ESSAYS

A deep Vedantic look at emotions: why humans need them, why the Self doesn’t, and how identification—not feeling—is the real source of suffering.

Why does the world look unhinged? Vedanta’s answer is unsettling: the world behaves exactly as something built on ignorance would behave. This essay unpacks how avidya unfolds into society — and how clarity changes our relationship with it.

A Vedantic exploration of the ethics and metaphysics of eating — from Joseph Campbell’s “life lives on lives” to Krishna’s universal vision of Time devouring all. Is vegetarianism a moral necessity, or just another veil of maya?

If everything is the Self, are animals and plants enlightened too? Vedanta explains the difference between awareness pervading all and awareness reflecting through living beings — why animals embody innocence, plants express life, and humans alone can recognize the Self.

A provocative Vedantic essay exploring why the world, with all its chaos and contradiction, is exactly as it must be. Through vivid thought experiments, it reveals that perfection lies not in goodness but in completeness — that even ignorance, suffering, and death are necessary conditions for experience itself.

Why does anything exist? Vedanta calls this the unanswerable question. Maya is inscrutable—neither real nor unreal, only apparently real. This essay explores why “why” itself collapses, and why freedom lies not in explanation but in awakening.

Many spiritual circles hope for a collective awakening — a golden age when society itself becomes enlightened. This essay shows why Vedanta denies such a possibility.

Suicide is often seen as self-hatred, but Vedanta reveals it as a distorted act of self-love — a longing to be free of pain. The Self, however, cannot die with the body, nor can suffering be ended through death. The Bhagavad Gita shows that despair can turn either toward destruction or toward inquiry. Vedanta urges us to see suffering not as a wall but as a doorway to knowledge, where the freedom we long for is discovered in the Self, untouched and whole.

Sex has always been a difficult topic for seekers. In the past it was hidden behind taboos; today it’s splashed across every screen. From masturbation to porn to homosexuality, Vedanta offers a perspective that cuts deeper than social norms. The question isn’t whether sex is good or bad, but whether it binds us or leaves us free.

A companion to “What is Evil and Why Does it Exist?”, this essay explores how fascism arises when tamas and rajas overwhelm sattva, why Ishvara’s order permits such darkness, and the dharmic responsibility that falls to witnesses in resisting it.

Where did matter come from? Modern science claims consciousness arose from inert particles, but this leaves the “hard problem” unsolved: how can atoms think? Vedanta flips the question: matter is an appearance in consciousness, sustained by māyā. Why it appears at all is ultimately inscrutable.

We ask why human civilization should continue as if the universe owes us an explanation. But every answer we reach for—progress, beauty, morality, awakening—is just a reflection in the mirror of the human mind. The deeper we go, the more the question unravels. And maybe that’s its purpose: not to be answered, but to be unasked.

We often assume that intelligent people must also be wise—but history, experience, and spiritual insight say otherwise. This essay explores the difference between intelligence and wisdom through a psychological lens and a Vedantic perspective, revealing why the two are not only different, but often at odds.

Karma theory in Vedanta is not the final truth—it’s a compassionate provisional teaching. It explains life’s seeming unfairness while slowly preparing the mind to outgrow the illusion of a separate self. Ultimately, Vedanta reveals that you were never the doer, never born, and never in need of becoming.

Ignorance is not the absence of knowledge—it’s the presence of misperception. In Vedanta, ignorance (avidyā) is what makes us mistake a rope for a snake, or the body for the Self. This essay explores the subtle but pervasive force that distorts reality, and how knowledge—not belief—dispels it.

Consciousness, according to Vedanta, is not an object to be discovered in the brain or a fleeting mental state—it is the ever-present, unchanging witness behind all experience.

What is truly “good”? Vedanta challenges our assumptions, tracing goodness beyond pleasure, morality, and karma—ultimately revealing it as our true nature: the limitless, unchanging Self. Explore dharma, desire, happiness, and spiritual freedom in this deep philosophical essay.

This essay explores the concept of evil through the lens of Vedanta. It posits that evil arises not from inherent malevolence but from ignorance and misperception (maya) that distort one’s understanding of reality.

Enlightenment is often imagined as a mystical event or permanent state of bliss. Vedanta tells a different story—one in which liberation is not an experience to be gained but the removal of ignorance through Self-knowledge. This essay dismantles common myths, examines why they persist, and outlines the traditional path to genuine freedom.

While Vedanta and science might not describe the universe in the same terms, both agree that the universe exhibits an intelligence and that the material stuff of the universe can be described in terms of smaller components, forces, and information combining to form objects.