Reviews for Dhardo Rimpoche : A Celebration

The average rating for Dhardo Rimpoche : A Celebration based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-08-14 00:00:00 Timothy Spencer It's very hard to write about direct experience of the divine and the mystical without sounding like a madman. The things that the author reports happening to him through his relationship with the Indian avatar, Mother Meera, such as visual and auditory hallucinations, clairvoyance, and mystical union with all of creation are all pretty much standard issue for people achieving enlightenment in the Eastern tradition, and have been written about for centuries; but in the West, somebody lying on the floor in their room in a trance for 3 days repeating the names of the Goddess would earn himself a quick trip to a rubber room. I was reminded many times while reading this book of both The Three Pillars of Zen, which also deals with the enlightenment of a Western mind, as well as Julian Janes book The Origin of Consciousness, in which he postulates that schizophrenics' hallucinations are throwbacks to an ancient brain wiring that created ancient man's religious experiences. The book seems very sincere and very heartfelt, and so I was quite surprised, when doing some more research on Mother Meera, to find that the author had later had a very bitter parting of the ways with her and written a scathing book about her in which he accused her of homophobia. Interestingly, his lover at the time of the experiences chronicled in Hidden Journey also wrote a somewhat critical book about Mother Meera, but totally disputes the homophobia charge, and his criticism of Mother was much more nuanced. So the book has definitely led me toward some interesting research in the future! It's quite well-written, I thought, with beautiful passages of description that really make India come alive. In some ways Harvey is one of the last of that great tradition of Englishmen shaped by an Indian childhood, which gave us so many great writers in the past.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-06-04 00:00:00 Dave Fawns another book i read at the right time in my life. this i read when i was getting into Devi, the goddess(es) in Hinduism. now my interests have changed, and i'm not that into religion anymore, so i probably wouldn't enjoy it as much. but the book is well written, honest, and a good story. also there's beautiful descriptions of scenery in India. it's interesting to note that the guru (Mother Meera) whom Harvey worships in this book, Harvey later turned against.