Enlightenment for Idiots
A Novel
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4.2 • 9 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A yoga teacher finds new life in India–just not the one she was expecting.
Nearing thirty, Amanda thought she’d be someone else by now. Instead, she’s an ex-nanny yogini-wannabe who cranks out “For Idiots” travel guides. True, she has a sexy photographer boyfriend, but he’s usually off shooting a dogsled race in Alaska or a vision quest in Peru—or just hooking up with other girls. However, she’s sure her new assignment to the ashrams of India will change everything.
What she finds, though, is an ashram run by investment bankers, a model-obsessed guru, tantra parties, and silent retreats. India, it turns out, is not the spiritual refuge she’d pictured. But she finds a friend in Devi Das, a redheaded sadhu who refers to himself as “we.” And when a holy lunatic on the street offers her an enigmatic blessing, Amanda realizes a new life may be in store for her—just not the one she was expecting.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cushman, coauthor of the nonfiction From Here to Nirvana and contributing editor to Yoga Journal, has written a hilarious take on the quest for truth that manages to respect the journey while skewering many of the travelers. Amanda, a 29-year-old fledgling yoga teacher, ekes out a living as a freelance writer in San Francisco and seizes the chance to go to India when her editor assigns her to research a guidebook about enlightenment. Soon she's traipsing around India pursuing trendy gurus and yoga masters and scoring insightful encounters with ordinary folk along the way. She also collects a traveling companion: the sweet-natured, celibate truth seeker Devi Das, who, upon viewing the polluted Ganges, advises Amanda to "Think holy, not E. coli." The discovery that she's pregnant makes Amanda's quest for meaning all the more poignant, forcing her to review her choices while she struggles to uncover the elusive secret to happiness. Cushman brings devastating wit and a thorough knowledge of her subject to her first novel, evoking an India that fills the senses and stirs the spirit even as it occasionally turns the stomach, and making it possible for the reader to both laugh with and root for Amanda as she comes to terms with her messy life.
