10 Books that transformed me in 2015
Books have never impacted me so significantly as they have in this year. Although all my school life a major part of my life revolved around them. Then what kept me close to them was the ‘syllabus’, now it was pure serene interest. The vital shift from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation made all the difference in my relationship with books.
Now its like, when I am reading a book I am living with the idea, person, subject. It goes with me all over, becoming a part of me. It shapes the examples I give, experiments I undertake and the form of my purpose of being alive (in a deeper sense ;)).
I thought to put a list together of the books that have left a deep impact on me, have helped me see life/world in a broader sense, have challenged my ideas, and have fueled my pursuit for more meaning. The purpose is dual. One, to undertake a reflection on what I picked up from each, and what stayed. Two, to pay the energy forward, that I felt, to you.
Co-authored by a writer in the family of 21 opthamologists, Infinite Vision is the story of World’s greatest business case for compassion. Aravind Eye Care System that is the world’s largest eye care provider, was a work of spirituality for Dr. V who started it while he was 58 years old. The book beautifully carves out Dr. V’s new approach to service delivery, combination of business acumen and selfless service, scale with soul and the indispensable part his family and all others played in creating what it is today.
"Through a continued process of aspiration, rejection and surrender, Dr. V was able to tap into intelligence that was beyond the thinking mind."
2. Gandhi Before India
– Ramchandra Guha
There’s enough and more highlighted literature available to know more about Gandhiji’s time post 1915 when he came to India and led the Independence struggle. His time in South Africa, although very important is considered just the prelude to his major role. What really made the Mahatma was his time before 1915. And this book is a comprehensive illustration of the time when he thought, wrote and acted ensuing his experiment with truth and non-violence, of development of satyagraha.. I particularly enjoyed writer’s continuous emphasis on Gandhiji’s personal and family life along with his social and professional life.
"In Kathiawar itself, Mohandas Gandhi could never have met or befriended these men, who became, as it were, unwitting agents of a transformative process whereby he moved from orthodoxy to heterodoxy in religion, from lawyering to activism in professional life and from a conservative inland Indian town (Rajkot) to a growing, bustling South African port (Durban)."
3. Vinoba on Gandhi
– Edited by Kanti Shah
When Gandhiji left his body, Vinobaji said that Gandhij could see till a point and we like his children can stand on his shoulders and see further, this book exactly does that. One of greatest explanations of Gandhian thought, it brings out with subtlety concepts, principles, doctrines that Gandhiji professed.
"Bapu himself was not interested in politics as such. Even though he had to grapple with political questions right up to the moment of his death, the whole struggle was for him part of a wider sadhna: the quest for truth."
4. Walden
– Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau was always round the corner. Two of my favorite movies, had him quoted. But I never payed heed in over 7-8 times I saw each of them. Until it was time. I am yet to understand Walden fully. Most of the book was written while Thoreau lived in the woods near the Walden Pond in solitude doing basics of survival. Growing his own food, building his house himself, and minimum of human interactions. Alongside he created a mindspace for larger questions on economy, government, industrialization, colonization etc.
“I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life”
The only fiction book here, the only one I read this year. Some call it sad, but it was intensity of emotions that stood out for me. I loved how Jhumpa brought out all the major characters in the story, each of their story flowing individually as they were part of a collective story too. The setting of Bengal at the onset of Naxalbari movement was interesting and questioned my ideas of revolution and change.
“Isolation offered its own form of companionship: the reliable silence of her rooms, the steadfast tranquility of the evenings. The promise that she would find things where she put them, that there would be no interruption, no surprise. It greeted her at the end of each day and lay still with her at night.”
6. Vinoba on Education
– Vinoba Bhave
The inhumanness of our education system perturbs me deeply. In the book, Vinoba ji shares the ideas and model of Nai Talim that considers knowledge and work, one. The hierarchy that keeps intellectual labour above manual labour is not natural but a convention, struck with me from the book. I am intrigued with the question, how to create a contextual education that fosters wholesome development of a human being?
“Learning has value in its own right. The purpose of learning is freedom..the purpose of education is freedom from fear.”
7. Sacred Economics
– Charles Eisenstein
It questioned my basic assumptions about money. It took me to the fundamental question, why was money created? It demonstrated for the first time, that scarcity of resources as we say it, may not be real. And since I have been slowly but steadily moving on the path of understanding ways of economics that creates systems, currencies that foster abundance, inter-connections and happiness. Link
"We are not just a skin-encapsulated ego, a soul encased in flesh. We are each other and we are the world."
8. Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered
– E. F. Schumacher
Written in 1973, this book is still very relevant. My interest in exploring alternative perspectives on economics brought me to it, and the title Small is Beautiful held me to read it.
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.”
9. One Straw Revolution
– Monsabu Fukuoka
Description of the experiments and evolution of something called natural farming by a Japanese farmer, the book was long on my list. For my preliminary interest in farming, more importantly in spiritual pursuit manifested in physical world. Monsabu called it, ‘Do-Nothing farming’ that is a revolutionary frame vis-a-vis modern agriculture as we know it. What struck me was the aim of the farmer in natural farming is to understand the larger flow of nature and become an instrument of nature itself. The boundaries between weed and wheat, wild and human are blurred. Insecticides, pesticides, fertilizers etc are no longer needed. Interestingly the soil is not ploughed and seeding is randomized and direct.
“Humanity knows nothing at all. There is no intrinsic value in anything, and every action is a futile, meaningless effort”
10. Summerhill
– A.S. Neil
The intensity of the question of education, I was holding grew several times, when I came across this book. It was astounding for me to know that a school (so to say) has separated education from force and has brought freedom in how children learn there. And what was more that it was set up in 1824 in Europe and has been running for 91 years now. Wow. It gave a complete shift to my thought and imagination of how education can happen in a given context.
"Possibly the greatest discovery we have made in Summerhill is that a child is born a sincere creature."
I am deeply grateful to the authors of the above books, to all the people who helped them write these and to the forces that helped me encounter these treasures of wisdom. :)
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