The lessons of a Sri Lankan holy man allow a woman to transform pain into faith in a work that delivers inspiration more...
A debut self-help book mixes recollections and religious instruction.
After a 1998 car accident left her with damaged nerves and chronic pain, Schelling realized she had to use her faith to change her situation. She delved into the spiritual lessons she had learned during her decade studying with Sri Lankan holy man M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. Several mystical experiences followed her rational exploration of her beliefs, including seeing her own glowing green “light-body, or the soul that is one with God.” Schelling soldered a new connection to the inner guide in her heart and thereby discovered the secret to managing the symptoms of her pain. Her desire to help others manifested in the creation of this book, which she completed in a matter of days. Bawa’s nondenominational spiritual tenets form the foundation of the work, though they become more prominent in the instructional section. The guide portion is accompanied by several sprinkles of specific steps, such as understanding life is a gift, and advice on working with breathing. Schelling’s central metaphor is the inner heart as a plot of land, fitting, since the key to liberation, the author writes, “resides within our very own hands and heart.” The narrator switches from a lively first person to a subdued third person with the move from memoir to instruction. The prose strives to be inclusive but sometimes falls flat: “Many religions exist,” and “No one can say that difficulties are not difficult.” Concepts such as negative energy and life without faith are rendered too abstractly to have much impact. “We all share the common experiences that comprise life in this world” offers the “Life without Faith” section. The book’s modest size counters Schelling’s multiple aims, which include helping others to “discover the exaltedness of our birthright.” But the author’s sweet and sincere personal encounters with the divine bring the high-minded spiritual concepts comfortably down to Earth.
The lessons of a Sri Lankan holy man allow a woman to transform pain into faith in a work that delivers inspiration more than guidance.Pub Date: July 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-9905920-0-6
Page Count: 84
Publisher: Coaching for Resonance
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
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
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