Customer Reviews

Mental Resilience: The Power of Clarity: How to Develop the Focus of a Warrior and the Peace of a Monk (Includes practice CD)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Let's face it, we're all inundated by noise. Work is becoming all more consuming, and gadgets like the Blackberry don't help. Work has consumed our lives, making it difficult to balance our thoughts and ideas.

As a businessperson, I too have allowed work to consume my life. My crackberry habits were destructive both from the family front as they were in making me an ineffective decision maker. When a friend first introduced me to this book, my flippant reaction was negative as I neither like Tofu nor do I have any crystals. To my surprise, neither does the author. In fact, he too comes from a similar business background to my own, an MBA as ex management consultant with a global highly recognized name. I could relate perfectly with his "real world" examples in his book.

Regardless of your own background, this book is perfect for any beginner to novice looking for ways to both declutter and find balance. Unlike other books on the subject, this book gives those good introduction as to why meditation is important, let alone offering constructive instructions as to how best to implement. I say this as I admit I was an utter failure my first few times. But following Kamal's voice on the CD, along with the reading, made it all the easier for me to begin. Trust me, meditation may be silence, but for those of us who's lives are consumed by everyday noise, meditation takes practice. This book is an excellent source of information as it is instructive.

I highly recommend this book to other business leaders and decision makers. After you've experienced this, you'll find you too will be recommending this book and CD.

Silence is bliss.

The book is about meditation for professionals in fields such as software, finance, engineering, and medicine. The book cover is unattractive, the binding feels cheap, the author looks like a dork in the back cover photo and the sub-titles are cliches. Even the title is not catchy enough. However, the book is powerful reading. The author wisely does not use the word "meditation" in the title as some educated professionals are put off by the word which implies giving up sensual pleasure and that too with hard work and concentration that they want to get away from in the first place. The book does not delve on spirituality, peace, faith, bliss, or nirvana; though it is about that and more.

Mental clutter debilitates our thought process. Unwinding helps. However, many a times we are simply numbing ourselves temporarily with TV, alcohol, and diversions without redressing issues with clear thought. This book takes you beyond hedonistic relaxation. The book has exercises to lead you through stages of meditation including relaxation, deeply calm, emotional tranquility, insight and wisdom.

The accompanying CD is sparse but requisite for putting the book's precepts into practice.

I have just started to implement the techniques, so I cannot comment on the results, but I am optimistic.

This is the best book on meditation that I've read and I endorse it enthusiastically! I teach meditation and relaxation in business settings and have placed this item as my number one recommended resource. It explains the value and purpose of strengthening the mind in a clear, practical and easy to understand way. It's common to focus on keeping the physical body healthy and yet the mind, which has an uncanny ability to go it's own way and get caught up in life's dramas, is often ignored. The book reinforces the view that we each have tremendous personal power to strengthen the mind muscle, see with greater clarity and as a result make wiser choices and decisions in our lives. In today's world especially it's important to learn ways to reduce stress and anxiety and stay present to counteract and balance the negativity about us. The step by step approach the author uses is simple, factual and devoid of religious or mystical connotations. The guided CD which accompanies the book is a helpful way to get started on your own. Be aware though, that there are long periods of silence challenging the listener to stay focused or sleep could be a distinct possibility!. The book provides a major contribution to the field of personal development particularly in the area of stress management.

Undoubtedly it is important to be able to quiet the mind and relax so as to be able to focus and return to life's obligations recharged and focus. In Mental Resilience, author Kamal Sarma provides, in my opinion, a basic introduction to one means - meditation - to achieve that. Sarma begins by telling us about his fortunate encounter with a wise, yogi sage, who taught him the secrets to successful meditation. Later, Sarma deviates from this path and enters the financial business world. He is struck by tragedy when his new born baby dies within a few weeks, and returns to his meditation roots as a way to calm his mind and regain his ability to function in his high activity world. The personal story brings a weight of sincerity to his message.

The lessons on meditation themselves are somewhat dry but straightforward. To be honest, I did not attempt to use the CD with meditations that accompanies the, so this review is strictly about the text. Keeping that in mind, I found the text somewhat awkward and lacking in its attempts to tie meditation to something bigger. For example, the descriptions of wisdom (a goal of meditation) are nebulous, leaving one wanting for something more solid, perhaps a more solid example of someone who is wise and their wise acts. Also, the book relies heavily for meditation-in-action examples from the world of finance or business, as if the author is trying to reach out primarily to his colleagues. Almost every example goes like this - I was really stressed, took up meditation with some skepticism, and now I am not so stressed.

I must admit that while reading the book and reading about the steps and concepts of mediation, I did feel relaxed, and got up from my reading in a calmer state of mind. Perhaps tha CD is what remains to be tested to do the rest of the trick.

This is the clearest explanation of how to meditate I've ever read. Period. The author provides step by step instructions for everything from simple relaxation to meditation on wisdom and compassion. His audio meditations, included with the purchase of the book, are perfect. This is a book for people of all religious persuasions, as the author doesn't operate out of one specific religious tradition. Highly recommended.

I enjoyed the theory and philosophy which this book taught and I enjoyed the meditations on my own. I thought the CD of guided meditations could have been better. But overall a good basic book.

Great read. Explains concepts of meditation and enlightenment in simple terms, backed with a broad range of scientific and philosophical references. So far this book and it's exercises have allowed me to better focus on my work (I'm a software engineer) and also sleep better at night. I highly recommend it.

Bought as gift for an athlete.Mental Resilience: The Power of Clarity: How to Develop the Focus of a Warrior and the Peace of a Monk

This book seemed primarily about using meditation. The disc that came with it had 5 guided meditations, all pretty much the same. I found it a letdown.