| Many Lives, Many Masters Author:Brian Weiss Publisher: Piatkus ISBN: 0749913789 Price: Rs 350; Pages: 224 |
| The joys of childhood reading remain a delicious memory. Premchand, Ageya, Nirala, Muktibodh, Kaifi, Manto were as much a part of my world as were Maupassant, Garcia and Osho. |
| It is difficult to pick out one piece of the writing and say "this inspired me". However, at a certain stage of life, some books can leave a somewhat meaningful impression. |
| I remember attending a concert of Kumar Gandharva at IIT Delhi. Totally engrossed, I closed my eyes. The beautifully haunting voice and purity of music seemed larger than life. There was a strange attraction, a spiritual pull I felt that evening that caught me totally unawares. |
| Another incident occurred soon after, when I was amidst the hills in Almora. Sitting beside a waterfall and writing I felt as though I was one with the waterfall. |
| A feeling of being "one", a feeling of a larger "source" towards which we were attracted raised its head once more. During this phase I remember reading Many Lives Many Masters by Brian Weiss. |
| The book is based on a true case history. Weiss, a doctor, has a rational clinical approach to psychiatry but finds himself reluctantly drawn into past-life therapy when a hypnotised patient "" who hitherto unresponsive and uncured by traditional means of physiotherapy "" reveals details of her previous lives. |
| Simply written, it touched upon his personal experience. Perhaps less impressed with his cerebral credentials and more so with the author's integrity and honesty, especially his own struggle and scepticism with the issue, I read on. I cannot say it "inspired" me or gave me answers but yes it did affect me. |
| It was interesting to see a serious scientist steeped in the western way of thinking open his mind to faith without proof. Still, most of the messages or teachings reflected in the book, while uplifting, were to me restatements of traditional religious values. |
| For, reincarnation and life beyond death and karma are not concepts that are alien to me. |
| It's often said that the reader should allow himself to be taken over by the author "" in effect, surrender his own rational autonomy "" while others strongly believe that reading should be an stimulus, a means to encourage one to "think for one's own self". |
| There is truth perhaps in both, for the former approach opens doors that lead us into a different world while the latter unlocks windows in our consciousness. In effect, our thinking takes off from where a book leaves us. This book broadened my perspective of existence. |
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