A New Adventure

Book Reviews Jan-Mar 2006

I wanted to develop a habbit of reading from long time, but it was only that I came here I was able to give it its due importance. I am happy to see unlike my most of the unsucessful conversions from 'Wanting' to 'Experiencing', this is one 'Want' I am able to 'Experience'.

1. Conversations with God - Part 2 - Neale Donald Walsch.
Rating: ***--
He has an interesting way of putting things forward. In this part two he talk more about time and space, love and war, sex and as he puts it planetary geopolitical considerations. The ideas are pompous and utopian, and many are the common accepted utopian solutions to the world problems, but interesing read because he tries to build all his logic from the platform he created in book one. The author believes in 'iterate, iterate, iterate and then iterate' way of learning, so the ideas are repetitive in the book which can make it bit dull. Part I was better than II, lets see whats store in part III where he talks about more universe, aliens life and other metaphysical issues.

Quotes:
"You can tell you are on your way to mastery when you see the gap closing between willing and experiencing"

"If you spend your time trying to figure out whats 'best' for you, your choices will be cautious, your decisions will take forever and your journey will be launced on a sea of expectations"


2. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Rating ****-
I wanted to read this book from a long time, had heard a lot about it - about the way he has made an unbelivable story seemingly possible. A tale of a boy and a tiger, and their ordeal in the sea. The story gets a bit too abstract at the end but thats the whole point. Where does one draw the line between possible and impossible. The depection of the issues and the psychological state of a castaway is amazingly interesting. It makes you think about the potentials of human body and how caught up we are in the daily lives and petty things to miss life itself.

3. The Roots of Ayurveda - Dominik Wujastyk
Rating ***--
As a member of UDAI, an organisation which is commited to promoting awareness towards social issues concerning India and providing a platform for synergizing active effort for their remediation, and currently being involved in a project on Ayurveda, this book was an effort to study the history and foundations of it. Having negligible knowledge on the subject this book was was a good start as it does not really talk about the treatments and philosophies of Ayurveda but highlights the main texts that have been preserved through ages - Charak Samhita, Susruta Samhita, Bower Manuscript, Kasyapa's Samhita, Vagbhata's Heart of Medicine and Sarngadhara's Compendium. It gives a brief synopsis of their content and the ideas contained in them not only related to treatment per se, but Ayurveda as a way of life.

4. Ayurveda and Panchakarma - Sunil V Joshi (In Progress)

5. Thoughts Without a Thinker - Mark Epstein (Just Started)

posted by Nikhil @ 10:42 AM