by KrsnaKnows ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 30, 2014
A wide-ranging collection of blog posts by an Indian cyberguru that’s hampered by syntactical uncertainties and...
Awards & Accolades
Google Rating
An Indian Master reveals his insights into following the spiritual path.
This book, a compilation of Indian Master KrsnaKnows' teachings by his students, addresses various aspects of spiritual practice. KrsnaKnows offers a unique perspective as a thoroughly tech-smart, postmodern Indian who still has many traditional views. In the Hindu tradition, the deity Krishna, whose appearances include a flute-playing cowherd, traditionally ushers in humanity’s final era of dissolution, the Kaliyuga (the Iron Age)—which the author identifies as the present day. This prophetic warning gives an apocalyptic edge to KrsnaKnows’ examination of contemporary spiritual practice. The book dismisses meditation and yoga as possibly false paths; instead, it advocates following a spiritual teacher, or guru, to attain spiritual mastery. The author gathers his posts into nine chapters that give his material a loose organization. Overall, the discussion often revolves around issues that will be of particular significance to Indian readers. KrsnaKnows takes on the idea of forced marriage, for example, and the belief that destiny controls one’s fate: “Fight and don’t give up,” he writes. “Screw destiny!” He admonishes spiritual seekers not to accept outward appearances but to delve into deeper truths that reveal spiritual dimensions. He also attempts to clarify the concept of karma, which he intriguingly compares to Isaac Newton’s third law of motion—for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction—and rails against those who pray for money or success in life. Overall, the book is written for an audience that already understands the Hindu pantheon and is familiar with Indian English dialect and idiom. Syntactical confusion, however, often besets his prose: “Most people come with baggage which reeks of denial,” the author passionately proclaims about those new to the spiritual path (and their evidently foul-smelling luggage). Other errors, meanwhile, frequently detract from the power of the author’s observations: Pampering pets, for example, raises the author’s “heckles.”
A wide-ranging collection of blog posts by an Indian cyberguru that’s hampered by syntactical uncertainties and double-entendres.Pub Date: May 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1482823479
Page Count: 302
Publisher: PartridgeSingapore
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
Share your opinion of this book
More by Albert Camus
BOOK REVIEW
by Albert Camus ; translated by Justin O'Brien & Sandra Smith
BOOK REVIEW
by Albert Camus ; translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy & Justin O'Brien
BOOK REVIEW
by Albert Camus translated by Arthur Goldhammer edited by Alice Kaplan
by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by Stephen Batchelor
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.