An engrossing exploration of dharma with an eye not just to the present, but to the future as well.
A writer examines the concept of dharma and its role in individual, societal, and global affairs.
In yogic philosophy and Indian religions, dharma is “the poetry of the soul,” a way of living in harmony with nature as well as with universal truth and the essential order of things. Individuals who find this in themselves unearth their places, their ways, and their self-expressions. This guide offers a unique insight into self-discovery as well as ways the eightfold path of Ashtanga yoga can combat spiritual and societal strife, from disease to nationalism and anti-immigration sentiments. Materialism and the capitalistic nature of the current American government are singled out as the greatest impediments to uncovering and living better through dharma. The text hypothesizes that the world is on the cusp of a new age. This era will be led by young people who will resemble the Kshatriya, or military caste in Hinduism. They will reject both conservative and liberal politics and cultivate a new, global nation. Though presented as conjecture, the book emphasizes an inherent need for this change while outlining a rough path to it through individuals searching for their inner gurus and pursuing cosmic, divine, and infinite consciousness. Nolan (Living Love, 2016, etc.) breaks down the many facets of dharma as well as introducing related concepts. These include prana, or life force; samaj, a society based in dharma; and more. Despite explaining all of them in great and sometimes repetitive detail, the author includes a useful glossary of the terms for quick reference. The book is presented in three easy-to-revisit sections, the first defining dharma and assessing its four basic qualities; the second breaking down how it impacts society and the ecosystem; and the third describing how to pursue and utilize it personally. They all focus on the philosophical, not the practical, so those looking for meditation tips or pointers on how to get started in Ashtanga yoga should look elsewhere. And while the work often pulls anecdotes and ideas from popular Eastern resources, like the Tao Te Ching and the Mahabharata, these are not cited and will be difficult for readers to follow up on.
An engrossing exploration of dharma with an eye not just to the present, but to the future as well.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9863047-6-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Ananda Gurukula
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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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