Summary

While navigating their way through Mumbai’s horrendous traffic, Gaur Gopal Das and his wealthy young friend Harry get talking, delving into concepts ranging from the human condition to finding one’s purpose in life and the key to lasting happiness.

Whether you are looking at strengthening your relationships, discovering your true potential, understanding how to do well at work or even how you can give back to the world, Gaur Gopal Das takes us on an unforgettable journey with his precious insights on these areas of life.

Dasji is one of the most popular and sought-after monks and life coaches in the world, having shared his wisdom with millions. His debut book, Life’s Amazing Secrets, distills his experiences and lessons about life into a light-hearted, thought-provoking book that will help you align yourself with the life you want to live.

Review

One of the first things I have concluded since reading this book is that Gaur Gopal Das is a very learned man with decades of wisdom, to be able to share his knowledge in such an easy and relatable way. It is quite clear that he chooses his words wisely and is not impatient or judgemental. In some ways, he seems like a therapist or a very wise confidant every person needs, except he is a life coach who has chosen the monk way of living.

It begins with Gaur Gopal Das having a conversation with his troubled friend and explaining to him further how every life is like a car that needs to be balanced on four wheels. These 4 wheels are as follows:

• Wheel 1 : Personal Life
• Wheel 2 : Relationships
• Wheel 3 : Work Life
• Wheel 4 : Social Contributions

He then goes on to explain each of these wheels with very simple and extremely relatable examples. GGD seems like nothing but a very simple close friend who’s mastered the art of living life happily. He imparts knowledge and messages through the simplest of experiences in life and at no point do you feel the messages get preachy or unrealistic.

Quite honestly, a lot of what is being said is something you’ve heard at some point in your life but just not put together so sophisticatedly and in this context. Every chapter starts with a beautiful quote by legendary people and ends with a summary of the chapter.

The book imparts knowledge through a network of tiny stories or experiences and connects them through a simple central story, which is nothing more than an earnest conversation between two people. It is like a movie which has many tiny independent subplots which are slowly stitched together into the main plot.

It is so simple in the way it conveys it’s message and yet so refreshing. It is neither a heavy read, nor a lengthy one. It’ll take 5-6 hours to finish this book and yet, come out of it fresh and enlightened. 

A part of me simply wants to summarise this book, like how we make notes, so that it’s easier for people to read. But apart from copyright infringement and it being ethically wrong, I think I would never be able to capture it’s essence and just make it as significant (not really) as some educatory notes. I’d definitely recommend this book to every person I know!

Some quotes that resonated with me :

“When we treat inanimate objects, like buckets or our possessions, with disrespect or insensitivity, we will end up treating people the same. At one point in my life, I seemed to be losing a lot of my friends and I heard this advice from one of my guides. Insensitivity becomes part of our general attitude, and our instinct does not discriminate between things and people.”

“‘Watch your thoughts, they turn into words. Watch your words, they turn into actions. Watch your actions, they turn into habits. Watch your habits, they turn into character. Watch your character, it turns into your destiny.’ It all begins with a thought.”

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