A delightful and highly readable evaluation of yoga principles and the way they have influenced one woman’s life.
In this debut memoir, the author examines four yoga paths—knowledge, love, action, and meditation—showing readers how they can enrich each day.
Designed as an autobiography that explores the way yoga impacted Nitting’s life, this title reveals the deeply personal journey through wellness that she embarked on to discover serenity and peace. The author invites readers to find ways in which they may already be invoking the principles of yoga every day. From stories about her parents expressing love and devotion during her childhood to tales of her own growth through adolescence and adulthood, the author weaves in the spiritual principles of the four yoga paths. For example, in one section, she describes “living yoga” by resolving to be present in every activity, encouraging readers to experience the joy of even mundane tasks like washing dishes or cleaning their homes. Delving into yoga’s action path, the author discusses karma and the principle of serving others from a place of selflessness. She also emphasizes the merits of nonjudgment—focusing on one’s own failures rather than giving attention to the errors of others. Nitting stresses the importance of these teachings and how they have led her to a calmer and more vibrant and contented life, reducing anxiety and uncomfortable situations sparked by ego. Asanas, the practice of yoga that involves mastering the body, is just one of the many topics discussed in the book. The author delivers a much wider view of what the practice encompasses than most yoga titles provide. Literally going beyond the pose, she deeply investigates the ways the principles of yoga affect all of the moments and intentions of life, not just on the mat, but also at home, work, school, and in everyday community interactions. In this inspiring memoir that surveys a set of universal principles, the author thoroughly and conversationally gives yoga novices a gateway to understanding and learning this powerful practice.
A delightful and highly readable evaluation of yoga principles and the way they have influenced one woman’s life.Pub Date: March 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5043-9996-8
Page Count: 174
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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