1715: Is Self-Care Making Us Less Happy?
Wisdom of the Sages
Self-care culture tells us to treat ourselves, embrace our flaws, and obsess over our inner world—but the research on happiness points in the opposite direction. In this episode, Raghunath and Kaustubha explore how bhakti-yoga reframes humility and self-esteem, and why real relief comes from realizing you are not the body, the mind, or the story you’ve been defending. With humor, psychology, and ancient wisdom, they reveal how service, purpose, and spiritual identity dissolve anxiety and comparison—and then pivot into the to Srimad Bhagavatam’s Kāliya-līlā, where the residents of...
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1714: Karma Doesn’t Chase You—It Waits
Wisdom of the Sages
A French poet once observed that we often meet our destiny on the very road we take to avoid it—and history seems to agree. Using Napoleon’s failed attempt to conquer Russia as a striking example, Raghunath and Kaustubha explore the deeper logic of karma: why running from discomfort rarely works, how unprocessed lessons repeat themselves, and what the Bhāgavatam offers as a radically different strategy. Instead of fleeing fate, this episode invites us to welcome what comes, stop wasting energy on avoidance, and experience how spiritual growth begins not with escape—but with acceptance...
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1713: Can the Angels Lift Raghunath’s Spirits on Christmas Eve?
Wisdom of the Sages
Christmas Eve hits different when life feels fractured: broken family emotions, grief, longing, and that uneasy feeling that the world keeps taking what we hoped would stay. Raghunath and Kaustubha let it get real. can Kaustubha cheer up a very Fonzie-alone-with-a-can-of-beans Raghunath—using Christmas carols, classic lyrics, and bhakti logic as the rescue plan? Can they, together, reframe Christmas through a bhakti lens: holidays aren’t just celebrations, they’re yogic instruments—designed to interrupt the daily trance, soften the heart, and pivot us from self-centered survival to...
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1712: The Look of Love: Seeing Reality Through Bhakti
Wisdom of the Sages
Bhakti-yoga doesn’t ask us to escape the world—it shows us how to set it right by placing love at the center. This episode begins with a “zoomed-out” perspective on human conflict and confusion, then pivots to a vision of reality grounded in three distinct expressions of divine love. Through a sequence of luminous verses, the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam reveals a theology in which the soul of the universe is present and personal, reciprocating heart-melting love through the songs of His friends, the shy glances of the girls of Vṛndāvana, and the protective, affectionate care of His...
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1711: Why Vrindavan Bhakti Feels So Alive / Discussing Love & Lineage
Wisdom of the Sages
In this episode, Kaustubha shares deeply moving stories from his recent Vaishnava Scholars’ retreat in Vṛndāvana—revealing why Vrindavan bhakti feels so alive and unmistakably different. Through encounters with Goswamis and sacred lineages, visits to the Rādhā-vallabha and Rādhā-ramaṇa temples, and time at the mystic Tatiyā Sthān—where the “soft sand” of Vrindavan is worshiped by off-the-grid sādhus—a vision of devotion emerges that isn’t driven by rules or rituals, but by intimate love that captures Krishna’s heart. With warmth, humor, and insight, Raghunath and...
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1710: Amazon Prime Spirituality
Wisdom of the Sages
When devotion becomes a transaction, spiritual life starts to thin out. In this episode of Wisdom of the Sages, Raghunath and special co-host Pranapriya Devi Dasi explore how bhakti deepens not through bigger offerings or louder effort, but through listening, responsibility, and presence. Drawing from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, stories of karma and mercy, and everyday struggles with anxiety, chanting, and family life, the conversation points to a quieter truth: spiritual growth begins when we stop managing outcomes and start showing up with sincerity. A grounded, humorous, and sobering reminder...
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1709: Knowing the Price, Missing the Point
Wisdom of the Sages
Netflix has a price, but what’s the cost of what it does to you? Raghunath and Kaustubha riff on Oscar Wilde’s brutal truth—people know the price of everything and the value of nothing—and trace how modern consumption can quietly make the mind coarse, restless, and spiritually numb. They then turn to the 10th Canto of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, reading radiant verses of Kṛṣṇa’s Vṛndāvan pastimes—scripture meant to purify the heart and elevate consciousness from crude appetite to the highest spiritual taste. Drawing from Bhagavad-gītā 2.57 and Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s...
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1708: When Vedānta Becomes Poetry: Kṛṣṇa’s Footprints in Vṛndāvana
Wisdom of the Sages
Bhakti moves like a river between union and separation, carrying the devotee through remembrance, longing, and love. In this episode, Raghunath and Kaustubha explore spiritual experience as it naturally unfolds in devotional life—through divine arrangements, moments of ecstasy, and the quiet ways sacred places awaken the heart. As the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam describes Vṛndāvana, Kṛṣṇa’s footprints are said to make the land auspicious, showing how even a trace can hold both presence and absence at once. Here, Vedānta appears in its most beautiful and poetic expression, where bees,...
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1707: Is a Monk Really Deeper Than You?
Wisdom of the Sages
Is a monk living in a temple necessarily deeper than someone living an ordinary life in the world—or could it be the other way around? In this episode, Raghunath and Kaustubha explore that question through Brother Lawrence’s realization that you don’t have to leave ordinary life to find God—you only have to bring God into ordinary life. That insight opens directly into the stunning conclusion of Krishna’s childhood pastimes in the Tenth Canto of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, where after humbling Brahmā with cosmic revelation, Krishna returns to the simplest childhood games, revealing...
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1706: Einstein, Bhakti-Yoga & the Delusion of Consciousness
Wisdom of the Sages
Einstein called it an “optical delusion of consciousness.” The yogis call it forgetfulness of the Self. In this episode, the illusion of separateness gets dismantled—from modern physics to the sacred Bhakti texts—revealing how the love of enlightened people doesn’t shrink to “me and mine,” but expands to everyone. Traveling from Japan to the banks of the Gaṅgā in Rishikesh, Raghunath and Kaustubha unpack radical teachings on love and life. Listen to explore the idea of expanding the sense of self as the key to freedom from fear, loneliness, and the prison of “me and mine.”...
info_outlineKaustubha Interviews Krishna Kshetra Swami (Dr Kenneth Valpey) on the specialty of the Srimad Bhagavatam and the importance of the reoccurring theme of hospitality found in its narratives.
Find his upcoming course at
https://ochsonline.org/course/bhagavata-purana-sacred-text-tradition/