Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It (Hardcover)

This book is nothing more than inane ramblings and pointless stories of what the author did in various cities, usually after the use of controlled substances - something which colours the entire book. The author seems to ignore some of the wonderful places he had visited, such as Leptis Magna, giving them a passing mention, and instead focus on uninteresting anecdotes, such as the tale of how he put his trousers on (sadly, I do not jest).

The humour suggested by the reviews is also lacking, which makes this book supremely dull.

With so many other good books out there, pass on this and move on to other, better, selections.

Two-thirds of Dyer's book highlights the dreary devolution of everyday-life-now. Dyer starts with the premise that there is no Grand Scheme of things in which one must find one's happy place. What, then, is an intelligent, thinking being to do? He can go down the path of hedonism, but this is unsatisfactory for most such people-as it apparently is for Dyer. Dyer takes on this challenge by being out and about, observing, filching nuggets of wisdom wherever he can. One story, he's in New Orleans, another in Phnom Penh. Ultimately, it can't be sustained. The wanderings yield increasingly diminished returns, until the marginal utility of New Experiences dips so far that he's pumping in more inconvenience than wisdom or meaning he can eke out. You see this most prominently (and humorously) in his trip to Libya. In the end, Dyer finds what he's looking for in Detroit and is handed the icing on the cake at Burning Man. His realization is in line with the Western take on the main tenets of Buddhism: One should "just be"-- i.e. be in the moment, and the ability to achieve this "state" is favored when one is generous and giving of oneself.

This endpoint leaves "one" feeling cheated - because every story, every thought that Dyer has, points to a far more pessimistic, even disastrous, conclusion. It's as if the publisher or editor read some of Dyer's earlier stories, saw where he was headed, didn't feel like printing a book that not-so-subtly advocated nihilism, and instituted some sort of course correction. In any event, assuming Dyer was faithful to his inquiry and where it led him, what for me would have been its most interesting phase is, unfortunately, not in his book: What did he do with his wisdom? Did it sustain him much beyond six months? Or did his life, with or without Sarah, crash down anyway? That is, I would have liked to see the application of the moral of "Yoga ... . " I strongly suspect that an impatient person like Dyer does not have the constitution to write that book. That book would involve long technocratic explications; Dyer would moreover, being English, balk at making the necessary revelations. That book would, I think, require much more generosity of spirit than, I suspect, Dyer has, his embrace of Buddhism notwithstanding. That book, I think, would look a lot like "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." I'd have been interested in Dyer's version.

All-in-all, though, this is a great book. Travelling vicariously with Dyer is a treat. His observations are frequently hilarious. And he may save you a trip you thought you needed to take. So it's worth a read - and it's a very quick read. But instead of accepting Dyer's neat summing up, the thoughtful reader should draw his own conclusions. That's the time-consuming part.