Modern culture multiplies them, ancient wisdom cuts their root. — The first time I ever had a mental breakdown, it felt like imprisonment. Simply because I deeply, instinctively knew that all the tools at my disposal would only make it worse. I could not affirm my way out of a physical reality. I could not spend months shopping for a…

If oppression Olympics has you down, remember this — Precious human rebirth. It’s the Buddhist idea that humans are uniquely suited to self-development, owing to the balance of pleasure and suffering in our world. Gods, ghosts, spirits and animals don’t have this balanced opportunity — so we should realize how special it is, so as not to waste it. …

Fasten your seatbelts, we’re headed for a cold war. What do you get when a 200-year old country, built upon race supremacism, yet dictating the moral standard for the world, meets 5,000 year-old civilizations that have risen and declined more times than history remembers? Conflict. The Thucydides trap. The world-dominator…

A society that’s grown allergic to tradition is the last one that should be exporting ideas or influence of any kind. To a more evolved species, human behavior could be reducible to one trait. And it’s not a very flattering one. We use the entirety of our intelligence on trying…

But usually you’ve got to learn this the hard way — India’s contribution to humanity is a bit mindboggling. Somehow this chunk of land was able to dish out yoga, algebra, ashrams, mantras, numerals, mindfulness, decimals, the number zero, and indirectly catalyzed the industrial revolution when Britain tried to copy its cotton-weaving technology. It also produced Sanskrit, which is the oldest…

He might have invested a bit too much into the British East India Company — The records of the British East India Company say that at the time of arrival of European colonial powers in India, a merchant there was already the richest in the world. His name was Virji Vora. A British record from 1643 describes him as the sole monopolizer over European commodities…

Walk through the scorching desert. Your future self needs you to do so. — I recently re-watched one of my favorite childhood movies, The Ten Commandments, and its much better modern re-make, Exodus: Gods and Kings. There was one scene that stuck out and burnt itself into my psyche like none other: the long walk of Moses through the desert, right after being banished. …

And how one tiny African country is changing the whole game — The first case of cocoa beans being processed for human consumption comes from the Olmec civilizations of Mesoamerica 4,000 years ago. It wasn’t just a food item, but also used as money, and for spiritual ceremonies for the Mayans and Aztecs. They literally thought this currency was sacred. Unfortunately for…