History has witnessed numerous social reformers who have worked tirelessly to bring justice, peace, and equality to humanity. Their sole mission has been to help society become free from its illusions – those illusions that bring suffering to the mind! Their inclusionist approach helped individuals look beyond their tiny ‘I’ centric worlds.
This story is about one such personality: His distinctiveness lies not in the fact that he could realise the ultimate Indian utopia of first becoming an IITian, then clearing CAT as a 100 percentiler, and then also cracking the UPSC, but due to his path-breaking contribution in helping millions across the globe realise their spiritual ideals.
He has authored more than 25 books on spirituality, is leading a non-profit organisation, and is well-known for his staunch criticism and rebuttal of superstitions tossing around in the name of spiritual knowledge.
He is Acharya Prashant!
He is an alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad and an ex-Civil servant. At quite an early age, Prashant realized the real joy of life is in working for ‘what is actually right’ instead of ‘what is right for me’.
When one looks at his birth and childhood, it becomes difficult to say whether he was born as an extraordinary genius or he earned his stars in due course of time with his diligence and devotion. Apart from having an IIT-IIM-Civil Services background, there is a lot that will inspire you about his journey and his mission.
After a short stint as a Civil Servant and corporate, he went on to become an Entrepreneur and founded an organization named Advait Life Education. He has been working for more than a decade answering innumerable questions and helping people come out of their miseries and live a meaningful life.
He is an embodiment of wisdom, a guide and a mentor to millions. His mission is to make wisdom so widely available, and so easily understandable that no one can say they could not find help in their lives.
In today’s times of disarray and chaos, where everyone is disorganized and confused about their real purpose in life, the volunteers working at his Foundation have put together a collection of his talks and lectures in more than 8000+ videos on YouTube in Hindi and English which are serving as catalysts in changing lives across the globe.
Through his books on spirituality, the Acharya is bringing the highest words of wisdom to the common man in the most practical sense. In the process, he is making people free of their insecurities, fears and anxieties. Besides, he is constantly working on eradicating animal cruelty and loss of natural habitat. In a sense, he is contributing to world peace in several unique ways.
Here is a man who is daringly speaking the truth which we all desperately need to hear. He fearlessly raises his voice against the hypocrisy in the name of spirituality in today’s era. He has completely changed my vision of looking at the world, shares one of the readers after reading his book “A Flying Kiss to the Sky”.
We are often more concerned about winning and losing than simply knowing whether we are fighting the right battle. If you are fighting the wrong battle and you win, is it not worse than losing?
We are great losers in life, not because we meet with regular defeats, but because we are fighting the wrong battles. Most of our effort, or conflict, our strife, are simply unnecessary, says the Acharya in one of his videos on YouTube.
Sharing an excerpt from one of his articles on the blog, he writes ‘In the right battle, there can be no wrong result. Defeat is not to be measured in terms of gains-losses happening outside of you. Defeat hurts only when defeat happens inside of you. If you feel internally defeated, you have picked up a wrong battle. Fight the Right Battle!’
‘From Acharya Prashant, I have learned to welcome pain, to embrace it fully, to live through pain and to play through pain. Suffering is just a trap of the ego, a resistance to pain. I understand that my real self can never suffer. And that happiness is my true nature’, shares Shirin from Paris, France expressing her gratitude towards the Acharya.
The Acharya is a vegan; he avoids eating any dairy products. Without any conscious effort, just by being in his presence, the volunteers working at his Foundation too have turned vegans.
To many, he is the spiritual face of the vegan movement. With his efforts over the years, millions of animals, especially animals used for food – chicken, goat, sheep, cows, fish have been saved.
Veganism cannot be a taught quality; it has to be something of the heart. You cannot give arguments in favour of it. It has to be a destroyer of all arguments. You are really a vegan if, in spite of all arguments, you are still a vegan. Veganism is about having the right relationship with the world around you. Veganism in its essence is religion, says Acharya Prashant.
The misguided youth across the globe are coming close to his teachings and through his Shabd-Yog Sessions are learning the fundamentals of life such as setting the right priorities in life and taking critical life decisions independently.
He is an inspiration to millions of young individuals who look up to him for guidance and is helping them understand the bigger purpose in their lives.