"Wandering in the Himalayas consists of poetic descriptions of places of importance in the Himalayas,sacred in their cultural lore and in the traditional faith of the Hindus.They are many captured pictures framed by Shre Swami Tapovanji's mighty pen." --Swami Chinmayananda.
When I longed for the mountains while stuck in lockdown and border controls, this book transported me to the beauty of the Himalayan range with the wise words of a Realized Saint. It was a treat seeing the beauty of the untouched mountains as He saw it along with nuggets of interesting information and stories.
I ignored or rather didn't allow myself to associate with his thinking on caste, complexion and inequality. I skimmed through those parts with an agreement to disagreement.
קראתי את זה כי זה הזכיר לי מקומות שטיילתי בהם לפני 20 שנה. אבל בחלקו הגדול זה כמו לקרוא ספר של רבי שטייל בהרי צפת ומסביר על קברי צדיקים. מלא באקסיומות על קדושה וכו. לא סיימתי.
This is a book on author's journeys and periods of staying in the then remote places in he Himalayas, what he claims as a sacred spiritual journey. I like reading books of such types, especially such travelogues based on pilgrimage or scientific-geographical explorations or adventures.
The book itself looks good. The narration of the landscapes at different places and different times of day is very beautiful and seems to come up live. But that's all.
The spiritual journey in turn do not look to the common travellers or pilgrims. The spiritual journey of the author ends up in the religious divinity which he depicts as holy act and rest is sin. He summarizes "God or the divine power has created the beauty and sinners can not see the same. Also in occasions the mentioning of castes and caste ism induces some immensely poor taste in the whole book.