Life Positive reviews my book "Inner Pilgrimage: Ten Days to a Mindful Me."

2. http://www.rajilukkoor.com/

3. Book Review
Vipassana means „insight‟ in the ancient Pali language.
Somewhere on day five, half-way through the ten-day meditation retreat that Raji
Lukkoor attends and records engagingly in the course of this book, she quotes William
Hart (from „The Art of Living‟ – a book on vipassana): “All our lives … we have rarely
tried to examine ourselves, our own mental and physical structure, our own actions, our
own reality. Therefore, we remain unknown to ourselves. We do not realise how harmful
this ignorance is, how much we remain the slaves of forces within ourselves – of which
we are unaware.”
That insight unfolds for Raji in so dramatic a way that she immediately feels impelled to
put down her experiences – documenting every single one of the ten days – in her own
stream-of-awareness style.
So what we have is a gripping – often humorous – and very personal account of how
she learns to examine her „own reality‟ – guided by the voice of S N Goenka (the
founder of the ten-day programme), the instructors, and the processes of vipassana
meditation.
What begins with a simple series of grievances (“Oh no, the AC will dry out my nasal
passages”) and the typical mental niggles of an urban housewife adjusting to new
physical surroundings and changing habits in the middle of a group of meditating
strangers gradually gives way to deeper levels of discomfort – emotional and physical
disturbances – that she wrestles with, overcomes bravely, and honestly shares.
Raji writes about her experiences with a keen sense of observation that is both amusing
and instructive. To anyone reading her story, it is like a taking a co-journey into what
happens during the vipassana meditation retreat.
by T. A. Basubramanian
Life Positive