ACHARYA PRASHANT THE PRACTICAL TEACHER

Prashant Tripathi, now known as Acharya Prashant, has shot up as a unique wisdom teacher.

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He is renowned for his command over the entire corpus of wisdom literature from all times - ancient till modern, and all places - East to West. In India, he is revered specifically for his scholarship on Vedanta philosophy. His work on 17 Gita Adhyays and 60 Upanishads bear testimony to his authority, as do his 160 books on philosophy, spirituality, and all aspects of life, including many national bestsellers. He champions awareness on Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss - PETA awarded him the "Most Influential Vegan of India" in 2022. Entrepreneur India seeks to find out more about the man and his mystique.

On being asked how despite his IIT-IIM background he veered towards spirituality, Acharya denies having a standout significant moment that nudged him. Instead, he has always been a keen observer ever since he was a child. What he observed behind the niceties of life was ignorance, discord, and sufferings that plague normal human life.

"As a kid, all these sights were being registered and questioned by me. The ugliness was being disliked. There was a constant urge to change the shape of things," he says. 

THE DAWN

The early years were significant for young Prashant. He was quite the reader, played a lot, was also known to have plenty of mischief, and this while being an introvert. Being good at studies seemed like a natural ability - he topped the ICSE exams and was also an NTSE scholar. What distinguished his childhood was his proclivity to read books of all types beyond his syllabus.

"Reading wasn't confined to one particular genre. I was hungry and sucked in whatever came my way. From comics to somebody's PhD thesis, even if I couldn't make much of it," he recalls.

Acharya feels that this is what made him mentally branch out erratically in all directions with no particular plan or pattern. He thinks that this aided him to grow organically, without a blueprint.