The ego would rather be right than happy.

labeling a person (or even a place) as having “negative energy” is a way of avoiding responsibility for your own inner state. I would argue that shifting this paradigm is crucial for one’s spiritual life.

Acting on the basis of love is inherently nourishing.

Without the alignment of view, practice, and fruit, the spiritual path doesn’t accomplish anything of substance. For many people, that doesn’t really matter, since spirituality is basically a hobby for them, even if they wouldn’t say so.

Considering this, it is incumbent upon you to do some self-inquiry: Is your attempt to change any given behavior based in love or self-hatred? Here’s a clue: if your striving to change is hard and effortful, if you beat yourself up for perceived failures in that process and need acknowledgement for perceived successes, it’s almost definitely based

That feeling of rightness might be accompanied by some fear of the unknown because pratibhā often leads us beyond the domain of what we think we know. It’s normal to feel apprehensive when following the pull of pratibhā.

If you want to communicate and connect effectively, whenever you say, “I feel _______,” make sure you fill in the blank with an actual emotion, not a disguised evaluation of the other person’s

In conclusion, if you are investing energy in growth and change out of love for yourself and others and out of the desire to express that love in beneficial ways, then not even a little effort goes to waste, as Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gītā. But if your attempts to change are based in veiled self-hatred, you might cause more harm to yourself

It’s possible to reach a point where there are either no self-images left or the ones that remain are so thoroughly enervated that one simply can’t be bothered to waste any energy on defending them. They become nothing more than inert thoughts floating on the ocean of consciousness like so much driftwood. With nothing left that needs justifying or