Quotes from Devdutt Pattanaik

To empathize is dharma. Failure to empathize is adharma.

His words contain the essence of Vedic wisdom, the keystone of Hinduism. Ramkrishna Paramhansa, the nineteenth-century Bengali mystic, said that the essence of The Gita can be deciphered simply by reversing the syllables that constitute Gita. So Gita, or gi-ta, becomes ta-gi, or tyagi, which means 'one who lets go of possessions.

yagna, which involved exchange, giving in order to get,

Death will be the direct result of merits and demerits earned by living creatures in their lifetime. You will merely oversee the transition. The burden of death shall be borne by those who live.' Thus all creatures die not because of external factors but because of their own karma.

Vishnu stories in the Ramayana, Bhagavata and Mahabharata reveal how he experiences birth, death and even heartbreak. Both Ram and Krishna display human emotions, yearning for the beloved. Though God, Ram cannot be with Sita, Krishna cannot be with Radha. Yet they do not turn bitter, angry or vengeful. They love unconditionally.

A world created based on judgement evokes rage. Life becomes a battleground (rana-bhoomi) like Kuru-kshetra, where both sides feel like victims, where everyone wants to win at all costs, where someone will always lose. A world created by observation evokes insight, hence affection, for we see the hunger and fear of all beings.

Krishna encourages Drona's killing because Drona has abandoned varna-dharma. Though born in a family of priests, he functions as a warrior and even crowns his son king of a kingdom created by laying claim to one half of Draupada's land. As teacher, he teaches his students

Every human creates his own imagined version of the world, and of himself. Every human is therefore Brahma, creator of his own aham.Aham Brahmasmi, I am Brahma. Tat tvam asi, so are you.

I have been doodling since childhood. I have a passion for illustrating but cannot paint or colour for that matter. I illustrate what I am trying to communicate through my writing. My images are like drawings in a science text book.

Mythology is a subjective truth. Every culture imagines life a certain way.

In India, the eldest has the most responsibility and the crown goes to him. The crown could go to a person with the most talent. But how could 'most talent' be determined? So Indian society settled on age.

Medical training taught me the art of breaking down the complex maze of stories, symbols and rituals into clear systems. You could say that it helped me figure out the anatomy and physiology of mythology and its relevance in a society more incisively. How is it that no society can, or does, exist without them?

Within infinite myths lies the Eternal Truth Who sees it all? Varuna has but a thousand eyes Indra, a hundred And I, only two

Neither death nor wisdom has a full stop. There are only commas-no destinations, only waiting rooms.

.. The point of human life is to travel from ignorance to wisdom. In ignorance there is fear. In wisdom there peace and tranquillity.

Nobody knows why we're alive; so we all create stories based on our imagination of the world; and as a community, we believe in the same story. In India, every person believes his/ her own mythosphere to be real. Indian thought is obsessed with subjectivity; Greek thought with objectivity.