Sometimes a Book is Just a Book

For some strange, unknown reason * , for the past couple of months, I’ve felt an odd urge to read up about India. The whole thing. The people, culture, the land, and, especially, the philosophical and religious beliefs of this especially philosophical and religious place. But I’ve been putting it off.

I never really checked out India save for a few rare times. In the 90s, during my spiritual wanderings, I investigated Hindu beliefs for something like a week one summer. Most of that decade was a tug of war between Zen Buddhism and Catholicism. Around the turn of the century I read most of the Mahabharata, giving up after growing impatient with it. As for non-religious India, I did a day’s worth of research on the country for background understanding for my reading of The Satanic Verses.

Of late I’ve been trying to deepen my Catholic faith, and feel a little oogy reading books about other belief systems (even philosophies in the traditional sense, i.e., Kant, Spinoza, even Kierkegaard). But today at my local book store, in the used section, I found a small book aptly entitled A History of India for $5. Begging to be plucked off the shelf.

I plucked.

And I rationalized:

Sometimes a book is just a book, and not a metaphorical metaphysical statement of eternal consequence.

Right?


* = it’s called being a “Hopper”