This book took a lot of time for me to read because I was juggling among 2-3 books at a time and I don't regret the time I invested in finishing the book. In fact, I'm happy that I finished it well in time.
So this book is about breaking the jinx of gurus, the philosophical or religious deity who influence our view as how we think about the world and what is life.This can be put as the guru is a person who makes you see or think what is right or at least what is right from his point or thinking.
This book mentions (or I should say explore ) the life, death, habits etc of the gurus who were famous in US at some point of time.
But the biggest loophole in the whole book was that rather than being serious book on the guru cult it became more like a written revenge against all the people who ever claimed to have a higher conscious or different way of life which they wanted to teach others. This way of life was either taken directly from the religion these gurus followed or it was something which they realized by different means or senses.
I'll like to add that the book is well searched material with the appropriate references from the reliable sources but overall it became more like a kiss and tell story.
The writer was himself under the tutelage of such guru for 9 months and after that he realized that he has been cheated or this is not something what he was looking for. He is quite an educated person but he tries to rationalize his innocence by saying that he was not quite aware of the hidden face of these so called gurus. It took him 9 months to understand that he was following something which was not what it seems to be.
Another thing which I didn't understand was why most of the gurus he talked about in his book were of Asian or Oriental origin ? He has quoted some other gurus as well but they were shown under the tutelage of another guru who belonged to the origins earlier mentioned.
He has given enough notes and proofs against these gurus by the disciples or the other people who were connected to them in some way or the other.
I don't have any intention of glorifying these gurus but one thing that can cross to any rational mind is that what was the reason of these gurus becoming so famous over the nights.
Author doesn't through light on this topic which makes his intention of writing this book more dubious.
In the last chapter he says that everybody has his/her own way with spirituality. But what is the point in being rational and spiritual if you're looking for the reason why something happened rather than accepting it to happen. I am not saying that we should accept anything miraculous and reason has no space in this world. All I'm saying is that everything has its own limits and reason is no exception to it. There are few things which go beyond reason and you just have to believe them.
My last point against this book is that if the author really wanted to rationalize the things (as he mentioned in introduction as well as in the last chapter) he should have talked more about his own religion as well which could have balanced the whole narrative of the book.
I completely agree with being rational to every choice in our life (why only guru ?) but as I mentioned earlier that even reason has a limit and there is something wrong with analyzing everything in the light of rationale. There is a term in Management "Analysis-Paralysis" which means that too much rationalizing the things may lead to a wrong direction altogether.
We should respect all the people and how they have tried to live their lives in a noble way. If we want to prove something wrong totally than we can or at least we can form some prejudice against that thing but this is not the right conduct. Ideally we should be like taking everything which is right and leave everything which is wrong.
Have an open mind and read this book, worth reading with lots of information (remember the open mind).
No comments:
Post a Comment