Immortal India: Articles and Speeches by Amish

by Amish Tripathi

Countering religious intolerance with secular intolerance only replaces one monster with another. I didn’t understand the import of my father’s words at the time. I do now.

‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’

‘Religion is the opium of the masses.’

They left us with such serious questions at the end, that we continue to wrestle with them, even millennia later. Why did Lord Ram abandon Lady Sita, committing both Her and Himself to life-long sadness and tragedy? What were the Kauravas doing in heaven at the end of the Mahabharat, while all the Pandavas fell into hell, albeit temporarily? All except Yudhishtra; so why was he spared the descent? What was the point of the Dharma Yudh? Now these are endings which leave you with very good questions.

Storytelling in ancient India aimed to communicate philosophies, and not just leave you with a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling at the end.

we are ripping the world apart and not even gaining happiness out of it.

The Smritis essentially reflected the collective mood of the times they were written in. Some Smritis are very liberal and some are conservative. We can write our own Smriti, at any point in time; in fact we’ve done so, recently. And the latest Smriti is called the Indian Constitution.

because sex itself was not embroiled in tortuous guilt.

Because spiritual growth happens with internal focus, when you attempt to seek truth within yourself; not when you try to prove ‘other religions’ as false.

The corporate world has a dictum: In God we trust; for everything else, show me data.

ancient India had powerful Shudra rulers as well,

Lord Krishna clearly enunciates that He created the four varnas based on guna (attributes) and karma; birth is NOT mentioned.

Banning of inter-marriage in pursuance of ‘caste purity’ is a fundamental marker of this birth-based caste system.

our religion is more decentralised and does not fit the description of ‘organised religion’.

The root of all creativity is rebellion.

‘The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.’

first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone, was the founder of civilisation.

Repeated surveys from developing countries have shown that if you lend money to the women instead of men, it results in better social outcomes.