Looking for Bible in Beverly Hills (Three stars)
This is story of a man in quest for finding god during his midlife crisis. Having worked in the entertainment business for several years, the author looks for ways to find god and seeks to understand the meaning of life. This would be really challenging for someone who found success in Hollywood. But there is no shortage of celebrities who found god in their own way. For example, the church of Scientology has millions of followers that uses Hollywood celebrities to promote itself to achieve wisdom and immortality. Celebrity followers include; Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Will Smith, Priscilla Presley, Kirsty Alley, Jenna Elfman and Greta Van Sustern. The church makes enormous profit as a tax exempt religious organization.
Recently Justin Bieber is making lot of news about finding Jesus. His "purpose" in life is not music anymore; it's all about his spiritual awakening by Jesus, courtesy of the Hillsong Church and its charismatic leader Carl Lentz. Kirk Cameron was another reborn Christian. After converting to Christianity, he began to insist that storylines of his TV show “Growing Pains” be edited to remove anything he thought too adult or inappropriate for a Christian culture. After the series was cancelled, Cameron did not maintain contact with his former co-stars, and did not speak to co-star Tracey Gold for eight years. His desire to start a Christian life away from the entertainment industry was so intense that he wanted to free himself from the “old shackles.”
The author during his spiritual awakening, starts to talk about god with friends, attends church services, discusses with preachers, spiritual counselors, gurus, and yoga and meditation instructors. For example, in one chapter entitled “The Guru wears Prada,” he describes his interaction with Deepak Chopra and Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) to understand the wisdom of Hindu Philosophy. But his understanding of Vedanta Philosophy of Hinduism falls too short. Paramahansa Yogananda was the founder of SRF to teach scientific methods of meditation and principles of spiritual living described in Hindu Holy Scripture of Bhagavadgita. Ken Baker doesn’t even mention this book. Except for Bible, no other religious scriptures are mentioned and yet he is looking for “God.” Christianity is the religion of his youth and deviating away from it is hard unless you put mind and heart into it. After reading this book, I found that his mind is too focused on Jesus. I like to point out to the author that singer and songwriter, and ex-Beatle George Harrison was also looking for God and found in Bhagavadgita. He did his homework and read the scriptures. He did not remain in “pocket” but went outside the box to rethink and rediscover himself. His song about Lord Krishna “My sweet lord…. I really want to see you, really want to be with you….. is one of the most inspiring song in rock music I ever heard. He came from the entertainment industry and he was able to find “God.”
The book is haphazardly classified into three major sections called, Genesis, Exodus and Revelation that does not reflect his own spiritual quest. Chapters entitled, “Keep up with Kardashians” “Celebrate Jesus – He is just like us,” etc. bears very little significance to the subject matter discussed in those chapters. At the end of all this, this reader is not sure if the author was successful in finding god.
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