Professors from IMS/Noida writes...

BOOK Review – Dr T P Sasikumar’s LIFE made SIMPLE

‘Great people say great things in simple words’ say Swami Vivekananda. Great people like his guru Sri. Ramakrishna speak out of their experience and therefore their words leave an indelible impression on the minds of the people.

Dr T P Sasikumar’s book – LIFE made SIMPLE – in a small measure is close to the words of Swamiji’s Dr Sasikumar says, ‘There is no last word in anything. I keep telling in my lectures. My prayers is that “Let me have more knowledge to realize that what I have learned till now is to be corrected and updated. There is not last, the best …”. This sums-up the philosophical overtones behind the musings penned down by Dr T P Sasikumar, a scientist turned philosopher from Space Science.

Dr Sasikumar adapted a strange style in compiling these sayings. He develop0ed this book from his orkut socializing network site where he had answered the questions of a number of netizens across the globe. ‘Being simple, being as we are with no extra ego is simply beautiful. Cool, calm, smooth at ease is simple life. Try to be what we are’- is the simple message with which the book begins. Balancing one’s desires and how to be consistent in life, ability to accept the criticism to push forward are some of the first chapter prescriptions stemming out of an ocean of experience and wisdom. Politely daunting people indulging in inconsistent words and practices, Dr Sasikumar is emphatic about the need of value with courage.

He rightly puts the perspective of ‘possessiveness’ in terms of spirituality. The ‘me and the mine’ are often attacked in the Upanishads as false and illusions. In the like manner, he also exhorts to ‘Shun possessiveness in love’. His advice to the younger generation is to perform their ‘role, goal and value balancing’ with no ‘attachments to the role’ while keeping oneself balanced between ‘learning and being’. He discovered that, ‘The being is the actualization and the bliss of life is in that stage. Being in spirituality is the process of evolution’. His examples of Hitler as ‘vegetarian’ and Ravana as ‘meditator’are something inspiring to have a positive attitude to even worst circumstances and towards dreaded objects too. He goes to explain the mathematical components of Gunatrayavibhag of the Gita how each of the three gunas would take over another guna with out our explicit knowledge.

Decrying show of spirituality, Dr.Sasikumar stresses the need to do one’s duties with ‘sraddha in saadhana’. With a prescription to ‘retrospect’ and ‘introspect’, he suggests the measures to check the progress one achieved in life. It is a ‘must read’ book to make one’s ‘life made simple’.


Prof. Dr. CSHN Murthy / Prof. Dr. Devesh Kishore
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Institute of Management Studies,
Noida.