Guiding Souls - Dialogues On the Purpose of Life: A.P.J. Abdul Kalam with Arun K Tiwari
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, born on 15the October 1931, who is often tagged as ‘People’s President’ was not only the most inspiring scientist and the leader of the country but also was the most humane and humblest genius of our time. This book brings to light a totally different side of the President than his usual scientific style. The title of the book itself is self-explanatory. It is based on interesting dialogues between Arun K. Tiwari and Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, which revolves around various aspects of the human life- purpose of life, human nature. The author has made an attempt to assimilate as to why the universe is so packed with the negative forces say; sadness, anxiety, stress, disharmony and pessimism which hampers the progress of mankind. The book is written in a language which is easy to read even for the layman. In the lieu of dealing with spirituality Kalam somewhere shares his idea of making this planet a better place to live, by evolving not only materialistic but also harmonious. By the end of this book, one can surely be assured of getting “wings of fire” to discover his essence and “ignited mind.”
In essence, the crux of the book rests in the pioneering statement, "we erroneously consider ourselves as the centre of our life. We expect everything to happen our way and to our benefit". This, according to him, is the primary problem. The salvation lies in looking for true peace that you "carry within yourself, regardless of external circumstances." Further, he goes on to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson. The book makes an intense innocent appeal to the youth and rejects both extremes-hype and hoop-la of Globalization and the pessimism of seeing the world as a theatre of conflict-and describes the ultimate goal and mission of humanity as constituting the task of helping evolution on planet Earth. The authors are not antipathetic towards the politics, however, there exists a hidden approach by which the book warns the people. It states, when the corruption enters in politics, then the nation would be in a critical situation.