Tuesday, 29 October 2013 00:32
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By Yohanka Jayasuriya
The launch of ‘Pointers to Enlightenment’ will be a watershed in Sri Lanka’s decade long endeavour to present her most precious gift to the world in the quest of ‘ finding true nature of life and the world’.
Although the contents circle around the existing philosophies in a creative manner, it does not carry labels based on historic data in scriptures. Truly, this is a masterpiece that everyone should read for it offers the readers different perspectives of seeing what is real without being tangled in the mind’s game.
This is not a book for specific age groups or various social segments who are inclined to be spiritual with ideas dogmatic or otherwise. It is a book that is intended to open the eyes of many that have been obscured by notions reinforced by various beliefs. The author seems to have written this with the hope that the readers will have an open mind to grasp the clues presented through this book.
One may follow any religion or even can be a non believer. The universal verity is that there can be only one truth. Anything else that is forced into a person simply because one has been born into a family of a particular faith, is an injustice if such people are not allowed a free will to explore at least to some extent, should realisation has to take place within and cannot come from an extraneous source.
Vipula Wanigasekera’s ‘Pointers to Enlightenment’ seeks no reader to accept any of its contents. The topic itself explains that he only places ‘pointers’ or ‘clues’ for readers to untie the knot by themselves with the aid of these examples.
When I was writing poetry for the Tourism Authority, he mentioned to me about his intention of writing this book but wasn’t ready for it. I remember him saying, “I must find a way for readers to grasp the meaning between form and formless.” Indeed it meant something for me because of my extensive reading of Ekhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, etc.
People are saddled with the question which the author has rightly pointed out ‘What are we supposed to do to attain enlightenment? This is a difficult question to answer as enlightenment does not require ‘doing anything’. That is the key message that will undo all one has acquired falsely to be ways and means to achieve enlightenment.
This brilliant piece of work would no doubt cut across the world with Tuesday’s launch , reaching thousands of freedom seekers with his altruistic wish that I would re quote before ending my review: “May you be able to see what is beneath in ‘Self’ and bring suffering to an end in the conscious presence.”
The book will be available from tomorrow 30 October 2013 at Makeen Books 430 Galle Road, Colombo 3 Tele 2375930 and other leading book shops in the country
(Yohanka Jayasuriya is a Licentiate holder in Speech and Drama of Trinity College London and Examiner for Colombo Academy of Language Skills and Dramatic Arts. She also authored ‘Sri Lanka through an eye of a Poet’.)
