Publisher's Synopsis
Seekers & Speakers (2020) is not a self-help book or a book of specific guidance. In fact, it was written because too many books that claim to help you find your way, be they spiritual or secular, either disappear into meaningless abstraction or provide such specific direction that you'll never truly open your mind. This book attempts to address that problem - to help others seeking greater truths about the world and themselves find their path, and to not feel so alone.
Described by psychologist Greg Wilmot as "an experiential, metaphysical and intellectual tour de force," Seekers and Speakers is compiled as a series of conversations between authors Arthur Telling and Chirag Patel which cut "to the heart of phenomenology, meaning, esoterica, and everything in between." It draws on their respective life experiences - from what it means to be "born in faith" as a Hindu in the Gujarati diaspora, and to grow up between two cultures ("embedded in that peculiarly agnostic Church of England marinade where class and appearance matter far more than belief") to Telling's experience of his mother, mom who, when she was deathly ill and 911 had been called, sternly said "You're not letting them in this house until I clean up the living room" ("a way for her ailing psyche to maintain mental order and stability.")
Often written about in references to thinkers like Edward Said, Frederic Jameson, Alan Moore, Eckhart Tolle, and Krishnamurti, among others, as well as different religious texts, such anecdotes bring to life a series of questions about who we are, why we search, and what it means to make your own reality. As described by Wilmot, Seekers and Speakers "is precisely the text that is needed to navigate the previously siloed and divided spaces between religion, reality, logic, and the rollercoaster of the human lived experience. Chirag Patel and Arthur Telling demand the reader to pay their dues in mental labour and to suspend dogmatic disbeliefs; their honest, a priori, and conversational style allows for a huge range of topics and tangents to be covered while still pulling towards the explicit aim of providing an overarching and inclusive text yearning to make sense of it all just like the rest of us."
