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The Present Minds
Writer / Editor

Navneet Shukla

Navneet Shukla writes about how people think and how modern life shapes that thinking. The Present Minds is where he explores it.

Navneet Shukla
Navneet ShuklaWriter / Editor

Published writing

113 results
Purusharth Ahamkara: the ego the Gita actually warned you about. It is not what you think

Duryodhana says something in the Mahabharata that most retellings quietly skip. He says: I know what is right. I cannot do it. I know what is wrong.…

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The Margin After Twenty Years by O. Henry: the promise both of them Kept

After Twenty Years by O. Henry is told in less than a thousand words. It contains three scenes, two twists, one note, and four words that do…

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Purusharth Eklavya’s Thumb: The Story the Mahabharata Never Defends.

Why did Drona ask for Eklavya's thumb? It is one of the most searched questions about the Mahabharata and one of the least honestly answered. The short…

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Purusharth Why Did No One Help Draupadi When She Asked the Most Logical Question in the Room?

Why did no one help Draupadi? It is a question that has sat unanswered for three thousand years. Not because there is no answer. Because the answer…

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Purusharth Duryodhana real story: What the Mahabharata actually says

The Duryodhana real story is usually told as a simple warning. Greed destroyed him. Pride was his flaw. The Pandavas were righteous and he was not. Villain.…

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Purusharth Draupadi’s question in the Mahabharata nobody could answer

Draupadi's question in the Mahabharata was not rhetorical. She needed an answer. She asked it in a room full of the wisest, most senior men in the…

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Purusharth Abhimanyu knew how to enter the Chakravyuha. Nobody taught him how to leave

Abhimanyu learned the Chakravyuha meaning before he was born. His father Arjuna was explaining it to his mother Subhadra one night. The chakravyuha was a military formation…

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Psychology What your brain is actually building while you are unconscious

A new study from UC Berkeley has now mapped the brain circuit behind deep sleep growth hormone release. The jellyfish does not know it is sleeping. It…

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The Margin A Horse and Two Goats by RK Narayan: the funniest sad story ever written

A Horse and Two Goats by RK Narayan is the only story on this list that will make you laugh. It will also, if you sit with…

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The Margin The 5 Best AI Chatbots for Building a Website for Free

Building a website with AI is now something any person can do in a single afternoon, with zero coding knowledge and nothing but a free chatbot account.…

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Purusharth The Bhagavad Gita described your work problem 3,000 years before psychology did.

Nishkama karma meaning, in its most direct translation, is this: action without attachment to its outcome. Three words. One of the most demanding instructions ever given. The…

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Psychology The Universal Flood Myth: Collective Memory or Genetic Inheritance?

The universal flood myth is one of the most documented phenomena in the study of human culture. Over 200 distinct flood narratives exist across world religions and…

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Purusharth Savitri and Satyavan: 3 days that defeated Death itself

Savitri and Satyavan story meaning and why it is the oldest argument against the idea that love is a feeling. It is not a feeling in this…

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Psychology The Real History of Gaslighting (And Why Knowing It Changes Everything)

The gaslighting history most people know stops at the definition. You probably know the word. Someone makes you doubt your own memory. Tells you the thing that…

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The Margin What I learnt from a support dog in Scotland

What I learnt from Louie, a missing dog in Scotland, I only understood when three strangers walked out of the dark toward a fire I had built…

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Purusharth Shakuni did not want the Kauravas to win. He wanted the Kurus destroyed.

The Shakuni story begins not in a dice hall but in a prison. Shakuni walked with a limp. He had walked that way for as long as…

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Psychology Lebanon is still being governed by a headcount from 1932

Why Lebanon is broken is a reason most people cannot name. Not the bombs. Not the banks. Not Hezbollah, not Israel, not the politicians who have spent…

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The Margin Kabuliwala by Rabindranath Tagore: the story about two fathers and one lost daughter

Kabuliwala by Rabindranath Tagore begins with a little girl who cannot stop talking. Mini is five years old. She has been talking since she learned how. Her…

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