... So that the author could buy a Ferrari. Review on The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari - Robin Sharma

What makes a self-help book successful? What do the most successful authors do?

Paulo Coelho hid his message with the gold that a boy dreamt of and became filthy rich in the process. Richard Bach wove his fable of perfection around a gull and its indomitable spirit to fly and ended up selling a million copies of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

Perhaps the message is clear ? a motivational book with a story does brisk business. To be extra sure, add to it a title that invites a ?hey, that?s interesting? (you got me here, Mr. Sharma) and because your target readers is one that will buy anything that vaguely sounds like Indian spiritualism or nirvana, you better put in that as well. Perfect formula for a bestseller. All you need to do now is count your dollars on the way to your bank.

That?s my take on how Robin S. Sharma decided to write ?The Monk who sold his Ferrari?. The story or whatever semblance of it there is in the book is about how a top shot millionaire lawyer, used to living on the edge, is transformed by the ?sages of Sivana? to picture perfect state of health and peace of mind in India and then his homecoming to give the message to the people at his place.

The book is an attempt to capture the essence of Buddhist wisdom and apply it to everyday life but ends up being a trite recitation of recycled wisdom containing every single banal platitude about self-help that has ever been emitted ? the kind of stuff that you will hear the coach emit, in quotes, in self-help workshops. If nothing, this book is surely a collector?s item for those looking for ?your I can matters more than your IQ?-isms.

If the lack of novelty of idea in the book is obvious, the more glaring is the lack of creativity that mars the book. The protagonist Julian, for example, narrates this story in the book to demonstrate the application of principles of Buddhism to our daily lives. You must read it to believe it. A pre-schooler will do a better job than this at story telling. Come on Robin Sharma, you can?t actually be that lacking in imagination.

The book is written moreover in the same light as most of the literature on India is written - presenting to the west an India that it thinks actually exists; either the home to a hungry, illiterate populace or land of eternal wisdom doling out spiritual wisdom to the rest of the world. Sharma paints a sickeningly sweet of the latter. So sweet and so wonderful that its hardly credible and disgustingly nauseating.

Agreed most of the things in the book are true ? a time table does help and meditating does help you develop yourself, but you don?t need the book to tell you that.

Moreover, each of us would have tried those with varying levels of failures and successes; the message is not lost on us. So does it help if those things are repeated before you? Not unless you are pleased to be guilt-ridden for not following a schedule, or you slept through all your moral science lectures in school .Inspite of all this, if you still like the book and finds it useful, rest assured that you don?t need it all. You have already achieved Nirvana.

One question that I am still trying to find an answer to is why is ?the Monk?? still a success? There has to be more than what I have suggested earlier. Can aggressive marketing sell any lousy product? What is the reason for the rave reviews its getting elsewhere and almost everywhere else? Or have I missed the crux of the message? Beats me. If someone of you has the answers, do enlighten me. This mystery is too much for me to live with.