Book: Travelling Lighter: Further Down the Path of Letting Go
Author: Suma Varughese
Publisher: Life Positive Publications
Pages: 188
Price: Rs 225
A book review, in some cases, can be written from the point of view of having known the author and being part witness to her life. I first met Suma Varughese nearly 20 years ago when she was the glamorous, high-flying editor of Society magazine that chronicled the lives of the rich and the famous. From what I gathered (I was working in the same organisation as hers), she was an excellent writer and a thoroughly competent editor, completely in command as she traversed the country to enter the mansions and lifestyles of the high and mighty. Yet neither I nor others could have imagined the spiritual conflict she was harbouring all the while.
A painful episode in her life and a crisis of the soul was followed by a remarkable life-transformation over the years. Suma shifted gears completely and went on to edit Life Positive, a spiritual magazine. It was a reflection of where her life was heading -- and it has been 10 years since she's been at the helm. Her first autobiographical book, chronicling her spiritual transformation, was Travelling Light. And now follows Travelling Lighter Further Down the Path of Letting Go.
If there is one thing that stands out in the two books, it is the stark honesty with which the author chronicles her life. Suma is as completely truthful as can be, whether on her weakness for food, the trauma in looking after her 90-year-old mother or even when talking about her own spiritual shortcomings. The lack of artifice in the latest book -- which she places ingenuously before the reader – is heartening in a world where a large percentage of people aim to look good, especially when they're on public platforms. That alone makes the book worth a read. After all, when you're chronicling your life's episodes from a spiritual viewpoint for the benefit of readers, absolute truthfulness is worth its weight in gold.
Incidentally, this is a book for the engaged spiritual seeker who lives in the world of material reality (Suma lives in Mumbai) and is not about to renounce his/her duties and responsibilities to head for nirvana in the mountains. Suma gently guides the reader through her own example, using psychological spiritual tools that she's discovered on the path towards letting go of the enormous negativities that we're conditioned with by society, by our individual environments and by our own selves. Using this methodology, one may move towards a cleaner, freer, lighter state of being that results in happiness for ourselves and for those around us. That said, the path is something each one of us must walk on our own, with our unique temperaments, personalities and experiences, step by step, never giving up and achieving our own personal happiness, all the while helping others.