In this captivating and surprising novel of spiritual discovery—a No. 1 bestseller in India—a young American travels to India and finds himself tested physically, emotionally, and spiritually.Max Pzoras is the poster child for the American Dream. The child of Greek immigrants who grew up in a dangerous New York housing project, he triumphed over his upbringing and became a successful Wall Street … successful Wall Street analyst. Yet on the frigid December night he’s involved in a violent street scuffle, Max begins to confront questions about suffering and mortality that have dogged him since his mother’s death.
His search takes him to the farthest reaches of India, where he encounters a mysterious night market, almost freezes to death on a hike up the Himalayas, and finds himself in an ashram in a drought-stricken village in South India. As Max seeks answers to questions that have bedeviled him—can yogis walk on water and live for 200 years without aging? Can a flesh-and-blood man ever achieve nirvana?—he struggles to overcome his skepticism and the pull of family tugging him home. In an ultimate bid for answers, he embarks on a dangerous solitary meditation in a freezing Himalayan cave, where his physical and spiritual endurance is put to its most extreme test.
By turns a gripping adventure story and a journey of tremendous inner transformation, The Yoga of Max’s Discontent is a contemporary take on man’s classic quest for transcendence.
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The Yoga of Max’s Discontent is the story of a young man’s journey to reach Nirvana, spiritual enlightenment.
Max is an MBA from Harvard, working on Wall Street as a stock analyst. He’s fought his way up the ladder, to a perceived success, from his humble beginnings in a rough-and-tough neighborhood, a place where the routine accomplishments of its inhabitants are more likely to lead to becoming a drug dealer, thief, or teenage pregnancy. He’s seen friends die from violent crime, and it has scarred him. Even with all of the accouterments of success, he is dissatisfied, unfulfilled, and empty.
After the death of his mother, he is propelled by a chance encounter with an Indian street vendor, to search, discover, and experience something more than the endless cycle of “birth, age, suffering, sorrow, and death”. In an impulsive quest, he quits his job and goes in search of a yogi, a man last seen in the Himalayas in a reclusive cave. It is through this world of yogis, and meditation that Max will wander for the rest of his life, searching for the path of oneness with the universe and end his personal cycle of reincarnation.
Along the way, he will meet an interesting cast of characters that will influence his journey. He will barely survive several brushes with death from snow, ice, avalanches, snakes, bear, starvation, heat stroke, loneliness, and more. However, Max’s karma has prepared him to succeed, he carries within him the window to transcend, and the seed of selflessness to reach enlightenment.
I enjoyed this book, that is richly portrayed and well-written. I won’t say that I loved it because a part of me kept whispering throughout the book, “what a waste”. There was so much good that a man like Max could accomplish in this world, for the betterment of mankind. I felt his journey was a selfish one, he turned his back on his sister, his friends, and the world. I, also, would have loved to read more about those past lives that are hinted at but never elaborated on.
The two women that he meets and makes love to in India are abandoned as readily as his sister. I have the sneaky suspicion that those sexual encounters were thrown in to spice up the manuscript. I did laugh my head off at the description of him and one of the women making love on the hard, compacted, burning earth in the middle of the day, under the sun, in stifling heat, filthy, and sweaty. Sorry, under no circumstances was that appealing. Another disturbing element was the author’s repeated references to include Mohammad in the pantheon of those who had reached enlightenment. To include Mohammad as a man of enlightenment means accepting the fact that his twenty-five or so marriages (Aisha being seven-years-old), the fact that he fought wars and conquered people, and that he held slaves, are attributes of an enlightenment being, I think not. Jesus is an easy yes. Gandhi, deserving. The Dalai Lama, why not. Moses, possible. There have been others, I’m certain, but not Mohammad.
Now we come to the most disappointing moment in the book, the end. I read it several times, but I’m not sure what happened. I won’t reveal what I think happened, you’ll have to read it yourself and decide what you think. Take the journey with Max, you certainly won’t forget it.