Dimensions
155 x 233 x 28mm
Enlightenment for Beginners is the hip, hilarious tale of a modern-day woman who travels to India in search of spiritual awakening – but finds herself grappling instead with a failed romance, an unplanned pregnancy, and all the chaos and contradictions of contemporary life and love.
Amanda is a 29-year-old yoga teacher and travel writer who is struggling with the daily realities of life and her obsession with her commitment-phobic photographer boyfriend. When Amanda gets an assignment to travel to the spiritual sites of India to research a series' latest guidebook, Enlightenment for Idiots, it seems like the answer to her prayers. She has one last fling with the photographer and then sets off on her journey, swearing never to see him again.
She travels from yoga centres to ashrams to Buddhist temples on a quest for true awakening, but her illusions quickly begin to fade as she meets a string of eccentric teachers. At one yoga centre she badly injures her knee and at an ashram that extols the virtues of celibacy, Amanda discovers that her roommate is sleeping with the guru. And then, two months into her journey, she realises that her goodbye fling has gotten her pregnant. Amanda grapples with what seems like impossible options: terminate her pregnancy so she can research enlightenment, or give up her spiritual journey and budding career to return home and become a mother. She is forced to look deep within herself for the answers she has been seeking from yogic masters.
