Customer Reviews

Beyond Birth and Death

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I first read Beyond Birth & Death as a practicing Hare Krishna devotee, when I was selling the book on traveling sankirtan in 1973. I had a near death experience and found the book calming and soothing for understanding our nature as the eternal soul, not the body. I read it again in March, 2000, to help deal with the pain and confusion of a dying relative. I would recommend this book for anyone who has to deal with the death of a loved one, or for anyone serious about understanding the real purpose and destiny of the human form of life.

I picked this book up from a Hare Krishna at the St. Louis airport a few weeks ago. It's a fine summary of the interpretation of the Bhagavad-Gita held by devotees of Lord Krishna, as well as a suitable introduction to their views about the nature of soul, consciousness, and death.

In case you didn't notice, this "book" is only 50 pages. It is nothing but excerpts from the Gita with the illustrations from the Gita. For the $3 + $4 shipping.. you might as well get the whole Gita -as it is. I could see this as being good to hand out to college students, who have never been exposed to Hinduism, who just want a small taste of Hinduism, without getting very deep into it at all.

This book is both contradictory and obvious. In my work of looking at ancient texts and deciphering if they were about extra terrestrials or ancient mythical gods..we have to see one thing. In this book you learn that there is a spiritual universe and then inside of it are millions of material universes. The spiritual universe could be seen as our universe..and the millions of material universes..planets inside of the universe. Then this book goes on to say how there are flying machines used to go to different planets..obvious UFOs there.

That being the case, its hard to take this as fact, though there are some great arguments FOR the soul, though as all titles by this author..the front cover says evidence..but there is no evidence..only texts.

The contradiction in this book is that one must spend their whole life without desire, without material wants or needs or anything..no desire..no pleasuring the senses by eating out at a restaurant..nothing that is pleasing to the body. Then it says that once you die you go to "Heaven"..which is Sri Krishna's PLANET (in the spiritual universe, which I have showed is our universe..so you go to another planet when you die.....) and there are these trees all over the planet that when you touch them you get what ever you want..if its a car then you get a car..if its sex then you get sex. You learn to not want and need anything..then when you die you get the chance to have everything...WTH!?

Also, much like Christian dogma, this book (as well as other books by the author) keep you on a collar, basically saying that the only way to transmigrate to a final "Heaven" and break the cycle of reincarnation is to chant the mantra your whole life and then the second before you die you must either mutter or think about the name Krishna. If that isn't like a Christian telling you you will go to hell if you don't believe in God when you die then I don't know what is!

3/5
John McAdam: author of
"Were Ancient Gods From Other Planets?"
"Am I Mad Or Coherent?"