Questions people ask Premanand Ji Maharaj
These are the questions devotees actually bring to satsang: anger, sleepless nights, a difficult marriage, money, a job that swallows the day, an illness, a death. Below are 26 of them with answers drawn from what Maharaj Ji has said publicly over the years. If yours is not here, add it at the bottom and we will answer it and publish it.
Last updated 31 August 2026Answers, not quotations
Maharaj Ji speaks in Hindi, at length, and rarely gives the same answer in the same words twice. So nothing below is presented as a verbatim quote. Each answer is our summary of the position he has taken consistently in public satsangs, written plainly enough to act on today. Where he sends people to a doctor, we say so rather than spiritualising it.
This page is not medical, psychological, legal or financial advice, and submitting a question here does not reach Maharaj Ji or the ashram. If you are unwell or in crisis, please speak to a qualified professional first. Maharaj Ji himself sends people to doctors.
Mind and emotions
How do I control my anger?
Maharaj Ji does not treat anger as a thing to suppress. He treats it as heat that arrives because something you wanted did not happen. His instruction is to catch it at the start, before the sentence leaves your mouth, and put the naam there instead. Anger that is not fed with a second thought burns out in seconds. Anger that is argued with grows.
My mind never stops. How do I stop overthinking?
He says the mind is not your enemy, it is untrained, and an untrained mind will chew on whatever you hand it. So stop handing it the problem at two in the morning and hand it the name. Not as a trick to fall asleep, but as a habit built over weeks. The mind takes whatever it is given repeatedly, which is the whole reason japa works.
I have anxiety and fear about the future. What should I do?
Fear about the future is the mind rehearsing a scene that has not happened and may never happen. His answer is not reassurance that things will go well, because he does not promise that. It is that you are not the one carrying the load, and that the practice is to do today's work properly and leave tomorrow where it is.
Can bhakti help with depression?
He speaks about heaviness of heart often and gently, and he tells people to keep chanting even when nothing is felt, because feeling is not the measure. He also sends people to doctors. He has never treated illness as a failure of faith, and nothing on this page should be read as a reason to stop treatment or delay seeing a professional.
How do I deal with loneliness?
By changing who you consider yourself to be alone with. His answer to a devotee who says nobody is with me is that the naam is with you, and that a person who has the name in the mouth is never in an empty room. He also, practically, tells people to sit in satsang, because company changes the mind faster than resolve does.
Why do I feel jealous of other people's success?
Because you are measuring your life against a life you cannot see the inside of. He turns this one around: contentment is not the reward for getting what others have, it is the practice that makes the comparison stop mattering. Envy dies of neglect, not of argument.
Family and relationships
Should I leave my family to do sadhana?
No, and he is unusually firm about this. He left home himself at thirteen and still tells householders to stay householders. Family, job and duty are the field where the practice is tested. When a young devotee raises the idea of walking out, he treats it with suspicion rather than encouragement.
My marriage is difficult. What does Maharaj Ji say?
He tells both people to do their own part completely and stop keeping accounts of the other person's part. Most of what is called a marriage problem, in his telling, is two people each waiting for the other to change first. Someone has to stop waiting, and the one asking the question is the only one in the room.
How do I raise my children with sanskar?
By being what you want them to become, because children copy what is done and ignore what is said. He suggests keeping the naam audible in the house, keeping the evening simple, and not making devotion a punishment. A child who sees a calm parent learns more than one who is lectured.
My parents do not support my devotion. What should I do?
Do not fight them over it. He says devotion that creates conflict at home has misunderstood itself. Chant quietly, serve your parents better than before, and let the change in your behaviour make the case. Argument hardens people; conduct does not.
How do I forgive someone who hurt me badly?
He separates forgiveness from approval. Forgiving is not saying what happened was acceptable, it is refusing to carry it any further. He points out that the person who wronged you has usually moved on, and you are the only one still paying rent on the memory.
Work, money and study
How do I stay spiritual while working a full time job?
By not treating them as two things. His instruction is to do the work fully and honestly and offer the result rather than clutching it. Naam japa needs no seat and no hour, so it runs through a commute and a lunch break. The job is not an obstacle to the practice; it is where the practice is proved.
Is it wrong to want money?
No. He does not romanticise poverty and he does not tell householders to give away what their family depends on. What he warns against is money as the measure of a life. Earn honestly, spend without cruelty, give quietly, and do not let the number become the reason you exist.
I am a student and cannot concentrate. Any advice?
Fix the routine before you fix the mind. Sleep at a fixed hour, keep the phone out of the room, and start the day with a few minutes of japa so the mind begins settled rather than scattered. He treats concentration as a by-product of discipline, not as a skill you can acquire directly.
How do I give up mobile addiction?
He is blunt that the phone is eating the very hours in which sadhana would fit. His practical answer is substitution, not willpower: put the mala where the phone was, keep it out of reach for the first and last hour of the day, and accept that the first week will be uncomfortable.
Practice and sadhana
How do I start naam japa? Do I need initiation?
You need nothing. No initiation, no fee, no fixed hour, no posture and no minimum count. Take the Radha naam today, in whatever language you think in, while walking or cooking or travelling. He is explicit that the name is not gated behind anyone's permission, including his own.
How many rounds should I chant daily?
He is more interested in continuity than in the number. A count you keep every day beats a large count kept for a week and abandoned. Start with what you will genuinely do tomorrow as well, and let it grow on its own rather than by resolution.
I feel nothing when I chant. Am I doing it wrong?
No. He says feeling is not the measure and that the dry period is part of the road, not a detour off it. The instruction in that stretch is simply to continue. Practice done without emotion still counts; practice abandoned because of no emotion does not.
Do I need a guru to progress?
The tradition values the guru highly and he speaks of his own guru, Shri Hit Gaurangi Sharan Ji Maharaj, with great regard. But he does not tell people to wait for one before beginning. Start the naam now. He also warns plainly against anyone who sells guidance or promises results for a fee.
What is the best time to do sadhana?
The early morning hours, before the day makes its demands, are the traditional answer and the one he keeps. But he immediately adds that the naam is not restricted to that window. The best time is the one you will actually keep.
Should I read scriptures or just chant?
His own instruction to a new seeker is never a reading list. Begin with the name; let study follow the practice rather than replace it. Scripture read by a person who chants lands differently from scripture read by a person collecting information.
Suffering, loss and faith
Why do bad things happen to good people?
He does not offer the comfortable answer. He treats difficulty as the field where devotion is either real or decorative, and he speaks from years on the ghats at Varanasi with nothing arranged in advance. His point is not that suffering is deserved, but that it is not evidence you have taken a wrong turn.
I have lost someone I love. How do I bear it?
He does not rush grief and he does not tell people to stop crying. What he offers is that the relationship is not ended by the body ending, and that the naam is something you can still do on their behalf. Grief handled with the name in the mouth is still grief, but it is not alone.
I am seriously ill. What should I do?
See your doctor and take your treatment. He has long standing kidney illness himself and has spoken about it openly, and he has never told anyone that faith replaces medicine. Alongside treatment, he says the naam is available in a hospital bed exactly as it is anywhere else.
Does chanting actually change anything, or does it just make me feel calmer?
He would say the calm is a side effect and not the point. The change he describes is slower and structural: the gap between something happening and you reacting to it gets wider, and in that gap you get a choice you did not have before. People around you usually notice it before you do.
My faith keeps wavering. Is that a failure?
No. He treats wavering as ordinary rather than shameful. The instruction is to keep the practice running through the doubt instead of waiting for certainty to return first. Certainty, in his telling, arrives behind the practice and not in front of it.
Ask a question
Send your question and we will answer it from the teachings and add it to this page. Nothing is charged, your email is never published, and this does not reach Maharaj Ji or the ashram.
Looking for something else?
Questions about his life, the ashram, darshan timing and how to meet him are answered on the FAQ page. The teachings page has the longer explanations.