"Shi-va is that which is not, no-thingness. Shiva doesn't spell religion, he spells responsibility - our ability to take our life in our hands"
This book is the portrait of Shiva in his various forms,the world's first guru (according to Sadhguru ) by a living guru, who becomes a conduit for Shiva. It is basically a chronicle of source of mysticism by a mystic.
Sadhguru begins with popular legends then skew towards fable, and suddenly spins out a yogic creation myth.
This book consists of 3 parts, the first two contains the understanding of the Shiva which is evolved out of Sadhguru's consciousness and retellings of some folklore which represents profound insights that are too common in Indian culture and we already know them. In the last part of this book, there are many questions by Arundhati which at times Sadhgurus's doesn't exactly answer many of those questions or say those answers are too cryptic to decode. Initially the writing felt like some assertion of scattered myth about unfathomable but since it is a book on how Sadhguru sees Shiva, so approach this book intuitively, or in a way that you can discover Shiva.
If you follow Sadhguru's interview closely, most of the arguments in this book about inner engineering, have already been told by him, word by word. It rather felt like a compiled form of those facts and fables, pseudo-science and magic but then again, the only response to this book isn't suspicion or disbelief, you can be curious enough to take this book as a fodder to learn more about Shiva!
I really liked its variousness, at the same time I found the repetitive assertions tad boring, considering Shiva as not a myth but a historical figure felt a bit odd and outlandish but this book will be best understood when embraced rather than trying to find a foolproof explanations to everything.
I also really liked the narrative by Arundhati Subramaniam, how she acknowledged that she, a non-believer turned into a conscious seeker by the influence of Sadhguru. To put it crudely, at times it felt like she was completely obsessed with him because of which most of the part of her writing felt a little biased, which is reflective and understanding that *Sadhguru's advent in her life was cyclonic to her*.
To understand Shiva from a not so common perspective, this book will be a treat.