The Great Awakening: Why India’s Young Students Hold the Key to Our Civilizational Renaissance

Just a cursory search on Gemini yielded some interesting numbers. This is neither 100% accurate nor is it a comprehensive survey. But that is not my point.

Crores of young people, let us say 10 crore (a random number) spend 16 years of their lives going through our current education system. Let us take high school onwards for our calculation – that is 9 years. Assuming they spend 100 hrs per month on homework, projects, assignments etc it comes to 1200 hrs per year and over the 9 years it comes to 10,800 hours. Now multiply this with that 10 crore and you get a mindboggling number!

One wonders how much of that homework, project work, assignments etc results in actual skill development, learning and intellectual growth. I am sure some of it is helpful. But having interviewed hundreds of students over the years, this work is mostly boring drudgery, and the students do not enjoy it. Yet, they simply must go through the grind in order to get that piece of paper at the end.

Have we lost all our intelligence and imagination? And have we lost our compassion? And commonsense?

Two Critical Questions

(1) Why are thousands of successful, smart and intelligent parents okay to make their kids go through this senseless grind?

(2) And there is a great opportunity (a beautiful silver lining) in all this – why is no one is seeing it!

The Buffalo Watching Itself Being Eaten Alive!

Now, take a city like Bengaluru. You have a mini-India there and probably the highest number of tech millionaires, engineers, doctors and professionals of every kind. Some of the smartest people in India live in Bengaluru.

Yet, no one has been able to solve the problems of a modern metropolis bursting at the seams and growing without any plan, sense or direction. Worst is no one cares other than offloading their frustration on X! We have become so immune to it.

Have you seen videos of lions eating a buffalo alive starting from its rump – the buffalo helplessly watches as the lions have their fill. We are doing the same.

How About We Marry the Two Problems?

Instead of letting our kids waste precious years of their lives just to get their grades, why not put that energy, imagination and intelligence to work – on solving key and critical problems plaguing the country?

I have been making this point in every forum or platform where I am invited to speak and also in various conversations with kindred spirits who are interested in doing something about our education system, our infrastructure governance, public policy etc.

Also, our educational system was designed to create workers for the factories. And while we have made significant changes to the curriculum and much more is being done, we still need to address four important things:

First, the Pedagogy. I keep harping on this and recently I conducted a retreat where I got a chance to test out a pedagogical method I have developed.

Second, giving direction, purpose and meaning to the curriculum and the whole educational effort of 16 + years.

Third, marry that purpose with the needs, aspirations and goals of the nation.

Fourth, align both the goals of the nation and the educational system with the ideals of Rta, Satya and Dharma (and Nyaya).

Education as Defense Expenditure

Another idea is to bracket the spend on education as part of our defense expenditure. Defending our culture through providing the right kind of education is an important part of defending the sovereignty of the country. You let the culture slip away and the whole nation becomes weak.

Only when the education is focused on preserving, propagating and enriching the ancient culture of our nation will we have the possibility of developing leaders who are civilizationally grounded, know their history, live their culture and understand the value of the freedom we fought so hard to earn.

Also, if you look at what is happening all over the world, it is even more important for us Indians to realize, understand and appreciate our own ancient culture and civilization and to protect it against all attempts to appropriate it, damage it and sully its reputation.

Dharmic Innovation: Not Innovation That Creates New Problems

All things considered it is very important for India to install and develop a culture of creativity and innovation that will help us become self-reliant. But not innovation of the kind that solves one problem and creates a hundred others.

I have discussed this earlier in my article titled, “The Dharmic Dilemma in Tech.” Our method and process must be aligned with Satya, Rta and Dharma. It must be Dharmic Innovation that:

1. Does no harm

2. Does positive tangible and large scale good

3. Does not give birth to new problems

4. Does not exploit the vulnerabilities of people or planet

5. Does not disturb the natural balance between different aspects of nature

What Can Dharmic Innovation Do for Our Education System?

By introducing a focus on dharmic innovation from the school level we can rejig our educational system:

(1) We produce generations of critical thinkers, problem solvers and inventors.

(2) We groom dharmic innovators who bring a new approach to science and technology.

(3) We enrich science itself by incorporating ideas from other streams of knowledge such as Alankara Shastra, Natya Shastra, Nyaya and Yoga.

(4) We reorient a significant portion of the energy of our demographic dividend towards creative problem solving, innovation and nation building.

(5) We teach whole generations of young Indians from diverse fields of study to work together, collaborate in interdisciplinary teams and innovate to create products, services, methods, systems and processes that help India advance, become resilient and contribute positively not only to the country but to the whole world – we have always thought of the whole world.

(6) We combine the creative energies of the engineering, arts, science, commerce and humanities students to create explosive, exponential possibilities that the human mind has not even thought of.

Imagine This…

Engineers who are exposed to art, linguistics and commerce.

Commerce students who are exposed to engineering, science and tech.

Science students who are trained in Shastras.

Gurukula students who are working on the cutting edge of dharmic AI.

Some of this is already beginning to happen. More is yet to come.

The Question I Hear a Lot –

“Why has India not produced a Meta, a Microsoft or a Google?”

I have some detailed thoughts on this which I will share at a future time. I am happy we did not create Meta. I am happy we did not create products that exploit the vulnerabilities of the human mind and land young children in the loony bin.

Let me put it simply: the only way to sustain an unsustainable idea and drive for consumption is to jack up human desire to unsustainable levels and keep it going that way. That is exploiting the vulnerability of the human mind which associates and conflates sense gratification with the true and permanent state of bliss which one already is but is being constantly led away from it in a wild goose chase.

Dharma stands in stark and direct opposition to this exploitative paradigm.

Anyone who understands the basics of human psychology as explained through IKS will naturally and easily and necessarily arrive at the same realization.

That is why we need dharmic enterprises which see their own good and growth and sustenance and thriving in the good, growth, sustenance and thriving of human beings, society and the planet. Which requires a dharmic Rajya or state and state policy which is dharma compatible, dharma oriented and dharma based. Consequently a dharmic economy with dharmic economic—ashtalakshmi based metrics and indicators for a holistic economic system whose objective is to allow every human being to achieve Purushartha.

The Indian mind is fundamentally dharmika—to a large extent. The consumption driven behaviors we see are externally engineered with great effort and expense. So marketing has to become dharmic.

First culture and cultural knowledge has to define a sustainable lifestyle for individual, family and society and the industry has to create products and services that support and sustain that sustainable lifestyle. Current industry is focused on disrupting an otherwise sustainable culture and lifestyle.

Venkatesha Murthy, Founder and Chief Mentor of Youth for Seva, puts it beautifully:

“Responsible consumption is not just about buying what’s on sale or what looks appealing. It demands a deeper awareness, a practice rooted in the Dharma, that guides us to live in harmony. Before acquiring anything, ask yourself four questions:

(1) Is this good for me as an individual, nourishing my health and well-being?

(2) Is this good for my family and the society around me, nurturing relationships and community bonds?

(3) Is this good for nature, respecting where it comes from and where it will go after use?

(4) And finally, does this choice support my spiritual growth, connecting me to a higher purpose and the greater whole?”

This is the kind of framework we need. Not just for consumption, but for innovation itself.

We already had an Ayurveda informed sustainable lifestyle. Eat what is local and seasonal. And follow the circadian rhythm. Modern economy and lifestyle is at odds with the knowledge of Ayurveda. Which is based on Rta.

How many take pride in the thousands of beautiful, thoughtfully designed and built ancient temples (some of them 1000+ years old) which continue to fulfill their purpose today long after the original builders are gone? Thousands may visit these temples but very few understand the technology, the impact and the implication of such grand temples still standing today and fewer even understand how they can be used for raising human consciousness. These are too advanced for even the current scientific minds to understand.

But What About Real Innovation?

And consider this: isn’t yoga itself an innovation? A technology?

Yoga is something so vast, so powerful, so deep that the world hasn’t even scratched its surface. Billions practice asanas, yet this represents perhaps one percent of what yoga actually is. The technology of consciousness transformation. The science of inner exploration and knowledge. A complete system for human evolution that works across cultures, across centuries, across every possible human condition.

What about Ayurveda? A medical system that treats not symptoms but root causes. That sees the human body as inseparable from mind and consciousness. That recognizes individual constitution rather than applying one-size-fits-all solutions. Modern medicine is only now beginning to understand what Ayurveda has known for millennia.

The nature, purpose, and quality of Indian innovation cannot be understood through the lens of modern day tech. We measure innovation by market cap and user growth. Bharat measured innovation by how many generations it would serve. By whether it elevated consciousness. By whether it created harmony rather than disruption.

But here’s what excites me: Bharat has the potential to create tech, modern tech that will be powerful, benefit mankind and yet be dharmic. Tech that doesn’t exploit but empowers. That doesn’t extract but enriches.

And it’s beginning to happen. Right now. In pockets across the country. Young innovators who understand both their civilizational roots and cutting-edge technology. Who see no contradiction between ancient wisdom and modern capability. Who are building the future on foundations laid thousands of years ago.

The Time Is Coming Soon

India’s knowledge, science, mathematics, art, spirituality and so on continue to provide work to modern scholars, scientists and inventors (whether they acknowledge it or not).

But Bharat is not done. It is just getting started.

The time is coming soon – when India will once again give mind-blowing innovations, inventions and discoveries to the world. India’s contributions won’t be innovations that create billionaires while destroying societies. They’ll be dharmic innovations. Innovations that heal. That balance. That elevate.

This transformation begins with education. With recognizing that crores young minds spending 10,800 hours on meaningless work represents the greatest waste of our most precious resource. With choosing to redirect that energy toward problems that matter. Toward solutions that last. Toward innovations that serve not just profit but purpose.

Do read and share your thoughts and reactions. I am eager to hear them.

The post Tapping The Yuva Shakti first appeared on Vinay Kulkarni.

Let me explain.

All the mischief in the world stems from conceptual happiness ideas that have been marketed to us from early childhood—by all the people around us who wanted to preach their own limited beliefs. These conceptual frameworks prevent you from experiencing life as it is, as it happens and flows. And hence we miss opportunities to experience pure, unadulterated, and untainted phenomenal happiness which has no form or shape, no definition and no fixed version. It can come in any form, any time, for any reason. We can experience it only if we allow ourselves to be in the flow—to flow with life instead of spending all our time analyzing. When Bill Moyers asked Joseph Campbell if we are all looking for the meaning of life, he said, “No! We are all looking for an experience of life!”

Conceptual happiness is what you were taught to chase—happiness that had a definition, a form, function, shape, color, and description. From kindergarten bulletin boards to corporate boardrooms, it has always had a clear definition. It comes with a checklist. Success. Fame. Recognition. Approval. Accolades. The right house. The right degree. The right number of likes on a social media post. It’s clean, boxed, and marketed in shiny wrapping paper.

But it is also second-hand.

Phenomenal happiness, on the other hand, is raw, unshaped, unbidden. It has no definition, no category. It cannot be predicted or pursued—it simply arises. You are walking barefoot on wet grass and suddenly, something inside you breaks open into laughter. You hear a tune from your childhood and your heart lifts. You pick up a book and land on a page in the middle, and the world disappears. That is phenomenal happiness. It is not a goal. It is a gift—offered only when you stop trying to be happy and simply show up to life as it is.

Too much left-brain logical thinking and forcing oneself to experience life through secondhand concepts and ideas is probably the root cause of all misery. It is the condition of the hunter who ignores all the prey in front of him and goes looking for that golden musk deer. He does not realize it may just be urban legend—just a made-up story from someone’s imagination. Why not use our own imagination? But the chains of mental conceptual bondage are very strong and very many and very hard to break, especially when you do not know how many of them are tying you down.

All the mischief in the world comes from the tyranny of conceptual happiness.

It is a mischief that begins early. By the time we are four, we are told what happiness looks like. By the time we are sixteen, we’ve internalized these ideas so deeply that we no longer see the world; we only see what we were taught about the world. This is what I mean when I say we live life through second-hand concepts. And this—this disconnection from reality, this compulsive filtering of experience through ideas—is, I believe, the root cause of our misery.

The left brain, for all its gifts, has hijacked our perception. It doesn’t let you play the game—it only wants to analyze it. The sad result is that we miss the sheer, pulsing nowness of life. We don’t see the sunrise; we evaluate it. We don’t feel the joy of music; we compare it to other music. We don’t experience love; we assess its future. We do not live. We strategize, conceptualize, optimize—and in doing so, we anesthetize. We create all these concepts in our mind and soon they become the walls of a self-created prison—we reject what life throws at us because it does not meet our definitions of love, success, quality, whatever. In the end, we may never know what someone really meant to say, whether someone really loved us, whether someone really meant to harm us, and so on. We may not even know what is good for us… but we certainly judge everything based on some ideas that are never tested or examined. So sad!

We have spent too many years worshipping the ideas that came from other people’s minds, while doubting the ones that sprang from our own. In my own experience, the deepest truths, the most luminous thoughts, have always visited me when my mind was in communion with something beyond—beyond logic, beyond tradition, beyond even language—the infinite source of everything. Call it silence. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the moment I stop believing that truth must be validated by others to be real, I become free.

This reminds me of the first essay that I enjoyed reading—Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance. I found it as a teenager at the Indian Institute of World Culture, one of my favorite havens growing up. I didn’t understand all the words then, but I understood the music.

The essay begins with these two quotes:

“Man is his own star; and the soul that can render an honest and a perfect man, commands all light, all influence, all fate; Nothing to him falls early or too late. Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, our fatal shadows that walk by us still.”
~Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher’s Honest Man’s Fortune

And another:

“Cast the bantling on the rocks,
Suckle him with the she-wolf’s teat,
Wintered with the hawk and fox—
Power and speed be hands and feet.”

Emerson says: Trust thyself. And yet how few of us do. Most of us are too busy living as echoes—repeating the values of our teachers, the ambitions of our parents, the dreams of society, the morality of our religion, and the desires of advertisers. We fear being misunderstood. We fear being alone. We fear breaking the pattern.

But to be great, Emerson writes, is to be misunderstood.

His essay Self-Reliance is a fierce call to arms—a reminder that our first thought, our private conviction, is often more universal than the inherited wisdom of the ages. He says every man is a cause, a country, and an age. That our duty is not to conform, but to become. That we must stop asking the world for permission to live.

And we are so scared of saying the wrong thing, making the wrong choice, attracting ridicule and criticism. We need to overcome this fear.

Quoting Emerson again: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today.—’Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’—Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?” We may have to give up the quest to be understood and also to understand everyone. It may not be worth it! Those who want to will understand, others may not even want to! Nothing should be too strained or forced. Some things are best allowed to happen organically.

It’s almost eerie how Emerson’s words echo those of Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Arjuna, trembling, confused, and heartbroken, is us. Krishna, serene and luminous, simply says: “Do your duty. Live your Swadharma. Be who you are. The rest is noise.” (paraphrased).

So much of what we call “the pursuit of happiness” is simply running away from ourselves. This pursuit is an alien idea. And all the philosophies in the world are meaningless if they don’t bring us back home—to our breath, our heart, our moment. When we are kids we are in the here and now and we are happy in just being ourselves and enjoying whatever is happening at the moment. The mistakes begin to creep in when we first learn to set goals from others. Inadvertently we end creating a concept of happiness which is achieved when those goals are achieved. What if we are taught dharma at this moment. What if we had learned to do things because they needed to be done, for everyone’s benefit. And we would do it in a state of happiness. We are just happy doing things that simply need to be done for everyone’s benefit. The moment you create the idea of “individualized” happiness is when perhaps the second mistake happens! So 1) Tying happiness to an outcome and 2) Tying it to an outcome that I like or prefer even though it may not benefit others and 3) Choosing to define it in black and white terms based on someone else’s notions or beliefs and finally 4) Describing an unfavorable outcome as a sad failure – and all this without really understanding the process of “Sristi.”

There is nothing more you can get from the outwardly gaze, it makes more sense to turn our gaze inward—where all the mystery lies and all the answers.

And it is thus that I have come to realize that I must carefully analyze my every belief, notion, concept, mental model and study myself—study my own thoughts, my own actions and reactions, my own emotions and emotional responses to external stimuli. Observe what attracts me, what disgusts me, what causes delight and what brings trauma. This is indeed the most interesting research project in the world. My God! There is so much to study and learn. And how much joy it brings—the knowledge of self and the knowledge of “the” self. This is the real university. This is the Ph.D. I never pursued. And oh, what a fascinating curriculum it is! The syllabus changes every day. The classes are in session 24×7. And the only examination is: Are you awake? Are you aware?

That is why my guru always says, “Aap Ko Dhyaao, Aap ko Bhajo, Aap Mein, Aap Ke Ram, Aap Banke Rehete hain” ( “Meditate on your self, worship your self, Your Ram dwells inside you as the self”) Oh, how much peace and tranquility it brings—the simple act of removing attention from the objects and focusing it on the subject which is me. Forget the scenery and focus on the seer. It appears God has hidden all the secrets of the universe at the tip of my nose!
No lab is more profound than your own mind. No microscope more powerful than attention. And the best part? The more you look, the more you discover that there is nothing in you that is not also in the stars. Worship yourself—not in arrogance, but in reverence. For within you is Shiva. Within you is the witness. The still point. The seer of the scenery.

Happiness, it turns out, is not something to be chased or achieved. It is not in the destination. It is in the undisturbed presence at the center of your being. It is in the smile that arises when you’re not trying. It is in the moment when your breath deepens for no reason at all.
Forget the scenery. Focus on the seer. God, I believe, has hidden the secrets of the universe at the tip of your nose. In the one place you’ve never truly looked!

So, I must goad myself to pause. And look again.

You are not here to live a conceptual life—either your own or someone else’s. Happiness that hangs at the end of a long process that you are pushing yourself to go through may not be happiness at all. In fact, the idea of happiness that needs to be achieved may itself be an illusion. You are not here to perform for an audience. You are here to experience. You are here to taste the juice of this moment, raw and unfiltered. We are here to feel the phenomenon of being alive.
Just be here now. Just be. Do not resist the reality that is bursting forth. Let it flow. Through.
 

The post The Raw and Unfiltered experience of Life first appeared on Vinay Kulkarni.

There are books you read to gather information. There are books you read to find inspiration. And then, once in a while, you stumble upon a book that reads back to you. Reading such a book feels like a sadhana in itself, especially because every chapter ends with a suggested meditative practice. This is a clear indication of the focus and emphasis on Sadhana by the author.

Dr. Ishan Shivanand’s The Practice of Immortality is not the story or the work of an academic or a scholar from an premier institute in India or abroad. It is not the voice of someone who read Indian texts in translation while sipping green tea at Cambridge. This is the story of a real-life monk—meticulously prepared, groomed, trained, and shaped from childhood by his father Avdhoot Shivanand Ji, to carry the light of Sanatana Dharma into a modern world of noise and numbness. A monk who has been nurtured by the Aravallis and Himalayas, matured in ashrams, forests, gaushalas and sacred rivers—and who has now stepped into boardrooms, universities, and hospital corridors with equal ease. I have watched this evolution from close quarters over the last 10 years. I have to say this young monk has squeezed every drop of juice from every second of every hour of every day of the last 10 years – working relentlessly in the pursuit of his goal of helping good people become better all over the world (this is not an exaggeration).

This is not the polished storytelling of a Hemingway or a Naipaul. This is the raw, earthy, visceral, deeply human autobiography of someone who has actually walked the path. Someone who has bled on it. Who has stumbled, fallen, risen, and walked again. A monk who was not crafted through marketing, but through the sheer dent of his tapasya and sadhana. In a day and age when most of the 1.4 billion Indians continue to be colonized in their minds, Ishan is like a breath of fresh air with the tejas, ojas and varchas of a true “son of the soil” yogi who is comfortable in any attire, in any setting (rural, urban, corporate, medical – you name it) and in any country. He has inspired and animated the spiritual imagination of people of all age groups and from all walks of life from all continents (www.ishanshivanand.com). His childhood was spent in various parts of India including Alwar, Lucknow and other places – rural, moutainous, desert areas in a true gurukula – where his own father was his guru. He grew up as just another student amongst many and went through rigorous sadhana of various dimensions over many years. This monastery was his school, college and university. And often the gentle, noble, humble and divine cows of his ashram were his companions.

And you feel that in every page.

A Book that Breathes and Talks

The book is structured in short, powerful chapters—each with poetic titles like “Drinking the Poison of Ego,” “The Balloon Tied to Your Toe,” and “From Destruction, a Seed Grows.” Each chapter begins with a Sanskrit shloka or an Indic quote—deeply anchoring the wisdom in Bharatiya tradition. And each chapter ends with a practice—a small meditation, a breathwork suggestion, or a contemplation. Between the quote and the meditation is a story that captures Ishan’s spiritual encounters and growth.

In that sense, this is not a book for your bookshelf. It’s a book for your meditation room.
The chapters don’t follow a fixed doctrine or formula. They unfold like petals—gently but unmistakably guiding you inward. First comes the story—rich, lived, emotional. Then the insight—never didactic, always discovered. Finally, the practice—an invitation to apply it.
This is not information. This is transformation.

This Is Not That…

Let me be clear. This is not the story of a billionaire who gave up his Lamborghini for 10 days of silence. This is not the memoir of a Western-trained coach who dabbled in Vedanta and now offers “tantric abundance coaching.” This is not about building a following on Instagram with moody pictures of prayer beads and waterfalls.

This is not borrowed wisdom. This is embodied truth.
This is the lived journey of a monk who was born into a lineage of yogis. Who trained under a Siddha. Who was taught by saints and sadhus. Who learned from the rising sun and ripening mangoes. Who spent years in solitude and then stepped out into a chaotic world filled with ignorace, delusion and suffering—not to enoy it, but to serve it.

He has spoken at Ivy League universities, top hospitals, and Fortune 500 companies—but he never forgets that his roots lie in Bharat, in dharma, in seva. His social media following didn’t come from hype—it came from the healing that he has brought into the lives of millions.

The Balloon Tied to Your Toe

Let me pause here and speak of one chapter that hit me particularly hard—Chapter 10: The Balloon Tied to Your Toe. It begins with a parable:


“There was once a man who had to sleep in a dormitory with 100 strangers. Afraid he would lose himself in the crowd, a monk offered a solution: tie a balloon to your toe. In the morning, find the person with the balloon, and that’s you.”

But during the night, a mischievous monk moves the balloon.

And the next morning, the man wakes up, sees the balloon on someone else’s toe, and begins to cry, “That’s me!”


The story is deceptively simple. But the commentary that follows is razor-sharp

“Ego is the man with the balloon on his toe. Because we have not answered the question, ‘Who am I?’, we cling to the fallacy that the balloon must be me.”


And what are these balloons? Our degrees. Our titles. Our jobs. Our family names. Our beauty. Our achievements. Our religion. Our social media bios. Our projections.

“Instant gratification and the approval of others can be the enemy of immortality,” he writes.

Through this chapter, Ishan lays bare the traps of identity. He shows how even spirituality becomes corrupted when used to inflate the ego. And then, softly, lovingly, he guides us back to the path: not by shaming the ego, but by unmasking it.

The chapter is a masterclass in deconstructing identity. It doesn’t shame the ego. It reveals it. And then gently, but firmly, shows us how to outgrow it

Each chapter is built like a meditation in three parts:

A sutra—a thread of insight from the “Siva Sutras”, “Bhagvad Gita” or from his Guru’s Teachings
A story—usually from the author’s own lived experience
A practice—what he calls samadhi, not as a lofty goal, but as a lived experience of stillness

This rhythm—thread, story, stillness—becomes the book’s real power. You don’t rush through it. You breathe through it.

The path of Shiv Yog

Not the yoga you think you know.

Let me be clear: this is not the yoga of contorted poses and influencer aesthetics.
This is yoga as it was meant to be—therapeutic, integrative, and transformative.

Ishan Shivanand’s lineage-based teachings emphasize Kriyas, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi, Seva and Sankirtana (meditative chanting and singing) — not as abstract ideas but as daily disciplines for navigating the chaos of modern life. This is Yoga of realizing your true nature – eternal, expansive, infitinite. The way to become one with the source of creation itself. Discovering your true identity and acting out of that knowledge. A lineage that carries the wisdom of Dattatreya, Parashuram, Gorakhnath, Matsyendranath, Adi Shankara, Agastya Mahamuni, Lopamudra, Acharya Abhinavagupta, Vasishta Maharishi and Rishi Markandeya.

But what stands out is how non-performative it all feels. You’re not being asked to become someone new. You’re simply asked to stop pretending to be someone you’re not.

The mirror and the window

There’s a beautiful moment in the introduction where Dr. Shivanand shares a lesson from his guru: A piece of glass can either be a mirror or a window. A mirror shows you only yourself. A window shows you the world. Most of us are stuck looking into mirrors, looping within our small selves. This book, if you let it, helps turn that mirror into a window—through which you glimpse your own vastness.

The focus on Anubhava

What makes this book powerful is that it is not theoretical. It’s lived. Each sentence breathes the air of ancient shrines and global cities alike. From meditating in the holiest of sthalas to taking dips in sacred rivers across the world, to serving in some of the most remote and forgotten corners of the planet—Dr. Ishan’s life is a testimony to what mastery of mind, body, and spirit actually looks like.


And yet, the language remains humble. Approachable. Personal. For instance:


“Even the greediest child learns to wait just one more day for perfection.”
— On waiting under a mango tree, and learning the rhythm of ripening


Or this moment of spiritual memory:


“Now I understood why my father was wearing white… In my culture, white is the color worn at the time of death.”
— A meditation not on fear, but surrender


This book is deeply devotional too—offering glimpses into the author’s love for Mahadev, his worship of Lalithamba, his surrender to his Guru, and his unwavering dedication to Rashtra, Vishwa, and Dharma.


And at the heart of it all, what truly shines is the emphasis on sadhana. Dr. Ishan is not a philosopher with opinions—he is a practitioner with direct experience. The practices he shares aren’t borrowed or imagined; they come from decades of training, austerity, and inner realization.

A note of caution: Readers seeking a quick “how-to” guide might find the book too poetic or slow. There are no lists, no hacks. But to see that as a weakness is to misunderstand the nature of this work. Its strength is its pace—each word asking you to pause, reflect, and breathe.

Snippets and Small Stories from the book

1. The Mango Tree Meditation
In one chapter, a young Ishan and other children visit an ancient mango tree every day in the summer, eagerly checking to see if the fruit has ripened. They learn to wait—not because someone teaches them to—but because nature does. It’s a simple but profound lesson in divine timing.

“We all learned to wait just one more day. Even the greediest child did.”

2. The Crow That Woke Him Up
One day, Ishan is sitting at his desk, lost in daydreams of the time he received shaktipat. Suddenly, a crow appears and screeches at him—waking him from his trance like Kakkbhushundi, the divine bird-sage of Indian lore. He looks down and finds scriptures his father left for him. The message is clear: it’s time to move from dreaming to doing.

“The crow, like Kakkbhushundi himself, had come to wake me up


3. Meditation on Death
In Chapter 5, his father walks into the meditation hall dressed in white. He announces that they will meditate on the final journey—death. It’s not a moment of sorrow, but of immense peace and spiritual insight.

“Now I understood why he was dressed in white. In our culture, white is worn at the time of death.”

The honesty here is rare. Most spiritual books skip the fall. Ishan shares it—fully. Both his mistakes and his triumphs. His victories and his failures on the spiritual path. And that makes it more relatable.

A Structure that Mirrors the Inner Journey

The structure of the book is not linear—it is cyclical, like sadhana itself. It begins in purity, moves through complexity, confronts shadows, and returns to light.
Each chapter is like an upāsana. You sit with it. You breathe it. You reflect. You don’t read this book. You walk it.

This is your intro to spirituality

What makes The Practice of Immortality extraordinary is its utter lack of pretense. It’s not trying to be smart. It’s trying to be true.

Dr. Ishan Shivanand gives you practices. Not theory, but therapy. You start where you are.

“Jab Jago Tab Savera” as his guru often says.

In Conclusion

We have for years consumed translated, often distorted ideas, concepts, methods and practices that were shipped out, packaged and shipped back to us. Now, with this book, we have the opportunity to hear the true story of an authentic Indian monk.

This is not just the story of a monk. It is the journey that each one of us can take, must take. It is a journey that you can use to inspire your son or daughter or any young person that you know and want to help.

Read the book, practice the meditations.

Shubhamastu! Shubhavagali!

ॐ सर्वेषां स्वस्तिर्भवतु ।
सर्वेषां शान्तिर्भवतु ।
सर्वेषां पूर्णंभवतु ।
सर्वेषां मङ्गलंभवतु ।
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥

Om Sarveshaam Svastir-Bhavatu |
Sarveshaam Shaantir-Bhavatu |
Sarveshaam Puurnnam-Bhavatu |
Sarveshaam Manggalam-Bhavatu |
Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||




 

The post BOOK REVIEW first appeared on Vinay Kulkarni.

 
In the vast landscape of human experience, success is often defined by material achievements, societal recognition, and the pursuit of goals. This definition propels countless individuals into a relentless chase, believing that fulfillment lies somewhere beyond their current state. However, the timeless wisdom of the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Ashtavakra Gita, Avadhuta Gita, Kashmir Shaivism, Shiva Sutras, and other ancient scriptures offers a radically different perspective: success is not something to be achieved; it is an inherent state of being. This article delves into various definitions of success, distills insights from ancient teachings, and ultimately settles on a profound, effort-free definition of success rooted in the eternal bliss of the Self.
 
 
The Conventional Definitions of Success
From the earliest days of human civilization, success has often been tied to external accomplishments. Wealth, power, influence, and intellectual mastery are frequently viewed as hallmarks of a successful life. Modern thinkers like Steve Jobs emphasize passion, perseverance, and the ability to endure hardship:
 
“You’ve got to have an idea or a problem or a wrong that you want to right… Otherwise, you’re not going to have the perseverance to stick it through.”
 
This perspective highlights the value of determination and effort, presenting success as the result of a journey through challenges. Similarly, Paramahansa Yogananda equates success with sustained effort and alignment with divine will:
 
“Your success in life does not depend only upon natural ability; it also depends upon your determination to grasp the opportunity that is presented to you.”
 
While inspiring, such definitions imply that success lies in the future, creating a perpetual pursuit. This idea, though empowering, often leads to dissatisfaction, as the goalpost of success keeps shifting.

Key insight: By the time a person begins to think, a very tall and deep foundation of pre-digested, undigested, cooked, uncooked thought has already been built in his mind. So, when he or she beings to think, the thoughts arise from this foundation, this substratum. The key building blocks which are full of half-baked assumptions, unverified “facts” and untested “theories” are already there. These are never brought out and examined under the sun. These are never revisited. 99% of the people don’t even know these things exist in their minds. They truly, honestly believe their mind is generating pure and original thoughts independent of this layer foundation of old thought material. I encourage everyone to take an earth mover and dig up these mounds of thought earth and see what you find. So for most people the definition of success does not come from inside, it comes from outside mixed with all that other junky thoughts using which their mind was actually constructed! So, they may be able to define success but they may not be able to tell you why they want that so bad!
 

 
 
Effort and Fate: The Teachings of Sage Vasishta
Sage Vasishta’s teachings offer a nuanced view of effort and fate. He describes fate as the cumulative result of past actions but asserts that present effort has the power to transform it:
 
“Present acts destroy those of the past life, and those of the past life can destroy the effect of present acts, but the exertions of a man are undoubtedly successful.”
 
He compares the struggle between fate and effort to two rams locked in battle, where the stronger one prevails. This philosophy encourages human agency and acknowledges the transformative potential of courage and diligence. Yet, it also cautions against despair when external circumstances seem insurmountable:
 
“As a hail shower lays waste the cultivation of a whole year, so also does predominant fate sometimes overpower the attempts of this life. However, it does not behoove us to be sorry at the loss of our long-earned treasure, for what does it serve to have sorrow for something that is beyond our control?”
 
These teachings emphasize balance: effort is essential, but surrendering to the flow of life is equally important.
 
The Inner Alignment: Swabhava and Svadharma
In the Bhagavad Gita, success is framed as alignment with one’s Swabhava (inherent nature) and Svadharma (duty aligned with that nature). Krishna advises Arjuna:
 
“It is better to perform one’s own dharma, even imperfectly, than to perform another’s dharma perfectly.” (Bhagavad Gita 18.47)
 
This wisdom underscores authenticity. Success arises not from external validation but from living in harmony with one’s intrinsic qualities. For example, a teacher’s success lies in imparting knowledge, while a warrior’s success lies in upholding justice. Swami Vivekananda echoes this sentiment:
 
“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life—think of it, dream of it, live on that idea.”
 
Such alignment leads to inner fulfilment, yet it still revolves around action and duty. Is there a higher state of success, free from even these subtle pursuits?

In the Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 18, Verse 14), Lord Krishna outlines five factors essential for the accomplishment of any action. These five factors emphasize the interplay between human effort, external circumstances, and divine grace:


The Five Factors of Success
1. Adhishthana (The Body):
The body serves as the physical foundation for performing actions. Without a functioning body, no action is possible, making it the first essential factor.
2. Karta (The Doer):
The individual who performs the action. The karta includes the soul’s identification with the body-mind-intellect complex, as influenced by the ego and willpower.
3. Karana (The Instruments):
These are the various senses, organs, and tools required to carry out the action. For example, hands for manual work, speech for communication, or external tools for achieving specific goals.
4. Cheshta (Effort):
The effort, energy, and intention put forth by the individual to accomplish the task. This includes physical, mental, and emotional exertion.
5. Daiva (Divine Providence):
The unseen forces, destiny, or grace of the Divine that influence the outcome of an action. While effort is crucial, divine will and external circumstances also play a significant role.

Even if you can control and manipulate the first four factors, the fifth factor is something you cannot control by definition!

 
The Bliss of Effortlessness: Insights from the Ashtavakra and Avadhuta Gitas
The Ashtavakra Gita takes us beyond action and duty, pointing to the ultimate realization that success is not a pursuit but an inherent state:
 
“You are the one witness of everything, and are always completely free. The cause of your bondage is that you see the witness as something other than this.” (Ashtavakra Gita 1.7)
 
This teaching shatters the illusion of becoming. It asserts that the Self is already complete, requiring no external achievements to validate its existence. The Avadhuta Gita expands on this:
 
“The Self is pure consciousness, beyond action, beyond desire, beyond effort. It is untouched by the fruits of actions and free from the illusions of gain and loss.”
 
Abhinavagupta, a luminary of Kashmir Shaivism, describes the experience of self-realization as a state of spontaneous bliss:
 
“The supreme reality is the universal consciousness. When the individual realizes their unity with this consciousness, they attain the state of effortless freedom, known as ‘Sahaja’ (natural state).”
 
The Shiva Sutras echo this sentiment:
 
“By meditation on one’s own true nature, the universe becomes an extension of the Self.” (Shiva Sutras 1.5)

In a sense, success lies in the effortless awareness of the Self, transcending the limitations of effort and duality. Because this success aligns with the cosmic purpose of your life!
 

The Pot of Water: A Metaphor for Inner Focus
Imagine a village woman walking 2 miles to fetch water in a mud pot. She balances the pot on her head and walks back home. Her full focus is on that pot, and she pays no attention to the distractions around her. Even if she stops to talk to someone, she does so while keeping her focus on the pot. The pot represents her highest state of being—a state of bliss, peace, and presence. It symbolizes the state of being fully connected to the divine, being in communion with the eternal now, and surrendering to the flow of life.
This metaphor teaches that true success lies in maintaining unwavering focus on your inner state of bliss, regardless of external stimuli. It’s about avoiding reactions to external distractions that might disturb your state of balance and peace, just as the woman avoids actions that might cause the pot to fall. At every possibility of a disturbance, ask yourself, “The pot of water or reacting to the taunts of the other village women, which one is more important?”

 
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali highlight this focus:
 
“Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.” (Yoga Sutras 1.2)
 
When the mind is steady, success is not sought but revealed as the natural state of being.
 
Success as Surrender and Stillness
Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi and Sri Papaji emphasize the power of surrender. Maharshi describes the waking world as a dream, urging us to transcend its illusions:
 
“Just as the dream-world, being only a part of yourself and not different from you, ceases to interest you upon waking, so also the present world would cease to interest you if you awaken to your true Self.”
 
Sri Papaji reinforces this with radical simplicity:
 
“Don’t try to become anything, don’t go anywhere, don’t do anything, and don’t undo anything. Simply stay quiet. This is bliss, nothing else.”
 
The Shiva Samhita adds another layer to this understanding:
 
“The yogi who sees all beings in the Self and the Self in all beings, whose mind is steady and filled with inner light, is truly free.”
 
These teachings redirect the seeker from doing to being. Success, in this view, is not measured by accomplishments but by one’s ability to rest in the effortless awareness of the Self.
 

A Unified Definition of Success
True success transcends all definitions rooted in effort, fate, or achievement. It is the state of being fully present, undisturbed by the past or future, and anchored in the bliss of one’s true nature. This state is characterized by:
 
1. Effortless Being: Success is not something to strive for but to recognize within. Like the flute in Krishna’s hands or Shiva’s damaru, you are an instrument of divine harmony.
2. Inner Focus: Maintain unwavering awareness of your inner state, like the woman balancing the pot of water. Engage with the world without losing sight of your inherent bliss.
3. Surrender to the Divine: Let go of the illusion of control. Success lies in surrendering to the flow of life, trusting that you are already complete.

First come up with your Own definition of success without any input from anyone, living or Dead. no books, no videos, no movies, no speeches, no discourses, no coaching, no consultation; truly your own Definition of Success. One that does not give rise to a journey but keeps you rooted to where you are, in your highest state of effortless bliss. In other words, a definition of success that produces stillness rather than furtive movement. That helps you remain in an already experienced state of bliss and in fact helps you establish it or establish yourself in it more strongly. Something that does not take you anywhere – only makes you realise there is no where to go but right here, right now. Something that makes you realise that this shore is that shore and there is no ocean to cross. You are already in the ocean of joy. If your definition of success can show you how to remain in the ocean of bliss you have already discovered yourself to be, then its a keeper. No other person can show you how to be successful as only you know your own purpose. You should!

 Practical Steps to Embody Success
To integrate this profound understanding into daily life, consider these practices:
 
1. Self-Inquiry: Reflect on the question, “Who am I?” This will reveal the false identifications that keep you bound to the pursuit of external success.
2. Mindful Awareness: Treat your inner state like the pot of water. Stay centered, avoiding reactions that disturb your equilibrium.
3. Detach from Outcomes: Follow the Bhagavad Gita’s principle of Nishkama Karma (desireless action). Act with sincerity but without attachment to results.
4. Seek Wisdom: Immerse yourself in the scriptures, such as the Shiva Sutras, Upanishads, and Gitas. Their teachings illuminate the path to effortless success.
5. Surrender Daily: Begin and end each day with a moment of surrender. Acknowledge that your true nature is beyond effort and achievement.
 
Success, as defined by the highest teachings, is not a destination or an achievement. It is the realization that you are already complete, already blissful, and already free. The pot on the woman’s head is your inner state of peace. Walk through life with grace, undisturbed by external distractions or internal doubts. The world’s definitions of success will fade into irrelevance as you awaken to the truth that you are the success you have always sought.
 

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