Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East

I've just reread Karma Cola (3rd time) and enjoyed it more than ever. Dropping onto this page I was stunned to discover how much rage had been kindled by such a light-hearted, knowledgeable and humorous book. Did they read the same book?I found it uproariously funny, unpolemical, understated and beautifully written. It was also carried a subtle wisdom and a surprising erudition for such a young author. The satire is like the best of Mark Twain (without his prudery). The fluid prose is polished like the poetry of W.B.Yeats--full of vivid imagery with an economy of words that forms sly punch-line paragraphs that remind me of Kurt Vonnegut or Ambrose Bierce. It is mostly a personal collection of anecdotes (names mercifully redacted) that form a Candide-like tour of 1970s India when Hindu Spiritual tourism was first being packaged as a mass market commodity for export.Think of this book as a literary Rohrschach test. It seems to have inspired a cacophony of conflicting opinions including many by those whose sacred ox has been gored, and others who don't seem to have even read it. This is a truly unusual one-of-a-kind book. Do yourself a favor by ignoring all reviews and buy a cheap used copy to play it safe. You can always resell it here if you're one of the infuriated.

This is an ironic, clever portrait of the American-British enlightenment seekers back in the 1960's. But it's still a cautionary tale for people today who travel to India to follow some guru. Mehta shows us the western traveler all wide-eyed and naive from the point of view of a sophisticated Indian, a really good read and a must if you plan to travel to India any time soon.

While there existed some intriguing nuggets of insight and cultural epiphany, the majority of this book felt disjointed and pieces together to me. Indicative of the disjunction between eastern and western philosophy...perhaps this was intentional. India will always represent, for me, a path not taken, and a life in a different perspective.

If you have friends who are self-righteously involved in exotic religions and philosophies, but picking and choosing what they approve of from the various world religions, this is a great book to read and maybe to give them. Written by an Indian woman who did her research on the Western mystics who drifted to Asia.

The is an entertaining tongue -in-cheek look at the spiritual tourism business in India. The people in the book come from all walks of life and from a myriad of western countries but they all share the desire to transcend their mundane existence and hope that Indian mysticism will provide them the vehicle to do it. As one would imagine as long as the money is flowing there is an endless supply of Indian "holy men" and gurus willing to provide this enlightenment and hilarity ensure. These stories are both entertaining and a little sad and leave the reader wondering who is the exploited and who is doing the exploiting. I would love to see this approach applied to the current interest in Japanese and Buddhist spirituality as well as Native American folkways.

A very clever author's often hilarious account of her encounters with the Americans and Europeans who flooded India in the 1960s and '70s in the hunt for spiritual enlightenment. And who found, instead, a corruption of Hinduism and Buddhism similar to what the =truly= enlightened can see in Christianity back home.

I read this book during my research about spiritual tourism in India. Mehta is a professional writer from a secular elite Indian family. Taking place in the 1970s, the author snipes at both Western New Agers and Indian gurus. The former are criticized for their blind naivete in searching for enlightenment in India; the latter are denounced for their shrewd manipulation of wealthy foreigners, for their own material (sometimes sexual) benefit. I witnessed similar situations.However, Mehta was way too selective in what stories to tell, and she says nothing positive at all about spiritual search. Underlying her sarcastic sense of humor, there lies a basic exclusionary assumption: Mehta is against the mixing of East and West. Her irritation with such experiments leads to often unfair commentary (such as, contrary to what she claims, Bhagwan Rajneesh was never seen as a god by his Western disciples). Mehta ends up throwing the baby out with the bath water.For more descriptive, less judgmental accounts on Westerner travelers in India, the reader may try Cleo Odzer's auto-biographical "Goa Freaks", as well as Anthony D'Andrea's "Global Nomads", both of which examining the lifestyle of Westerners in Goa and Pune.

Gita Mehta has a real knack for using an economy of words. She covers the vast topic of Westerners misunderstanding of South Asian spirituality in less than 150 pages, and yet she leaft this reader feeling like he'd read a comprehensive summary of the issue.Mehta has a wicked sense of humor, and excells at deflating the hypocracy of the fake gurus. This is an excellent book - you should buy it.

Karma hardly defined even with umpteen episodes and narrations.

Vor langer Zeit schon mal gelesen. Immer noch gut.Der Rezensinsautomat beschwert sich. Nö, mehr Wörter gibt es nicht. Sinn eines Buches: Selber lesen.

Interesting observation of cultural superimposition without any clue as to what the other culture really means, great read, worth reading

This book sits proudly on my coffee table, alluding to me having a bigger brain than I actually do.It’s a captivating read on how mysticism was exported to a western market promising enlightenment but really just milking the new found audience for their $.It’s very important to read a book like this that was published in 1980 because it helps frame the charlatans of today’s yoga and health and wellness industry in a light that is not favorable.An important read for anyone getting ready to jump on a plane to another culture to find Enlightenment. The secret to enlightenment lies within your own heart and the conscious way you interact with the world, certainly not at the end of a 12 hr plane ride.Excellent read.

The book is brilliant. I'd come across an old edition from 1979 in someone's private library, really enjoyed it, and wanted to possess my own copy. And so ordered this. This one, though published by Penguin India, has rather poor paper and print quality.