A spiritual manifesto that, despite its pretentions to scientific rigor, prefers postulation to careful argument.
An attempt to explain the workings of God and the human mind through the categories of modern physics.
Chaudhuri, a trained nuclear physician, fell into a coma for three weeks. In the midst of that experience, he heard the voice of God, inspiring some of the thoughts conveyed in this slim volume. He lists his primary objectives clearly from the start. He aims to explain the nature of God and the human mind in the language of physics, which largely means from the perspective of energy. God turns out to be beyond human perception precisely because he’s entirely composed of energy, but, Chaudhuri contends, we still have empirical confirmation of his existence by accessing his effects. Further, the author uses Einsteinian relativity in order to demonstrate that the human mind, also composed of energy, has a greater velocity than the energy of a physical atom. Since both God and the mind are made up of energy, prayer, properly understood as the transmission of electromagnetic energy, can close the distance between a person and God. Additionally, Chaudhuri provides what he calls an “atomic model” of the family, which, if properly understood, should promote familial harmony and reduce the occasion of divorce. There are other brief tangents. The author makes an argument for the divine significance of the number three and discusses the mental health of children. But the thematic thread that binds the work is the connection between God and people articulated in terms of this energy. Chaudhuri’s objectives are admirably grand, and he writes in simple prose, especially helpful given the theoretical abstruseness of the subject matter. The actual use of physics is more metaphorical than scientific, however, and is rife with unexamined assumptions. For example, what exactly does it mean to state that the “energy of mind is stronger than the energy of the physical atom because the velocity of mind is faster than the velocity of light, assuming the mind is the atom of consciousness”? Much of the book is similarly confusing, and the author seems uninterested in marshaling any substantive evidence for his claims.
A spiritual manifesto that, despite its pretentions to scientific rigor, prefers postulation to careful argument.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4917-7609-4
Page Count: 100
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.
The Book of Genesis as imagined by a veteran voice of underground comics.
R. Crumb’s pass at the opening chapters of the Bible isn’t nearly the act of heresy the comic artist’s reputation might suggest. In fact, the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural is fastidiously respectful. Crumb took pains to preserve every word of Genesis—drawing from numerous source texts, but mainly Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses (2004)—and he clearly did his homework on the clothing, shelter and landscapes that surrounded Noah, Abraham and Isaac. This dedication to faithful representation makes the book, as Crumb writes in his introduction, a “straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” But his efforts are in their own way irreverent, and Crumb feels no particular need to deify even the most divine characters. God Himself is not much taller than Adam and Eve, and instead of omnisciently imparting orders and judgment He stands beside them in Eden, speaking to them directly. Jacob wrestles not with an angel, as is so often depicted in paintings, but with a man who looks not much different from himself. The women are uniformly Crumbian, voluptuous Earth goddesses who are both sexualized and strong-willed. (The endnotes offer a close study of the kinds of power women wielded in Genesis.) The downside of fitting all the text in is that many pages are packed tight with small panels, and too rarely—as with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—does Crumb expand his lens and treat signature events dramatically. Even the Flood is fairly restrained, though the exodus of the animals from the Ark is beautifully detailed. The author’s respect for Genesis is admirable, but it may leave readers wishing he had taken a few more chances with his interpretation, as when he draws the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a provocative half-man/half-lizard. On the whole, though, the book is largely a tribute to Crumb’s immense talents as a draftsman and stubborn adherence to the script.
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-06102-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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