Practical Spirituality

​How can we bring goodness into our passionate services?

Is service done in passion service or is it just self-gratification?

​Your worst enemy is inside you and so is your best friend

​While practicing bhakti, how can we avoid losing interest in our work?

Criticized? Clarify, counter – or ignore? (Subhashita commentary)

Understanding the mind through tech metaphors

If we are to be detached from results, how can we motivate ourselves for our work?

​How can we know when we are ready for taking vanaprastha?

​How to respond when our family members get spikes of desires?

If we tolerate the spikes of desires, won’t those repressed desires return more forcefully in future?

​What can we do if we can’t serve in a selfless mood?

​Should we avoid worrying or should we take anxieties for Krishna’s service?

​Should we see that our sufferings are arranged by Krishna?

How to avoid thinking about eating food while offering bhoga?

Is the goal of commitment to please Krishna or to penetrate through the initial poison?

How can we know whether our resolutions are based on our mind or our intelligence?

Should we stick to commitments even if doing so makes our life unbalanced?

Is the initial poison in spiritual life same for everyone?

​Can hypnosis be used to help us better focus our mind in bhakti?

​While doing anything, isn’t it better to have plans B and C instead of closing the doors to all options?

In the conflict between the mind and the intelligence, who decides?

​How to deal with the feeling that the class is meant for others?

​Is humility practical in the professional world?

​How can we avoid pride while using our talents in Krishna’s service?

​What is the stage between self-pity and ego?

​Does chanting with humility mean to think I am doing this for Krishna?

​Is begetting children a duty to one’s ancestors?

​How can we balance humility with self-confidence?

​Is it right to kill large quantity of grass to cultivate one plant or grain?

​Why should we avoid speaking points just because they are unpopular?

​Should we improve the material skills needed for service or improve our consciousness?

Why are only services done in the temple, and not activities done in the home temple, considered as seva?

How is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s example of practicing bhakti applicable today?

How can we do our best in both spiritual and material life?

The Meaning of Vyasa Puja – “He came, he gave, he conquered”

Self-destruction Strategies 5 – See your work as Maya

​What to do if I don’t feel emotions for Krishna naturally, but only after contemplation?

​When intellectual level is higher than sensual, why are intellectual devotees still attracted to sensual pleasure?

​How can an intellectual practice bhakti without becoming intellectually deviated?

​Should devotees rigidly force people to take to Krishna consciousness?

How should we behave with non-religious people?

Self-destruction strategies 4 – Let guilt come between you and Krishna

Self-destruction strategies 3 – Treat the peripheral as the essential

Self-destruction strategies 2 – Be a perfectionist

How can we guide people who find chanting 16 rounds impossible?

Self destruction Strategies 1 – Mistake self-pity to be humility

Aversion to commitment is not detachment

How we defeat ourselves – and how we can stop doing so

How can we understand which qualities are good and which bad?

How to avoid becoming indecisive when encountering different advices from different people?

How can we avoid being misled by people who are confident but wrong?

Why don’t we like the good and dislike the bad?

How can we live in the present alone without learning from the past or preparing for the future?

How to respond when things go wrong?

How can we know ourselves well enough to make wise choices with lifelong consequences?

How can we better execute our plans?

How to persevere despite our failures in following standards?

How can we differentiate between the mind’s voice and the Supersoul’s voice?

Praise and the praiseworthy (Subhashita commentary)

Learning to live with the mind – 2

How can we harmonize our inclination with higher instruction while serving?

How can we develop the mood of serving Krishna in everything we do?

​How can we avoid ego while doing what we like to do?

How can we avoid indulging in a thing while thinking negatively about avoiding it?

How can we give bhakti to beggars and other poor people?

Can enterprising devotees open devotional schools for offering both material and spiritual welfare?

Does a culture of free mixing among genders make bhakti impossible to practice?

​How can we avoid pride while giving spiritual knowledge to others?

​Learning to live with the mind 1 – Gita 6.27-36

​How can we know when we have endeavoured enough and should now wait for mercy?

Should we strive for perfection in our service?

Won’t doing service in contaminated consciousness license the contaminating influences?

If we do a service in contaminated consciousness, will that service contaminate others too?

​If I don’t have much time to write, how can I write?

​Can we extend our life by medicines?

Should we study scripture deeply and slowly or rapidly to get an overview?

​Should we always seek devotional stimuli with the mind?

​Should we chant while feeling separated from Krishna or while feeling that they are in front of us as the Deities?

​When we perceive that we are different from our thoughts, how do we infer who we really are?

Practicing humility in a culture of promotion

​How can we balance brahmana and kshatriya roles?

​How can we connect to people’s emotional concerns without diluting our message?

What does the regulative principle no illicit sex mean?

Can we chant slowly if we find that absorbing?

Does chanting progress from uttering to hearing to visualizing Krishna’s form?

​What spiritual bliss can we have as sadhakas – how is it different from sattvika happiness?

​How can we share our realisations without coming off as proud?

Should we make ​​blanket statements first and then teach nuances?

​How can we sustain our resolutions?

​Can we just take shelter of bhakti when nothing solves our problems?

​Can phala-shrutis be used to attract people looking for material benefits?

​When even after chanting we still have problems should we tell others chant and be happy?

​Should we preach about the material benefits of bhakti given in scripture?

​Are we meant to reject the mind or to engage it?

​If we shouldn’t identify with feelings, why are we told to identify with devotional feelings?

Should wives conduct themselves in a way that their husbands don’t look elsewhere?

When children don’t have intention to practice bhakti, does giving them devotional samskaras help?

​How do we invest emotions in whatever we do?

​Why do we feel enthusiastic initially in bhakti, but later that enthusiasm goes away?

How can we increase our commitment to Krishna?