A succinct introduction to an intriguing set of spiritual teachings.
A series of spiritual conversations led by a teacher of enlightenment.
Sri Harilal W. Poonja was born in 1910 in Gujrawala, India. His mother was the sister of Hindu Swami Ram Tirtha, a celebrated religious figure. A spiritually precocious child, Poonja eventually grew to become a disciple of the Hindu sage Ramana Maharshi. Author Jaxon-Bear (Sudden Awakening, 2012, etc.) met Poonja, commonly known as “Papaji,” in Lucknow, India, in 1990 and was entranced by the depth of his teachings. The bulk of this book is an assemblage of transcripts of Poonja’s satsangs—group conversations led by a spiritual teacher, reminiscent of Socratic dialogues. These discussions took place over more than a year, from January 1990 to April 1991, in Poonja’s home and covered a remarkable swath of philosophical ground, discussing such things as the nature of true freedom and enlightenment, the distinction between nirvana and samsara, meditation, love, and death. The thematic twine that holds it all together, though, is the goal of emptiness—a transcendence of dualistic conceptualizations that create the illusion of the separation of the self: “The Self contains everything,” said Poonja. “There is nothing apart from it. This is why you can call it emptiness. There is nothing beyond emptiness. All is empty. Nothing ever exists.” Jaxon-Bear ably provides context for readers to understand these discussions as well as a concise biography of Poonja. The conversations aren’t always easy to digest and may prove esoteric to those unfamiliar with Eastern spirituality. However, Poonja is shown to be a truly gifted and charming teacher, and the dialogues repay careful attention. There are also some engaging departures from traditional Buddhist doctrines; for example, Poonja rejects the notion of cosmic karma and criticizes the Dalai Lama’s teachings regarding the nature of morality, or “right action.” The whole book is a fount of provocative wisdom.
A succinct introduction to an intriguing set of spiritual teachings.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9856911-2-7
Page Count: 312
Publisher: New Morning Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.
A light-speed tour of (mostly) Western poetry, from the 4,000-year-old Gilgamesh to the work of Australian poet Les Murray, who died in 2019.
In the latest entry in the publisher’s Little Histories series, Carey, an emeritus professor at Oxford whose books include What Good Are the Arts? and The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books, offers a quick definition of poetry—“relates to language as music relates to noise. It is language made special”—before diving in to poetry’s vast history. In most chapters, the author deals with only a few writers, but as the narrative progresses, he finds himself forced to deal with far more than a handful. In his chapter on 20th-century political poets, for example, he talks about 14 writers in seven pages. Carey displays a determination to inform us about who the best poets were—and what their best poems were. The word “greatest” appears continually; Chaucer was “the greatest medieval English poet,” and Langston Hughes was “the greatest male poet” of the Harlem Renaissance. For readers who need a refresher—or suggestions for the nightstand—Carey provides the best-known names and the most celebrated poems, including Paradise Lost (about which the author has written extensively), “Kubla Khan,” “Ozymandias,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, which “changed the course of English poetry.” Carey explains some poetic technique (Hopkins’ “sprung rhythm”) and pauses occasionally to provide autobiographical tidbits—e.g., John Masefield, who wrote the famous “Sea Fever,” “hated the sea.” We learn, as well, about the sexuality of some poets (Auden was bisexual), and, especially later on, Carey discusses the demons that drove some of them, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath among them. Refreshingly, he includes many women in the volume—all the way back to Sappho—and has especially kind words for Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop, who share a chapter.
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-23222-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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