Open Eyed Meditations
Me and meditations come a long way. I am not trying to preach or anything, but just expressing that I have a prolonged relationship with meditating. When I was tiny, my mother used to make me sit and chant Om with eyes closed. I used to hate it. But I could not rebel. This continued for many years...I had meditated everyday throughout my school life. There used to be breaks but more or less it had been my entire school life. After I got into medical college, I broke the shackles of my mother's strict laws and emerged as a wild child. Not something I am proud of or I would tell my daughter, but I renounced all the good habits that Mom had instilled in me during my formative years. Probably those six years required meditating the most, as I was struggling with academics, peer pressure, trying to fit into happening crowd etc. But I did not. Then I joined my Post Grad in Yoga. There meditation was an integral part of the syllabus. Not only that, we were supposed to sit in Padmasana, eyes closed and no movement for at least 45 minutes. Any movement would mean deduction in marks.
Meditation or Dhyanam is the sixth limb of Ashtanga Yoga which eventually takes us to enlightenment. Enough spiritual talk, now lets come down to earth.
Now the phrase Open Eyed Meditation is intriguing in itself. I mean meditation is supposed to be done with eyes closed. However in this world everything is evolving. App study have replaced tuition classes and people try to learn photography through You Tube. What I am trying to say is that we need to evolve everyday. The essence of meditation is concentration, introspection and self improvement. So it could be done even while reading a book!
Open Eyed Meditations is a book by Shubha Vilas, the author of best selling book Ramayana, The Game of Life. Since his previous book was so stellar, I had a lot of expectations from this one. And this book turned out to be even better!
This book is a guide for self improvement where you are guided in everyday situations. It is not preachy at all but only practical wisdom. The situations are very real..like how to overcome jealousy or how to let go or how to make leadership last..etc etc. There are very practical lessons on relationships like importance of gifts (or how unimportant it is), art of nourishing relationships, the magic carpet for relationships (my favourite chapter) and a lot more. One chapter deals with that why do the people once we loved appear detestable now? I believe everyone has dealt with this situation before and its very enlightening! We just need to change our perspective.
The best part of this book is that its divided into small chapters and can be read again and again. Its not like a novel that you have to finish it in one go. If you are feeling low, you would be able to find the exact situation in the book and be able to overcome the low phase.
Often we need to be taught lessons even if we are not a child anymore. Positive reinforcement is required at every step of life. But when we become adults and get busy in our own lives, we seldom get time to work on ourselves. Parents no longer guide us and neither we get the time to attend spiritual sessions. That is when self improvement books come into play.
This book will mould a newer, better you. With excerpts from Ramayana, Mahabharata and other epics, it relates today's everyday life with the lives and situations of epics thousands of years ago. Its very practical. I definitely emerged a lot better after completing this book.
Pages: 279
Price: 250 INR for Paperback
This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!
3 comments
That looks like such a perfect place to meditate <3
ReplyDeletexoxo
Rina Samantha
http://www.andshedressed.com
Great REview MAndy.
ReplyDeleteAditi
www.sosaree.in
New Post Up
I actually never tried meditation :)
ReplyDelete