B00K REVIEW – ‘Do Not Take This World Seriously’ By Kishore R. Kulkarni

B00K REVIEW – ‘Do Not Take This World Seriously’

By Kishore R. Kulkarni

Spirituality is serious stuff and that is what this whole book is about. In the author’s own words he says “I have presented my understanding of spirituality from an ordinary seeker’s perspective. It is not a scholarly treatise. It simply presents the “musings” of a spiritual seeker based on the classical Indian spiritual thinking as epitomised in Shrimad Bhagawad Geeta.” Yes, it is the author’s own understanding and interpretation of The Bhagavad Gita and other scriptures that is spread over twenty chapters, seeking to convey to the reader the essence of Hindu Philosophy through a process of dialogue and introspection. In the prologue itself the author sets the pattern when he says “my idea is not to convince any reader by means of this book to take up spirituality. It is simply a sharing that may have a role to play in some people’s lives, if the divine scheme has it that way.”

Some time back I read Richard Dawkins book ‘The God delusion’ where the entire book is based on the author’s contention that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. Kulkarni asserts that “I strongly believe that there is a divine plan behind this creation, and certainly behind someone getting on to the spiritual path.”

Born into a conservative Brahmin family, it was but natural that Kulkarni imbibed the theistic values of his surroundings grew up as God fearing individual up to his early youth. There were two transformation moments in his life – one in the author’s own words “I may concede that by virtue of my education and profession, I must have changed significantly from a god fearing child and teenager to a “rational intellectual adult”, such as they come in the modern times! So, I never thought I would ever become a serious spiritual seeker” and the second was when he met his spiritual guru when on a trip to Singapore, again in his own words “Those couple of hours somehow left a deep impression on me. Not that she revealed any great fundamental truths or put forth any “convincing” arguments in favour of spiritual pursuit. But something happened to me all the same through that session. Since then, I engaged myself in a little bit of meditation and gradually got more and more interested in spiritual pursuit.” Though he says that he is an ordinary seeker, it is evident that he has engaged himself in a serious study of the Hindu scriptures.

The interesting part however is that the book will indeed appeal to the ordinary seeker as it is for most part in the form of a conversation, a question and answer session between the author and the reader with the author’s own narration and interpretations thrown in to amplify the concept with examples from our own lives thrown in. The twenty chapters cover the entire gamut of questions from the creation of the world, the Creator to the question of ‘Who am I’, of desires and detachment, freewill, destiny and action – the meaning of Vairaagya and the outcome of actions or Karma Yoga, love, forgiveness, faith and non-violence. In the end there is chapter on the significance of the scriptures.

The glossary of Sanskrit terms at the end of the book is a must and the author has compiled it an easy to refer tabular form. Without this the book would have proved unintelligible to the ordinary reader and the others who would see it as an introduction to Hindu spiritual thought.

This is a vast subject and the author Kishore Kulkarni has acknowledged – “The book is organised into two volumes. Language has very serious limitations and when it comes to spiritual terms, two persons may understand them quite differently. That is the reason I have presented up front in Volume 1, my understanding of the various important spiritual terms and concepts, so that the reader can appreciate my philosophy better. Volume 2 presents my ideas about the real spiritual goal and the practice for achieving that goal – what exactly a spiritual seeker should be doing – both in the inner mental realm as also in the external world of action.”

I however felt that the title could have been different for spirituality is a serious matter. All in all a commendable effort for as the author says “After all, it is my strong belief that spirituality is all about transformation of mind through constant contemplation on the matters beyond the physical creation.”