The Purpose of Life is a Life of Purpose

Book Review

The Monk who sold his Ferrari:

A fable about fulfilling your dreams and reaching your destiny

The book is authored by Robin Sharma, one of the International best seller authors. This highly inspiring fable has the potential to kindle one’s inner flame and revive the soul. The book, in my view, helps to encounter one’s spirit and find the real meaning of the existence of self and truth of life.

The story revolves around an extremely successful and celebrated attorney Julian Mantle, who has acquired everything in life he aspired for, but, at the cost of ruining the true happiness of his life, which lies in small things and not the big things he always wished to accomplish. He used to work under so much pressure that he never had a happy family and life. One day, all of a sudden, he collapsed in the middle of a packed Court-room. He gradually recovered after being properly medicated but this incident haunted him. He then decides to quit litigation and headto India, where he meets the sages on Sivana in the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas. He learns in the tutelage of sages of Sivana, more particularly, Yogi Raman, seven ancient Indian principles to attain self-majesty. He then comes back to his own Country where he narrates all his surreal experiences to one of his former colleagues and another brilliant litigator Jhon, who was also identically experiencing a rupture in his soul due to high-mounting pressure of work and lavish life-style. The seven principles around which the fable resolves are:

1. Master your Mind.
2. Follow your purpose.
3. Practice Kaizen.
4. Live with discipline
5. Respect Your Time
6. Selflessly serve others.
7. Embrace the present.

The numerous sub-concepts of all these seven principles have been elaborately discussed in the book in different chapters which every reader would prefer to apply pragmatically immediately after reading the principles. These small but important principles help the readers to stop becoming the prisoner of their past and fan the flames of potential. The essence of this motivating book can be described in a single line, in the words of the author himself, “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”

Rohit Kumar