Karma gets a curator

When I heard the city has a new bookstore on spirituality, I imagined a space clogged with books on esoteric spiritual paths, a Vedic or Buddhist chant on loop and a whiff of agarbhatti. It was quite surprising then to find that ‘Karma Korner’ was more of a bookshelf, with standing rows of niches—two on the wall and one on the floor.

At any given point, the store hosts just 50 books and a bit of spiritual paraphernalia—statues of yogis in lotus-pose, bags and posters illustzated with third-eye opening and the composite-androgynous figure of Shiva-
Parvati, carved yoga danda (Y-stick) and polished khadau (yoga sandals).

This store occupies just a patch on the outer wall of its parent company, Khar-based hotel Le Sutra that is popular for its rooms fashioned with quirky chairs, paintings, sculptures and artifacts on the rajas, tamas and sattva gunas (spiritual levels).

I spot the Upanishads, yoga sutras, Taoism, confuciansim, tantra, aura and even Stephen Hawking’s Theory of Everything. It also includes Karma, Aatma and Dream Sutras—a series by Hingori Sutra, the in-house publishing brand, available in English, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, German, and soon in Polish. 

However, even 50 books are still too many to browse. That’s when the sole attendant at Karma Korner talks of how the store has devised a policy to help seekers narrow down their search for the right book/s that can push them to a higher spiritual realm. 

I’m handed a test on paper of 16 multiple-choice questions to determine my spiritual IQ level that I take about a minute to fill up. Questions like, ‘Do you believe in God’ or ‘life-after-death?’ I tick in a breeze, but a few bred the ‘did-my-karma-run-over-your-dogma?’ moments: ‘Do you think you have a debt to repay plants, animals and those beings that have helped you along your way in life?’, ‘Would you like to earn wealth in the afterlife?’, ‘Do you invest time in spiritual upliftment?’, ‘Do you recognise divinity within yourself?’.

Within a minute the attendant creates my ‘test report’. I score 44 points and fall in the third category: Involved. Apparently, the four answer-choices to a question carry 1-4 points each. The points are grouped under four categories: Initiators (16-24) are the newly spiritually awakened/curious lot, Inclined (25-40) are ones with some spiritual inkling, Involved (41-56) are aware of philosophical theories and Intensely Involved (57-63) are for whom spirituality is a way of life. Higher the points, the closer you are to attaining spiritual fitness.

Initiators are prescribed books on life histories and teachings of learned men. For the spiritually inclined, it’s books on dreams, out-of-body experiences and life-after-death; for the involved (that’s me), it’s auras, chakras to understand these to attain higher level of consciousness and the intensely involved, are suggested books to maintain supreme spiritual growth.

The minute-long test was not a sure-shot indicator to tap my spiritual prowess as biographies and dreams interest me more. But the the test did get me more focused, to disagree to agree on subjects I’m more inclined to lap up. This kind of spiritual questioning is what Karma Korner hopes to instigate, reveals brand manager Syed Ali. “Your level of spirituality differs from the next person, and also changes at different points in life. This IQ test, the book-by-prescription format and the Hingori series are put together by a panel of 7-8 members with 30 years of spiritual experience is just a guide to let you know what spiritual genre you might want to consider at the
moment.”

The Hingori series, he says, uses simple language and advocates non-religious principles. “These function are more like self-help books to gain inner peace, and interpret dreams. They state that if to err is divine then all humans, despite their mistakes, can assume that divinity exists in them.” Pop-ups at MNC’s, an app for online test and a boutique store on wheels are in the piping.