I am happy to announce the release of my 23rd book namely “Krishna's 4 paths to ultimate happiness”. Though not exactly a book on Yoga in the conventional sense, the subtitle of this book reads as “Complete Yogic science of the Bhagavad Geetha”.
Like the Bhagavad Geetha, specifically in this book, I use the word Yoga in a wide connotation – to mean a path to ultimate realization or happiness. This path also includes conventional Yoga as a form of meditative practice, in addition to other paths such as Jnyaana Yoga, Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga.
Bhagavad Geetha is a widely translated and commented upon book, with several well-known authors and Gurus giving their own interpretations. Often times, these works appear to be deviating quite a bit from the original theme of the Bhagavad Geetha.
In contrast to these, I have tried to limit myself to the core message of Bhagavad Geetha without diluting its authority, incisive look at human psychology and behavior, the poetic beauty, and purposefulness. I did not want to make it ‘My Geetha”.
Well, any interpretation is an interpretation and is bound to have author’s biases, and viewpoints. To avoid doing such disservice to this great epic poem to the extent possible, I have sprinkled key verses from the Geetha all through the text to show how closely the ideas that are discussed fall in place. At times you may feel that the references are almost one to one.
I had another reason for doing that. When I started writing this book, I already had a plan to turn this into a musical audiobook. I had given a hint of this plan long back during July 2019 itself. But, for various reasons, the things got delayed and I could not publish the book that year, as promised.
True to its name, the Bhagavad Geetha is a divine song. It is not just the philosophy. Its beauty lies even in its poetic and rhythmic verses which make ample use of similes and metaphors. What more if one gets to listen to those mesmerizing verses, sung by a good classical singer? That is what I have attempted to do in the audiobook. I have interspersed the discussions with musical rendering of the relevant verses by one of the popular Indian classical singers namely Padmini Dinesh. She has really done a great job by striking a good balance between pure music and recitation. So, hopefully you will have a divine experience, while simultaneously absorbing the highly interesting and illuminating ideas of this marvelous scripture.
I am not sure whether amazon can do it, but it will be a great experience to listen to this audiobook in the amazon’s well known ‘immersive reading mode’. Even if amazon cannot do it because of its current technical limitations, you can do something close to it. For this purpose, I have provided both e-book and print book formats of this book which are almost in sync with the audiobook, verbatim. So, you can listen to this book holding a print copy or a kindle running the e-book version. That should provide you truly a ‘divine immersive experience’!
The book is slightly more than 3 hours long and is packed with whole lot of information. It is not the conventional verse by verse rendering, but a thematic reorganization of the verses to convey the essence. If you have a flair for spiritual practices, this is a nice book to listen to.
Even as a musical audiobook, it is a good listen. Don’t look at it as an Indian or Hindu scripture. Not the least as a religious text. Its message is applicable to all, irrespective of their religious faiths or no-faith. In fact, I have tried to make it a completely secular book, to use the cliché.
Just to give you a flavor, let me play a short sample from the book for you. This sample discusses the ultimate experience one goes through in the final stages of meditation. Here you go… ( audio sample follows)
This book is available in almost all online stores such as amazon, audible, Apple, Google Play, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and so on. Click the link https://books2read.com/gita to sample and purchase the book from your favorite store. Those of you who may be just listening to me on one of the many podcast sites, please note that the 2 in books2read.com is numeral 2 and not the word ‘to’. Also, for brevity, I have spelt Geetha as gita in this link.
Happy reading/listening. Please don’t forget to leave back your reviews on the site where you purchased this book from.
Advance wishes for the coming great holiday season, happy Christmas and a fruitful New year! Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment