Life's Amazing Secrets by Gaur Gopal Das (Book Review: 2*/5) !!!

There is so much about spirituality going on in timelines and feeds on our social media that almost everyone is aware of the concept even if they practice it or not. For a person like me who is regularly following and reading about the stuff, keeps knowing new things every day and also getting refreshed with all the previously learnt concepts. Every time, I pick up a spiritual book or a book by a spiritual personality, it is my basic expectation to learn and know something new which can surprise, shock, astonish and mind-boggle me. If nothing of that sort happens, the book is a failure for me which is written not to introduce new concepts to human beings but just for sake of writing a book to accomplish one of the personal goals and yearly resolutions.

Same has been the case after reading “Life’s Amazing Secrets” written by none other than one of the most popular spiritual personality on Youtube- Gaur Gopal Das. I have been following two personalities on Youtube when it comes to spiritual knowledge- No one can beat my following for Sadhguru and 2^nd, this gentleman- Gaur Gopal Das. He has such a polite and well-speaking oratory skills that you can hear him for hours. Also, his concepts, examples and logics that he gives in his videos are so up to the mark that it teaches you something new each time you watch one of his new videos. Though I do not like the way ISKCON endorses spiritualism by circulating the knowledge only from the one dimension that they believe in but still, this man speaks individually by not bonding himself under the premise of the institution’s agenda. Unfortunately, everything that I have spoken about his powerful knowledge sharing capacity in his videos cannot be said for his debut book.

The book gives me a very basic knowledge of how to lead life which you have yourself kept hearing since childhood from your parents and colony’s uncles and aunts. Not a single chapter in the book is as impactful as such self-help and spiritual book are expected of. As Das has himself said in the start of the book that writing the book was not his original thought, but the publisher asked him to, this book also displays the same that author just completed it for the sake of at least start with writing books. Author has gone the Robin Sharma way where he has written the book in the conversational format still dividing it into different chapters but couldn’t deliver the same simple keys that can help us in changing our lifestyle and approach towards living.

The author has spoken about the four basic wheels of life in the book:- Balancing personal life, maintaining relationships, regulating work life and managing social contributions. The only section that I found little different than what I have regularly read is the one talking about managing work life. Except that, there is a section in which the author has described how should one sit in an asana and release the stress off which also sounded solution-proof. Otherwise, at the end of each chapter, author has summarized the whole chapter, and I am sorry to say, but if you only read those 4-5 bulleted points in the summary, you are done with the book as it has nothing more than that. This is a very confused book where author has also ended up giving examples or real-life scenarios which are not even completely relevant to the stuff he is talking about. Overall, I would say a very disappointing debut and I give this book only 2 stars out of 5.

Thanks.

ABHILASH RUHELA!!!