To be frank, I was going to begin my review with lines:
’’If you ever wondered what your life is all about, if you want to know whether your daily activities like- getting up, going to work, cooking food, eating it, checking emails- make sense, then I guess this book is a must-read for you.’’
But then, I changed my mind, for two reasons. Firstly, it’ll sound stupid. And, secondly, it’ll be a lie! Because I had no such intention when I bought this book. I picked it up just bcoz it’s a best seller, and the shopkeeper agreed to sell it for Rs.150 after an enjoyable hard bargain. Although, now I wonder how could I be so reluctant to the more important questions of life that the book raises.
This book, to be honest, is a series of shocks. Each looking very weird at first (at least to me) but as Dr. Scott Peck goes on to explain, you are promoted to a higher level of understanding of your concepts (or your map of reality- as he calls it) And, the experience is indeed very enjoyable.
’’Life is difficult’’ is the very first sentence with which he begins. That was my first shock! But then as he talked about discipline and its importance in one’s life, the sentence no longer remained a shock. In fact, it seemed like a platitude, for to be disciplined means to delay gratification, to withhold truth, to dedicate one’s self to reality. And that IS difficult.
Then, in 2nd section of the book, he defines love as a willing attempt to extend oneself to nurture the spiritual growth of the self and the beloved. And he states that the usual ’’falling in love’’ experience is not true love. He says, falling in love is a trick played by nature and our genes and
’’without this trick, this illusory, inevitable temporary regression to infantile merging and omnipotence, many of us who are happily or unhappily married today, would have retreated in whole hearted terror from the realism of the marriage vows’’
Let me just explain the ’’infantile merging’’ part of the above sentence, as I understand it. An infant is unable to distinguish between objects. He/she sees the world as a continuum. He is totally in unison with it and that is being closest to God. And the feeling is very enjoyable. The infant is totally disconnected from the Maya of the world (as the Hindu mythology calls it) And that is what is purpose of our lives - to gain freedom from Maya. Even though many do not succeed in achieving this goal, by virtue of love, we all contribute to the evolution of the Human race to Godhood.
Ardent believers in religion and spirituality often say, ?Look at all these gruesome crimes, the war and the pollution. How can one possibly say that we are evolving?’’ However, Dr. Peck takes the opposite side. He believes that human race has indeed evolved spiritually. Wars in fact are the signs of it for wars occur when the values that were felt acceptable by our forbearers, are no longer tolerated. We expect more of ourselves.
’’14th Century Roman law gave the father absolute control over his children whom he could sell, condemn to death with impunity. Even the language had same word for children and slaves. It was after 16th Century that children were considered to be worthy of special care and attention.’’
Laziness is opposite of love for it is love that is the driving force for our evolution. All things in nature tend to be disorganized and undifferentiated (2nd law of thermodynamics) Without love- the effort to nurture spiritual growth- we would all disorganize into lower organisms like the viruses and bacteria and then finally into dead matter. The evil force of entropy-, which is laziness-, is driving us down. We all prefer shortcuts; we want quick fix solutions to our problems. In other words, we are lazy. But the force of love drives us upward. We become more disciplined and organized in love. The human race continues to evolve.
But then what is the end? And, Dr. Peck answers that question- again in a shocking manner. God is the end. God wants us to be Himself. He is the alpha and the omega. You are once again returned to the womb- in unison with the universe. God is the beginning and He is the end.
Here I noticed a striking similarity between the Hinduism and Christianity and I was delighted to see an evidence for the fact that all religions are nothing but different paths leading to the same destination.
About the author: Dr. Peck is a psychiatrist by profession and although, a significant part of the book deals with psychotherapy, to say that the book is about psychotherapy would be to insult his ’’spontaneous act of generosity’’ and to limit our level of understanding of the book.
Buying info: People in India may visit
https://crosswordbookstores.com/html/cwchain.htm
and place the order over phone, fax or email. I’m not sure of the price in INR. Others may buy it from Amazon.com for $12.