Stalking God- Book Review

Stalking God:

My Unorthodox Search for Something to Believe- Anjali Kumar

Book Review

By SADIA WALI

“To gain a spiritual thirst, we must desire it.” (Sermons on spiritual thirst- v.37)

In "Stalking God: My Unorthodox Search for Something to Believe, the author Anjali Kumar aims to find spiritual quest in a modern world. She takes us along on her quest for spiritual meaning and connection with God. Being a corporate lawyer and senior counsel at Google, she responded to people with absolute faith, conviction and wisdom. It was the birth of her daughter, Zia that enhanced her sense of spiritual curiosity; she developed inner desire to gain more spiritual passion and zeal for God. Nothing could quench her spiritual thirst until she decided to explore the mainstream and unorthodox religious practices widely practiced in the world today.  Anjali Kumar set out on a spiritual pilgrimage, looking for answers of the following questions:

·        Why are we here?

·        What is the meaning of life?

·        What happens when we die?

·        Is there a God?

The entire book is enjoyable as it provides interesting travelogue and weird experiences of Anjali Kumar. Her quest of self- discovery and spiritual clarity began with learning of both western and Eastern religion Gopi, a coworker at Google proposed that she meet a spiritual healer from India, Hugging Amma.  Amma was engaged with social communities to promote love, peace and social cohesions in the world. She built a state-of-the-art university and a medical school in the Indian state of Kerala. Her experience to meet this amazing lady was ineffable. She changed her clothes three times as finally she decided to wear yoga pants and a loose- fitting shirt. It was an overwhelming experience for Anjali to meet Amma.

As she related, “Amma entered to palpable excitement. I was standing close enough that I unintentionally ended up in a makeshift receiving line, which made it possible to reach out and touch her hand. She was wearing a white cotton sari. When I approached Amma, one of Amma’s children pushed me down on my knees, and Amma pulled me in to a long bear hug. When she released me from the embrace, Amma held me at arm’s length, then looked and smiled at me with honesty and purity. Before sending me on my way, she gave me a packet of sandalwood powder and a kiss.”

Hugging Amma seemed Holy Communion to her.Having an enlightening experience of Amma, Anjali proceeded towards Brazil for spiritual salvation. . Here she met John of God. John of God (JOG) was a faith healer who performed miracles. She learned that JOG enters a trancelike state where he gets spiritual power to heal the sick. JOG has no formal education of medicine. But he proficiently performs medical procedures such as invisible and visible surgeries. As Anjali stood by his side for surgery, she felt a strange physical reaction. “I decided that when my turn came, I should ask JOG to help me find laughter and passion and to learn how to heal and protect my heart.” 

JOG simply waved her and did not reply. However, in meditation room she focused on an advice by Norberto. “Smile more, pray more… happy more. Drink more water. Eat breakfast. Real breakfast at a table, with your family.” She began to feel something miraculous happening. It was energy transformation; infinite enlightenment and   joviality.

She discussed her recent spiritual visits with her mother whom denied that gurus and healers are of no value. She believed that they just take money and are of no help. Anjali’s parents followed Jain religion which says there are an infinite number of Gods. As her mother said, “I don’t believe in God” . Anjali believed it an atheist comment. Instead of growing perplexed, she aimed for personal spiritual growth as to guide her daughter towards the right path.

Her next venture was to visit a guru named Shri Param Eswaran (aka Paramji). Paramji is a spiritual yoni healer. He practices something called Para-Tan sounding or Tantric Sound Healing, which create positive emotions, increase, self-esteem and spiritual enlightenment. The spiritual practice of guru also includes channeling vibrations into a specific body by using mantras and chanting. Chanting helps to cure heart disease, insomnia and improves brain function. Describing her feelings, she said, I felt third-eye pressure between my brows—the chakra attributed to spiritual insight, wisdom, and intuition—like a fly on my forehead. I didn’t know if I believed this was real or put-on. But the chanting itself, in unison, was harmonic, elevating, and compelling.

The spiritual message of   Paramji was “To mind my own business”. “To focus on me.”

Another spiritual practice named Soul Cycle delivers the collective energy of the crowd—just without the church. It is forty-five-minute dopamine-pumping session that renewed energy, increased confidence and spiritual health of a person. An interesting expedition of Anjali was witchcraft connection. Through face book, Amazon and other social media, she learned that witches using mystical forces do spells of black magic for evil and white magic for good. They have no sacred text like the Bible, Quran, or Torah. The author found WICCA, practising modern witchcraft in Great Britain. Their magical spells increase personal empowerment, love, health and healing.  This spiritual quest helped her to identify her misconceptions about witchcraft, black magic, cosmic energy and superstition. She developed close association with two witches. As she felt “I am half witch.”

Bikram yoga, introduced in California by Bikram Choudhury in the 1970s was used to transcend spiritual enlightenment. The yoga was followed by high heat and sweat lodges that build up mind-body-spirit connection. Anjali inspired by sweat lodges decided to experience spiritual and healing nature of sweat lodge by covering herself in Mayan clay. Clay ritual involved meditative practice that physically and mentally heal the body, increase self- direction and goal setting.

As relating her experience she said, “Doing so changes your behavior on both a conscious and a subconscious level, and that changes your outcomes in a manner that brings you closer to what you actually want to achieve.”

The experience with Fay, a faith healer was astounding for the author. As Anjali recalled Fay speaks to dead people. Initially, Fay and Anjali had telephonic conversation; Fay asked her general questions regarding her family. A few months later they met in New York. Anjali learned that about two types of memories, first one relates to the painful memories of the dead person. Second one is “grocery store moments that refers to speaking with dead people. Anjali was still bewildered whether Fay really talks to the dead or just trying to manipulate her like priests, ministers, rabbis, and other religious leaders. In her opinion, “Because the simple truth is, I don’t know if a medium can access the dead, but those religious leaders have no hard proof of their connections to God either.”  

Further explicating she said, “I will never know for sure if Fay or anyone else can actually talk to the dead, but I do know that believing they can has a powerful effect. It is called the placebo shaman effect and serves as a source of superhuman strength for all of us.”

She related another exciting spiritual journey to Cusco, Peru and Machu. In Peru, she met ayahuasca, the ancient visionary “plant teacher” in Cusco. Anjali believes this ancient plant as liquid spiritual lightning that physically and mentally transform the body. “ayahuasca allows you to communicate with “the universe,” said Anjali. In Machu Picchu, she took a solitary walk to experience the spirituality and beauty of the place. During silent meditation on the rock, she pondered over different philosophies of spiritual leaders and scientists regarding believe in God.

“Dutch philosopher Benedict de Spinoza’s vision of God says God is river and sea, mountain and sky, and that his handiwork is seen nowhere better than in the complex and grandiose laws of nature.”

Thomas Edison says, “When you see everything that happens in the world of science and in the working of the universe, you cannot deny that there is a ‘Captain on the bridge.”

Werner Heisenberg, who received the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for the creation of quantum mechanics said, “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”

As she continued to meditate, she was spellbound by beauty of nature and she believed that laws of nature are proof of the existence of God. She felt,“ It felt like a spiritual intervention. I opened my eyes and looked around. Nobody was there. My skin had been set on fire.”

Through Google, she learned about Patrick San Francesco, the energy healer in India. To some people he was a miracle healer while others find him manipulating people through his marketing tactic.  Anjali made great efforts to contact this faith healer however, in the end she gave up.

During the quest, she realized that “virtually everyone asked for essentially the same three things, Health, Happiness and Love. However, Anjali yearned to search inside herself, learn about existence of God and purpose of living. All the four healers the Japanese reibaishi, Patrick the Healer, Fay and Chade-Meng Tan, an engineer at Google with the job title Jolly Good Fellow unable to satisfy her as she felt,  “Maybe I am fine and don’t need healing.”

Burning Man is an annual festival/phenomenon that includes healing sessions and lectures that Anjali found inspirational that helped her to find answers for her questions. Burning Man has rituals, symbols and ten guiding principle like Ten Commandments or the Five Pillars of Islam. As compared to five pillars of Islam, these ten guiding principles teach more about community building, emphasize on “reinventing cultural assumptions, creativity and self- actualization. The atmosphere appeared to be mesmerizing for the author. She also had astrology session with the yogi.

She studied divine feminine as she conducted distance healing by joining a laughing yoga group via the Internet. The purpose behind using online laughing is to improve health and happiness. Laughter therapy reduces stress, lessen pain, improve cardiac health and also helpful for treating cancer patients. It was a splendid experience for Anjali to make people laugh. The session began with audio Skype, no causal or formal talk take place between anchor and audience, the session was reserved for laughing only.

As Anjali recalled, I’m laughing online with people in India.” Then we began, and the audio kicked in with a nonstop, overlapping stream of laughter paired with more emojis and random typed comments like “We are so happy because we laugh.” 

Although it was a fake laughter, yet she and her daughter Zia attracted people to laugh wholeheartedly. Her laughing session reached to various parts of the world, laughing energy was sent for peace in the world, people do laughing yoga while engaged in their work, cooking, travelling or driving. Anjali main purpose was to develop spiritual salvation in people which was done through Maharishi Effect and placebo effect.

Her spiritual urgency and curiosity of learning about God satiated as she learned that human beings belonging to any cast or religion believe in their God to grant a inner peace, health, happiness and Love.

She inspired readers to find a peaceful spiritual home that lead to transformation of mind, ideas, feelings and behavior.She questions, “What could we achieve for each other? For humanity?” Let’s find out — together. 

 Let’s read this verse to explore our faith and gain spiritual enlightenment.

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

—from “God Knows” by Minnie Louise Haskins