The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny
Author: Robin Sharma
List Price: $12.95
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ISBN: 0062515675
Publisher: HarperCollins (02 April, 1999)
Sales Rank: 6,845
Average Customer Rating: 3.64 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 4 out of 5
Life Changing Story
This is a great book if you are feeling "stuck" in life, and want some pointers on how fulfill your dreams. Its advice is very basic, but told in the form of a story which makes the points brought out easy to remember. Also helping to make the points easier to remember are great one-liners like "The purpose of life is to have a lifes purpose" or "We are spiritual people having an earthly experience". The simplicity with which the story is told, will help keep the lessons fresh in your mind.I listened to the audiocassette. I took off one star from my rating, because I did not think the production was perfect. I noticed some background noise here and there. Maybe this was taped during a live talk, I don't know. The noise was noticeable but not distracting. Also, I did not feel the reading was very professionaly done. However, it is still a worthwhile tape to listen to and learn from.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Another Horizon Perspective
The author definitely imparts worthwhile advice. Being reminded of the value of simple joys is never a waste of time. Knowing one's self well enough to live well and peacefully in a time when we have to consider disaster and terrorism - is an accomplishment of significant magnitude. However, it would seem that Mr. Sharma -too has seen the movie or read Hilton's Lost Horizon. Reading the Hilton book or seeing the movie, one is pressed to examine life much as Sharma would suggest. I enjoyed the reading - but found the Hilton/Sharma stories similarity somewhat unsettling. For those folks not familiar with the Hilton story, Mr. Sharma has reminded us, yet again - of value found in peace of mind.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Complete Garbage - The worst of the worst of the worst
I was recommended this book because I work too much. Every page that I managed to get through was painful. This book is the saddest and most excruciating way to introduce Buddhist philosophy. It is a "Fable" with a capital "F". Nothing in the book is true. If something in the book has been based on a true concept it has been so badly distorted by this text that it is no longer even close. To summarize for those that don't need the rest of the review to know that this is a book to skip here is a banal platitude from the book that forced me to emit an audible groan while I was reading it: "Your 'I can' is greater than your IQ"
It starts out with this absolute fat jackass womanizing alcoholic unscrupulous lawyer, that would essentially be better of dead, and that I personally hated to read about, and would hate to know, and wouldn't talk to except to make rude noises at if I did know him because I was related to him or something. You are then told that he is basically a good person but unless your "I can" is greater than your "IQ" you aren't fooled even for a second. Then he has a heart attack and goes to India and meets a guru, and turn into this soft and supple bi-curious sounding freak that wears long red robes and pours tea all over a former colleagues wife's Persian rug to illustrate concepts that aren't really true. In essence he's an even bigger jerk that is now ultra self-important because he's this transformed guru come back to bring enlightenment to all the normal people that weren't alcoholic womanizing hoodlums to begin with.
I understand that the author is merely creating a construct in order to peddle his psuedo-Buddhist philosophy, but he couldn't have chosen less likable characters, or more stupid illustrations for his concepts. While reading the book you get the feeling he spent a million years trying to come up with analogies for his concepts and then finally gave up and put something that didn't make sense, leaving you to shake your head and go... "Couldn't he have gotten a classroom of second graders to brainstorm something that was at least stupid in an interesting way?" Sharma (the author) has to be the least creative man ever to exist. I would be shocked if the book was even his idea. While reading it, I seriously got the feeling that he had watched an infommercial on how to write a book for fun and profit, and that the idea for this book came in his information packet.
Other than being evisceratingly boring and stupid this book makes a few good points. Actually the book does not specifically make any good points. It makes wild, ridiculous, impractical, idiotic points that may touch upon elements that the reader could formulate a good idea from. However these good points are not particularly profound. It is the same wisdom that has been available to you since grade-school. Maybe if you are such a louse that everyone including yourself hates you, and your family wishes you were dead, it would be good for you to hear them again.
The jerk in this book merely traded one Ferrari for another, he is still an egoist, only now he is some sort of religious padre, begging you to worship his smooth supple skin (referenced on every page of the book). His identity is still his work. Only before he was despicable in a suit, and now he should be selling juicers on late night wearing hooded robes, as he pours smoothie all over the before-people to illustrate that their bodies can't accept anymore nutrients until they give up the nutrients that they already have. Similar Products
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