durban, has just achieved the near-impossible. Supported by donations raised by her local community, she has graduated with a law degree. She is brilliant, eager, and ready to work.

​But the system is designed to crush her.

​White law firms slam their doors in her face because she isn't white. The non-white law firms refuse to hire her because she is a woman. The establishment’s message is loud and clear: There is no place for you in this profession. Give up.

​She refused to accept that norm. If no one would give her a seat at the table, she decided to build her own.

​In a massive act of defiance, she scraped together what she had and, in 1967, opened her own law practice... becoming the first woman in her province to do so. She didn't just practice quiet law; she actively fought the system, taking on the dangerous work of defending anti-apartheid activists and challenging the injustices of the regime.

​Her rebellion against injustice couldn't be contained to one country. Years later, sitting as a judge on an international tribunal for Rwanda, she pushed boundaries again... playing a pivotal role in the groundbreaking ruling that recognized systemic assault and severe violence as weapons of mass eradication.

​Yes, that young woman who was told there was no place for her in the law... was Navi Pillay, the trailblazer who would go on to become the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. And her relentless, lifelong pursuit of global justice and international law just reached a historic pinnacle... she was awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.

​Looking at a life like hers forces us to look inward. Why are we so accepting of the situations around us, and our default responses to them? When faced with an unfair system, a closed door, or an outdated norm, why do we so often bend to fit the shape of the room?

​Is it only the system? Or can an external system truly keep us suppressed without our own inner agreement to that suppression?

​Is this what a young Navi is truly asking us through her life?

Source: Noble prize press release

✨Ishavasya Upanishad , Verse 6

यस्तु सर्वाणि भूतान्यात्मन्येवानुपश्यति ।

सर्वभूतेषु चात्मानं ततो न विजुगुप्सते ॥

Transliteration:

यः = One who; तु = indeed; सर्वाणि = all; भूतानि = beings; आत्मनि = in the Self; एव = alone; अनुपश्यति = sees; सर्वभूतेषु = in all beings; च = and; आत्मानम् = the Self; ततः = then; न = does not; विजुगुप्सते = feel disgust.

Translation:

One who sees all beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings, feels no disgust toward anyone.

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When the verse says at the end as a conclusion that “feels no disgust toward anyone”, its indicating towards a target - “sameness” which is not only referring to “similarity” here, but also being “one” with all the beings. That is the target where the verse is aiming at! 

Obviously it’s referring to a state which currently one is not in contact with because currently we are here.. and we are right now not established in being one with all.. right? And also if that “oneness” would have been the present condition, then it wouldn’t have been the “target” where the verse is pointing towards. So, therefore surely it’s something which hasn’t been reached yet.. but holds a potential as a possibility.

So, start from where you are! Start from right now..

The verse is saying “Strat from near, not far!” 

Start from the ego self - ie., Who am I? - The ego!

Later, it may turn out  that the ego is not there or hollow.. but, right now who are you - "the ego."

So whatever ego can perceive, its definitions are always related to boundaries. Therefore being an ego, one can’t “bypass” these boundaries. We are right now also speaking from within that ego boundary only. Maybe we are hallucinating.. who knows? But, that is our reality as a fact right now. Isn’t it? And in this hallucinating dream, we suffer.. Therefore while remaining in the dream, one cannot discard the dream. If we analyse the pattern in which this verse is written, then its designed in such a way so that the reader/seeker can “approach” the saint as a “target” via this verse and therefore, the starting point then can’t be the target itself. One can’t approach the saint being the saint itself.

Two possibilities are always there for the ego as two extreme ends: 

1. self preservation 
2. self liberation

The ego can be located anywhere between these ends, but it can never stay in any of these extreme ends fully forever. For eg. even when you are intoxicated, you are not fully lost. Somewhere deep within, you can still feel that light.. the light of “detoxification” that stays awake.

So, what is this semi-awakened state which you can refer to as ego’s dream here? What is it? It’s a self-referential closed system which no-one else apart from you can certify. Only the dreamer knows it. But for the dreamer, it’s completely real.

So, the ego is a special class/category wherein it’s both “real” & “un-real”. 

Does the ego exist? - Well! Yes it does.. Does the ego do not exist? - Well! Yes it does not. Neither does it exists.. nor does it don’t exist!

And once the ego slowly starts moving away from its dream, it gradually starts perceiving itself as hollow.

Therefore, the ego is not to be dismissed as “ontologically absent”. It’s a new ontological category altogether which exists and also do not exist at the same time.

So, now if you analyse the whole verse “One who sees all beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings, feels no disgust toward anyone”, you have to remember the golden rule which is applicable to all the verses whenever you want to analyse them and ie. to ask yourself after looking at the verse that if it's at all said, then “For Whom? & By Whom?”

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So now, there are 2 levels of Separation defined in this complete verse:

  ‣ 1st Level ~ Psychological (which gives meanings, stories & narratives).

  ‣ 2nd Level ~ Physical (which deals in forms).

➖ The 1st level of Separation is completely psychological which you can correlate with the framework’s “psychological ego” concept. Some part of our own identity is linked to this. The ego is saying “I am the owner of the pen. You take this pen away and something inside me will break..” It feels like an inner loss to the ego. It’s the “psychological ego” which is creating this difference here. When the psychological ego retreats, material becomes material.. no narratives or stories remain.. no differences remain. One stops seeing the difference where there’s not. This “oneness” do not superimpose differences. This is the first kind of Liberation wherein one perceives events as events.. some event will surely happen and will keep on happening - but not to the ego.. not to me!

When the verse says “One who sees all beings in the Self”, it means now the ego cannot separate between material and material. The body is still there, but its differentiation tendency to make differences is gone. Now cloth and cloth is same for you.. but, there is no ‘brand 1’ cloth and ‘brand 2’ cloth which are two different things with different narratives for you. The narratives associated with them has dissolved. Now, “truth” has been separated from "false".. and as there is infinite false which is still remaining, so now you don’t want to waste further time in separating “false” from “more false” as its gonna be endless then.

➖ The 2nd level of Separation is when the verse says “and the Self in all beings”. You can correlate this separation with the “physical ego” concept of the framework. Till now we said that “object 1(material 1)” and “object 2(material 2)” are allowed to have separate existence right? We said that yes the options in the form of varied materials/objects will be there.. but it will be just that the psychological narrative/story which the ego associate with them will vanish - so that was what we defined as to be the 1st level of separation. We said that “Yes! the stories associated with the perceived objects have vanished, but I can still see innumerable differences.. it’s just that they have become inconsequential now”. But, what the verse is pointing out here is even more brutal.. it’s even more piercing! Its saying that “‘object 1’ and ‘object 2’ are granted independent existence until the body has independent existence” ie., even this difference is perceivable by me because the body is there into a particular physical form. If the body wouldn’t have been there, then no differences would have remained.

Because the ego takes ‘its body’ as real, that’s why it also takes the “universal objects” as real. Otherwise all the objects you see will loose the authority they have. For eg. instead of a real mug, if a projected imaginative mug is imagined by me here in this blank space right now, then I can give equal amount of importance to that imaginary projection as well.. because at the end, it resides to my memory only as a story right?

So, now you can sense to analyse a bit that whatever we see could be nothing but just an “apparition” ie., it all appears but not necessarily real.. just a phenomenon you see!.. A kind of laser show where the wall is just apparated as a barrier made out of some unknown high-tech technology and that’s why maybe the hands are getting stuck? Well! Who knows? We don’t!! 

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That’s why the framework do not touch the domain of “physical ego”. Because it will be absurd to do so.. to comment on something which is not perceivable. That’s why the framework deals with liberation from the “psychological ego” only. Because thats what is sovereign to the ego.

But, that’s also true that once the psychological ego retreats, the physical ego also subsides gradually in understanding. One lives.. but, one also know a bit that it's all not what it is appearing exactly to be. It’s all just happening to me.

These rules which the verse is trying to express doesn’t just apply to spiritual stories but to all the stories in life. Everything that is happening is a story which you need to study like a mirror! Life itself is a great teacher.. provided you don’t look life as an object but as a phenomenon experienced by you. It’s “your” presence which is living all these stories. Life is otherwise dead.. but you gave it life by your presence.

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👉🏻 Do you think we truly live as lively beings or we just project death in our lives instead?

The above question from the Gita Exam is portraying one of the famous quotes of Swami Vivekananda where he stated that the world is a grand moral gymnasium in one of his lectures on Karma-Yoga, which was delivered in New York in the winter of 1896. 

The exact full text which he quoted was “The world is a grand moral gymnasium wherein we have all to take exercise so as to become stronger and stronger spiritually."

It’s a very different perspective to analyse the world when compared to the spiritual teachings of other famous spiritual teachers who were then present along with him in his era. Even now when we usually perceive spirituality, we think that the “world” is something to be ignored of.. or something to get detached from. It rarely strikes our mind that we can even use this world in a right way and still seek our spiritual learnings. Maybe true spirituality isn’t about leaving worldly stuffs.., but to actually understand and make use of it rightly. 

If we seek AP Framework’s teachings under this context then, it also does not recommend to step aside from the world. But instead, it talks about the potential possibility of a “vertical axis” - an ascension wherein one is not prescribed to leave any relationship with worldly objects.., but to ascend one’s consciousness making right relationships to those objects.

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💡What do you think Swami Ji is trying to express through his quote? 

Did he mean “The hardship in the world is proportionate to your readiness - the more prepared you are, the more resistance you're given” as Option A suggests, or did he mean “One don’t move into a gym and live there, instead use it and leave” as Option B suggests?

Or do you think “The world should be treated as one's home once a person learns to use it correctly” as Option C suggests?

Even Option D “The world only serves those who consciously choose to treat it as training rather than as reality” is sounding to make sense..

Or maybe the last Option E “The world is full of friction, obstacles and people who oppose you. That friction isn’t malicious; it is precisely what builds strength” is correct?

Even multiple options can also be correct!

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👉🏻 Do select and write your assumed answers in the comment section below!

*Note: I will soon write the correct answers via my comment after getting sufficient responses. 

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Source:  The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 1

Aattam (The Play) is a Malayalam psychological drama-thriller. The story follows Arangu, a tight-knit theater troupe consisting of twelve men and one woman, Anjali. The film begins when after a successful stage performance the troupe spends the night at a resort. The next morning they find that Anjali has left without informing anyone.

When finally her childhood friend and a troupe member, Vinay contacts her, Anjali tells him that she was groped by one of the group members while she was asleep at the resort. Anjali suspects Hari , a popular film actor in the group. Though she hadnt seen his face, she had found his car keys which he had dropped outside her window while making his getaway.

Vinay calls for a meeting of the 12 men at the house of the troupe leader, to inform them of the incident and figure out what to do next.They decide to expel Hari from the group.

While they are preparing the letter, Hari calls the leader to inform him in confidence that his producer friends have invited Arangu for a 3 month paid performance tour in Europe.

Now the 12 men find themelves in a delimma. If they expel Hari, they will have to say goodbye to the Europe tour too! As they talk through the night, hidden agendas, ego clashes, self-preservation and misogyny surfaces. The details are re-examined and it becomes clear that the evidence against Hari is faulty and any of the men could have been the culprit. The film shifts focus to the collective failure, hypocrisy, and toxic masculinity of the entire group as they try to sweep the issue under the rug to protect a lucrative upcoming European tour. Anjali, whom they all profess to care for very deeply is asked to forgive and forget.

The film exposes the hypocrisy & self interests that always lie dormant in a group, till they don't!!!

The central question is : why we accept everything is fine, when we ourselves are not alright from within?

It raises another deep concern. Can we truly help another without self-knowledge?

As I watched the movie, even I felt teeny tiny bit that after all the Europe Tour is a huge opportunity which should not be wasted. But the twist in the tale was that Hari was playing a prank on the troupe. They later discover that there never was a tour!

Anjali leaves the troupe and the film ends with her directorial debut of the play with the same plot. Poignantly all 12 men are wearing masks and unlike real life, one masked man does step forward to confess. Anjali stops him, saying "It doesn't matter who you are. Yoù an̈d the rest are one and the same".

Has anyone seen the movie? Would love to hear your take.

I’ve been learning tennis for quite some time now, and there’s one thing I’ve realized earlier, I used to feel that I already knew how to play tennis.

But the more serious and deeply I’ve started learning it, the more I see that I actually don’t know anything yet.

And there comes a point when it feels like I’ve probably reached my limit how much more can there really be beyond this? It feels like I’ve already done everything there was to do.

But then a kind of dissatisfaction also arises within“Is this it? Is this all I’m capable of?” And then the mind says, no… do more. Keep going. Keep learning.

Maybe this is the most beautiful thing about learning the more you learn, the more you realize how much there is still left to learn.

Part 21

ETHICS AND RELATIONS

Compassion

Seeing another's suffering clearly, knowing, from one's own self-knowledge, that the sufferer is not ultimately the fixed, bounded ego they take themselves to be, and acting to demonstrate this. Compassion does not validate the ego while reducing its suffering; it addresses the source of suffering, which is the ego itself. Without self-knowledge, compassion collapses into mercy.

Mercy

Acknowledging the sufferer's reality, validating their suffering, and working to reduce it without disturbing the egoic structure that generates it. Mercy is kind. It is also, in the long run, incomplete. It treats the symptom. The framework does not dismiss mercy; it notes its limitation: mercy can relieve, but only compassion can dissolve.

Teacher

A mirror and catalyst for the student's ego-thinning. The teacher does not confer liberation; they facilitate conditions in which the ego can encounter itself honestly. Authority is extended to the teacher incrementally, based on the student's continuous assessment of whether this relationship is genuinely serving their dissolution. The teacher's role is complete when the student no longer needs it.

Student

An ego devoted to its own dissolution. The devotion that appears to flow toward the teacher is, correctly understood, the ego's devotion to its own freedom, reflected toward the teacher insofar as the teacher serves as its instrument. As the ego thins, the teacher-student duality dissolves: the voids become similar, and what was a relationship of guidance approaches a common ground.

__________________________________________

Q - how can compassion and mercy differ in our daily practical life ?

Q - Why doesn't a real teacher fit our definition of teacher and what are the consequences of it ?

The comment section is all open ,share what stuck you today .

​

Life is a climb in which you have to keep going up continuously.

Once you conquer one challenge, take up an even bigger one ahead.

Whatever the purpose may be, life itself must not come to a halt.

Exercise for the body

Spirituality for the ego

~ acharya Prashant

When students started studying away from home

Today, if a student goes to another city to study, the first question is, “Where will I stay?”

But this question is not new. As universities developed, there came a time when students began travelling away from their homes and towns to study. In medieval Europe, at educational centres like Oxford, arrangements for such students to stay gradually began to develop.

Where did students live at Oxford? There is evidence of teaching at Oxford as early as 1096. Around 1190, a student named Emo from Friesland arrived there, considered the first known overseas student at Oxford.

At that time there were no hostels as we know them today. Students lived in small groups in inns and lodging houses. In other words, those who came to study had to find their own place to live. Then came the ‘halls’

By the 13th century, academic halls started to develop at Oxford. These were places for students to live; over time, some also developed shared routines and academic features, such as meals, discipline, and teaching. Hart Hall was one such example. In the 1280s, it was set up as a lodging house for students. Many such halls existed in Oxford at that time.

It wasn’t only about convenience; it was also a city problem. With the growing number of students, tensions between local townspeople and students also increased. According to Oxford’s history, conflicts between “town and gown” in the 13th century hastened the establishment of organized halls of residence.

These halls were part of the background from which colleges developed. Between 1249 and 1264, the early colleges like University, Balliol, and Merton were established.

So today’s hostel didn’t just appear out of nowhere First, students started coming from outside. Then they needed a place to stay. Living spaces gradually began to include shared study and routines.

They evolved into more organized halls. And later, residential colleges developed from medieval halls and endowed houses. Today’s hostels and PG accommodations are not direct descendants of Oxford’s halls, but they respond to a similar need: giving students a place to live while they study.

The history of student accommodation shows us something else as well: when a real need arises, humans create new structures to respond to it. There was a need for accommodation for students coming from far away, so halls of residence developed. Over time, study, discipline, and communal living also became part of some of them.

But what new need stands before us today? True education doesn’t happen only in the classroom; it happens in the entire ecosystem. Where a student lives, whom they live with, and the kind of environment they get, the hostel is also a part of that education. So the question is: are our hostels really becoming a part of this ecosystem of right education? If the living space is good but there is no education to understand the ‘self’, is the education truly complete?

Education is not just the accumulation of information, but the capacity to see the right thing at the right time. This also made me think about a question I’ve come across in discussions of self-inquiry: how much of education helps us examine our own minds, desires, and choices?

Today, which kind of education do you see as the greatest need around you?

A. Only syllabus and formal education

B. Education for employment and practical skills

C. Education for living better in society

D. Education to understand one’s own mind, desires, and choices

E. Education in Vedanta, which offers a way of examining oneself

Sources: Historical details are based on the University of Oxford’s history page and Hertford College’s account of Hart Hall.

I got to know about this song, “Javeda Zindagi,” through a discussion I came across, and since then I’ve been hooked.

I might have ignored it earlier, thinking of it as just another romantic song. But after listening to it now, some of its lines hit very differently, especially in light of what I’ve been learning:

शमा को पिघलने का अरमान क्यों है?
पतंगे को जलने का अरमान क्यों है?
इसी शौक़ का इम्तिहान ज़िंदगी है।

Why does the candle long to melt?
Why does the moth long to burn?
Is life the test of this very longing?

The more I listened, the more I thought about something I’ve repeatedly encountered in sessions about self-inquiry: reduction/dissolution ,the loosening of the identity we are constantly trying to protect.

How love is the willingness to be reduced.🍃

We usually think of love as getting something: attention, affection, security, companionship, validation. The “I” wants more and more: more importance, more control, more certainty, more of my way.

But what if love moves in the opposite direction?

What if love means becoming willing to let some of that “I” go?

Not self-destruction, and not sacrificing yourself for someone else. Rather, seeing that the very identity we keep trying to protect can itself become a burden.

And maybe this is where life becomes a matter of choosing.

Again and again, we get to choose:

Do I choose what strengthens the old me, or what reduces it?

Comfort or truth?
My image or honest seeing?
Immediate pleasure or something deeper?

There is no final choice after which the work is over. The ego can understand something today and return with the same demands tomorrow.

And perhaps that is also why the song feels so different to me now.

Because love isn’t simply a feeling that happens to us.

It can also mean choosing not to make everything about “me.”

The real question life keeps putting before us is simply:

What will you choose this time?

It’s an astounding fact that animal agriculture takes up to 80% of the world’s agricultural land and provides just 18% of the world’s calorie needs. Yet most national policymakers tend to ignore it.

To fill this void, organisations like Plant Based Treaty and cities like West Hollywood, California are stepping up to sway their constituents’ eating habits and cut emissions. West Hollywood adopted the treaty in late 2024, increasing public outreach and organising community food events to help cut land, water, and carbon footprints.

The timing couldn’t be critical . Livestock are accounts for 30% of the greenhouse gas emissions and the way the world currently eats is enough to push warming past climate goals.

But it got me thinking - should climate really be the only reason to choose a plant-based diet?

I recently came across an insightful line by Acharya Prashant in his book Is She a Food to You?: “Turn vegan in your own self-interest. You’re not killing the other; you are killing yourself.”

It made me realize that environmental arguments only cover half the story. If we aren't alright internally, we will keep making choices that harm both ourselves and the planet.

When we already know what is right and what needs to be done, what is it within us that actually stops us from making the right choice?

How often do we feel comfortable being inwardly naked in front of anyone?

Physical nakedness is perhaps easier. You can remove your clothes, and there is nothing more to hide physically. Lovers do that all the time. But inward nakedness is much harder. To become inwardly naked is to allow everything that you have been protecting, your fear, confusion, attachment, helplessness, ignorance and self-image, to be exposed.

There is an interesting story about Duryodhana. Before the war, Gandhari asked him to come before her completely naked. Her gaze, through years of austerity, had the power to make his body as strong as iron. Duryodhana went to her, but even before his own mother, he felt embarrassed and covered his genitals. That was the one part of his body that remained vulnerable.

The story is about physical nakedness. But look at the parallel with Arjuna.

Arjuna is also a mighty warrior. He is standing in the middle of a battlefield, with everything that he has known about himself and his duty suddenly collapsing before him. He is afraid, confused, attached and helpless.

And yet, he does something much harder than removing his clothes. He becomes inwardly naked before Krishna.

He does not protect his image. He does not try to maintain the image of the great warrior who knows what to do. He does not hide his confusion or manufacture arguments to appear right. He simply exposes his actual situation before Krishna.

And this is precisely why Arjuna becomes the worthiest recipient of the Gita. Because he was able to become inwardly naked.

It could have been very different. Arjuna could have thought, I am Arjuna. I am a great warrior. What will Krishna think if I reveal that I am afraid, confused and unable to decide? He could have protected his image and continued to argue from that image.

But if Arjuna had been afraid of this inward nakedness, the Gita would not have happened at all.

The Gita became possible because Arjuna was willing to say, in complete helplessness, that he did not know. He stood before Krishna almost like a child before his father, without protecting himself from being seen.

This is why Arjuna's nakedness is harder than Duryodhana's. Duryodhana could not even become physically naked before his own mother. Arjuna was willing to become psychologically naked before Krishna.

And this nakedness goes even deeper than the physical body. Revealing one's clothes does not necessarily reveal anything. Revelation happens when what is within is no longer protected. Arjuna had this willingness. And perhaps that is why the Gita became available to him.

The question, then, is not merely whether we can remove our clothes. The much harder question is: can we allow ourselves to be inwardly naked?

This is a part of qawwali by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan based on Saint Amir Khusrau's poetry.

"It was the blessed night of union, I stayed awake in company of my beloved."

Light, sight, being awake are used in order to explain the truth. Because it's not really that something new has entered, just darkness has faded away.

"The body is mine but the mind belongs to the beloved."

Though self-preservation is my instinct, still how can I claim my dissolution to be my own doing? It's impossible. It's not done by me. I couldn't have been so brave, so it is grace, the higher possibility of mine.

The one who chose you is you.

It also suggests as long as there is body, this instinct would be there. And also the choice to dissolve.

"The two are of the same color."

When I saw myself honestly, I found out that my stories and narratives are false. With this seeing, my falseness started shedding away, and I started dissolving, until I got dissolved to my beloved. The beloved is nothing but the removal of my falseness. In a sense, me and my beloved became one.

"Love is the river whose current follows the other way."

Usual actions come out of self-preservation. This is not love. Love is when this instinct itself is rejected. Therefore all the social and cultural conventions based on the same instinct also meet the same fate.

"Whoever enters this river is drowned, the one who surrendered and sank, reached the other shore."

Only the one who showed enough courage to get into the stream, could reach the other shore. This is something that you can get only by drowning, by losing yourself.

"Having fashioned an image of myself, I went to my beloved. But when I saw the beloved's image, I forgot my own."

I had preserved myself when I went to him, I was such a miser. But when I willingly gave up myself, it was mystical. Beloved is not an image at all, he is the name of my own disappearance only. I got to know that I was my own bondage.

"You have taken away my identity, every mark of who I was, just by meeting my eyes."

I think the same thread is running in each sentence. This is a song that fits the ego that enjoys its own dissolution. Ego loving its dissolution means basically all the objects it possessed it is losing grip on those things that made it up. It's seeing its own falseness with pleasure that can be seen in the hymn itself.

Ego is 'I am X'. It is an incompleteness, that continuously identifies with xyz objects. On its own it is nothing. It can't say I am. Falling of ego is joy, because ego itself was suffering. This isn't absence pain, it's the absence of one suffering and therefore suffering.

I was also able to relate one quote to the song:

The highest thing in man is not his god. It's that in him which knows the REVERENCE due a god. ~Ayn Rand

This love itself is the highest thing in a man. It's that in him that loves his own dissolution. That is respectable. The dissolution of falseness, identity, and ignorance. A self that was likely to love preservation keeps giving up itself continuously.

Share your perspectives in the comments section below.

Sources:

AP Framework: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/ap-framework?did=d8f3ca08-f603-4882-9ef6-0180d51aeea0

I was reading the commentary of Acharya Prashant on this verse of Mandukya Upanishad and the framing of dualistic knowledge as ignorance is my key takeaway.

Mandukya Upanishad, Verse 7

नान्तःप्रज्ञं न बहिष्प्रज्ञं नोभयतःप्रज्ञं न प्रज्ञानघनं न प्रज्ञं नाप्रज्ञम्‌।
अदृष्टमव्यवहार्यमग्राह्यमलक्षणमचिन्त्यमव्यपदेश्यमेकात्मप्रत्ययसारं प्रपञ्चोपशमं शान्तं शिवमद्वैतं चतुर्थं मन्यन्ते स आत्मा स विज्ञेयः ॥

Construe: The fourth is thought of as that which is not conscious of the internal world, nor conscious of the external world, nor conscious of both the worlds, nor dense with consciousness, nor simple consciousness, nor unconsciousness, which is unseen, actionless, incomprehensible, not inferable, unthinkable indescribable, whose proof consists in the identity of the Self (in all states), in which all phenomena come to a cessation, and which is unchanging , auspicious, and non-dual. That is the Self; that is the to be known.

What is being talked of here is the knowing (of the Self) which transcends all the dualistic knowing in which there is a knower and the known object. The knower knows all about the object but does not know themselves. The 'Self' in the verse in itself can not be known directly but what is accessible to know is the self which accumulates all the knowledge.

The dualistic knowing creates a separation between the knower and the known object- because they are seen as different entities. The knower ignorant of him/herself do not know that they are made of exactly the same fundamental entities as the object under knowing albeit in different unique combinations giving the illusion of something essentially different.

When the dualistic knowledge drops because it seen as rooted in the ignorance of the knower, the knower is able to spontaneously know and respond. The response is not coming from memory and concepts but spontaneous knowing.

It is not to assert that all practical knowledge is useless but the sage in this verse is merely warning against identification with specific knowledge. To protect the knower from being dominated by the knowledge. Because the greater the knowledge, the greater the chance of being dominated. And thus self-knowledge which is knowing the knower becomes even more necessary. However, this spiritual knowledge should not become a replacement for the worldly dualistic knowledge but should remain a continuous practice.

This is the crux of spiritual knowledge. It keeps the dualistic knowledge at its place.

Have you read this verse of Mandukya Upanishad? What do you learn from this verse of Mandukya Upanishad?

Source: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books/book-mandukya-upanishad-english