The Admissions Scandal Parents: Guilty But Innocent

All parents want their children to have access to a solid education as well as a social and professional network to ensure a good start to their adult lives.  But how can otherwise intelligent individuals justify breaking legal and moral boundaries (more…)

Redefining Intimacy

  The natural desire for intimacy, whether platonic, familial, or romantic is a powerful driving force. However, a poor understanding of genuine intimacy can lead us to dependency and dissatisfaction. This blog is a brief introduction to the role of intimacy at (more…)

Consulting the Conscience

This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.1 This advice, given by Polonius to his son in Hamlet, provides a means to harmonize our relationship (more…)

Create the Space to Think

  Introduction The capacity to think, reason, and decide for oneself is the greatest freedom an individual possesses. There is no individual liberty without intellectual liberty. While this freedom is each one’s birthright, it is earned and not simply bestowed. When we fail to (more…)

Avoiding Regret: A Daily Practice

When you act in the world against your own conscience your mind becomes disturbed. The action rebounds and hurts you. You feel sorry for having acted thus. In reaction to your own action you suffer regret and remorse. An action creating (more…)

Self-control & Self-development

Acquiring the skills necessary for successful emotion regulation constitutes a profound developmental achievement. By adulthood, however, emotion regulation is no longer simply desirable, it is absolutely necessary for daily functioning.1 Discriminate vs Indiscriminate Living Intelligent, healthy self-control is a mark of human maturity. (more…)

Happiness & Higher Values

Throughout life, humans seek pleasure, peace, satisfaction. All of our activities target an inner sense of completion and contentment, of being in harmony with circumstances and oneself. However, observation of our own experiences reveals that the sense of contentment and harmony (more…)

Self-Development: Critical Thinking Matters

In our discussion of social evolution we need sometimes to remember that the very perfection of society must always appear as imperfection; for a highly developed society is dynamic. … A static society … is in a condition of arrested development; (more…)

Path to Pure Thinking

Save money on green juice… Detox your negative thoughts with the science of Vedanta. Why do we all strive for purity, for the ultimate cleanse or detox? What are we actually seeking? Vedanta tells us that we are seeking our own Self, the (more…)

Mechanism of an Ideal

As discussed in another post, an ideal is an essential aspect of self-development, and helps to draw us out of our immature, self-centered perspective. But what is the mechanism by which this ego-transcendence occurs? This can be explained by way of (more…)