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# The Book of Mirdad: The strange story of a monastery which was once called The Ark

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The Book of Mirdad: The strange story of a monastery which was once called The Ark : NAIMY, MIKHAIL: desertcart.in: Books

Review: A must-read.... - Finding the Bhagavad Gita incomprehensible? There is a solution G Venkatesh ‘Set no limits to yourselves. Spread out until there are no regions where you are not.’ - The Book of Mirdad by Mikhail Naimy; Watkins Publishing, London, UK. 2015. 185 pages. This is, in sooth, a book of poetry, masquerading as prose, for those who would care to look closely. The choice of words and phrases – from a spiritual fount and not a mental/intellectual exercise – serves to not just elucidate transcendence, but make the same seem attainable. Most of all, the Book of Mirdad is for one and all – for human beings who have been created by God in His own image. Though there is a reference to the Gita in the headline, one may very well replace it with ‘Bible’, ‘Qoran’ etc. and gather in readers from different religions like moths to a universal flame. Of course, it starts off with Noah and the Great Flood and a hypothetical Ark [which is a metaphor for the Soul and Spirit manifested on earth]…and Hindus may wish to replace Noah with Manu and read on. The best way to introduce readers to this book, and thereby keep this review interesting and purposeful, is by taking recourse to ‘quotable gems’ from each of the 37 + 3 chapters in it, though that may not be the conventional approach adopted by reviewers. Mirdad advises his disciples to defy questionable and decadent conventions and ascend up to a more sublime understanding of their purposes in life. So, it is apt that yours sincerely does as advised while writing about The Book of Mirdad. In ‘The Bound Abbot’ – the first of the trio of introductory chapters, one gets an inkling of how God /the Universe acts mysteriously, and makes men (the so-called chosen ones) decide to walk down the untrodden paths – decisions which one would not otherwise take. That leads the narrator up a long and winding, tortuous ‘Flint Slope’ [recall a lovely poem by Swami Vivekanada about the beauty of the long and hard path], en route which he encounters strange people and inexplicable incidents, which create the so-called ‘tower moments’ in Tarot-speak, stripping him down of all his material possessions, to prepare him for the higher purpose chosen for him – something he is absolutely unaware of. The purpose being an introduction to the said abbot who is the ‘Keeper of the Book’ [the Book of Mirdad]. The narrator gets access to the book and is entrusted with the responsibility to disseminating the messages to Homo Sapiens. The ‘Book’ itself has 37 chapters…the first one very aptly exhorting readers and listeners to ‘unseal their lips’ and ‘unveil your eyes’ to be able to not just ‘talk’ but ‘be able to communicate’ and not just ‘see’ but ‘be able to observe’. The same goes for the ears [though Naimy has not said that per se} – enabling one to not merely ‘hear’ but ‘listen’. Here, one can leap forward to cite Naimy from a later chapter – ‘Speech is at best an honest lie, while silence is at best an honest verity.’ The wise, as we know, speak less and listen more and thereby are often able to read between the lines, look into hearts and souls, and offer just the right advice/suggestions. To be a conduit for Truth, the tongue must never be a flail, a fang, a weather-vane, an acrobat or a scavenger. Digressing a lot, recall Anand Kumar’s [played by Hrithik Roshan] advice to his students in the movie Super 30 – tips to IIT-JEE aspirants reading this piece! Once the unsealing and unveiling happens successfully, one may very well be able to understand that the ‘I’, ‘Me’ and ‘Myself’ which man [and woman] use to ground their respective identities in chains, are entirely misleading. Naimy calls man a ‘God in swaddling bands’. These are bands which need to be shredded as the narrator experienced on his climb up the Flint Slope, if one wishes to understand the purpose of his/her/their existence. If the Trinity [Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva in Hindu mythology; and the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in Christianity] is a bit abstruse to understand, Naimy refers to these three as simply consciousness, word and understanding. There is an analogy here to Thought, Word and Deed. ‘Consciousness’ is all-pervading, the ‘word’ is something which manifests itself, encouraging us to ‘understand’. Taking recourse to alliteration of the most supreme kind, Naimy asks us not to be cribblers [sifters judging, choosing and rating and ranking evanescent objects and interests] but rather submit ourselves to Divine Will, the so-called Crucible [the melting-pot] in which we will be melted and recast according to His will. There is a fervent exhortation in one of the chapters to wage wars, if at all one needs to, within one’s heart and subdue one’s heart and mind to the Omniwill. The Kurukshetra war which Arjun had to wage on the advice of Lord Krishna, the Omniwill’s representative. Bitter words hurt more than arrows and bullets. While the latter cause physical pain which recedes if the said arrows and bullets have not delivered the so-called ‘fatal hits’, bitter words linger on in the hearts of those at the hearing end. Naimy observes, ‘ Better by far to be without a tongue than to have one whose words are snares and briars.’ This may be a bare minimum which one would consider as his/her duty towards humankind. Step a little higher after sampling this, ‘ You must be ever strong and steady that you may prop the wavering. You must be ever ready for the storm that you may be able to shelter the storm-tossed waifs. You must be ever luminous that you may guide the walkers in the dark.’ ‘Jettison your silver and gold as they will drag you down with them to the bottom. Release your grip on things if you would not be in their grip.’ The metaphor at once hits the nail on the head and drives home the point – the lighter you are, you will float on the sea of life and stay alive…and maybe even rise up to higher levels of happiness and understanding. Naimy says that a crown of gold studded with diamond, ruby and sapphire sits very cumbrous, sad and ill at ease upon the head swollen with ignorance, vainglory and lust for power over men…a stinging mockery of its own pedestal. Over the years, humankind [mankind or womankind, rather; for ‘human’ is an adjective one needs to strive hard to attain – note the subtle difference between ‘aadmi’ [man] and ‘insaan’ [human]] has given itself to judging, criticizing, comparing and contrasting and striving to get to the top of the proverbial materialistic garbage pile [an expression credited to George Bernard Shaw]. ‘Ignorance alone likes to be decked in wig and robe and to propound the law and mete out penalties.’ This however must not be taken literally, as the world as it is now, does need law enforcers, judges and lawyers and police-people. Transcendence is the keyword here, if one wishes to understand what this advice implies. The word ‘love’ is often not understood perfectly by any of us. It ranges from physical attraction of boy for girl and vice versa, to a mental/emotional understanding to an intellectual friendship to a soul-connection. The last-named often is the fundament on which true love abides and flowers to become an oak which is unshaken by the fiercest of storms. Naimy avers that as long as one is pained by Love, one has not really understood what it means…in other words, one has never loved. Or at best, it is love which is ephemeral. It is the spiritual bonding with another [which is divine – divine counterparts meeting and coexisting in harmony on the surface of the earth, by God’s Will] which is the truest, noblest and the most sublime of all. Naimy refers to the one who is not pained by Love or Loss of the same, as an Overcomer – the one who believes in the said soul connection which has endured for time immemorial and will do so, for eternity. In the 21st century, sufficiency has been a watchword, overtaking efficiency as a sine qua non for sustainable development. Sample this from Chapter 24 – ‘….take unafraid your need, but no more than your need, of the generous heart of the earth…for the Earth is so hospitable and loving that her heart is ever spread before her children.’ A beautiful poem, which one may well print out, and keep in one’s home-temple or even on one’s work-desk, ends Chapter 11…three lines from the same are reproduced hereunder: God is your captain… Love is your compass… Faith is your anchor… Sail on, my Ark… Compare with William Ernest Henley’s Invictus – I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of the soul. When a disciple asks Mirdad a question about prayers, he has something to say, which may disappoint most readers – ‘Take not to God your countless cares and worries. Implore Him not to open for you the doors whereto He furnished you with keys. But search the vastness of your hearts. For in the vastness of the heart is found the key to every door. Therein lie all the things you thirst and hunger after….you do not need a lip or tongue for praying; a wakeful heart is all that is needed.’ When disciples seek advice on how to respond to insults and humiliations, Naimy [using Mirdad as the medium] says exactly what Jesus said in the Bible, though much more poetically – Like the Earth be generous and calm, and turn impurities of men’s hearts into pure health and beauty. Like the Air be supple and free, the sword that would wound you would finally rust and tarnish. The arm that would harm you would finally weary and halt. The world if it does know you cannot contain you; it shall receive you with a snarl. But you know the world and so you can contain it.’ When loved ones pass away, undeniably, an unpluggable void is left behind in our lives. Time, the ‘greatest juggler’, they say, heals. Perhaps, but that is only if you reconcile to this truth – ‘……because the one that has passed away is now in a light which your eye is not accustomed to and in a form which you cannot discern, you say that he/she/they is no more. Man’s material self, no matter where transported and how changed, is bound to cast a shadow until dissolved entirely in the light of Man’s God-self.’ Naimy says that the course of duality is long and labels those who measure it with calendars, as foolish. Naimy unifies dualities beautifully by writing thus: ‘The slow is the mother of the swift.’ ‘Has anything ever sprung up except out of something which has decayed?’ ‘Are not the dead the subsoil of the living?’ ‘Life is the mother of Death and Death is the mother of Life.’ ‘Accept a misfortune as if it were a fortune.’ Here is where he talks of the Omniwill and the need to surrender to it, no matter how hard that would seem prima facie. ‘Speak to relieve the speechless. Be speechless to relieve yourselves.’ Naimy talks of Logic [which is an anthropogenic, intellectual creation] as a crutch for the cripple, a burden for the swift of foot and a greater burden for the winged as it tends to cause what we know as analysis-paralysis. Talking of the limits of anthropogenic [engineering and technological, if one may9 skills and abilities, he addresses the ‘Friends of the plumb-line and the rule, companions of the hammer and the anvil, road-fellows of the chisel and the saw’, and asks these ‘skilled craftsmen’ if they have it in them to shape the raw Man with the hammer of Will and the anvil of Understanding [the anvil which takes any number of blows silently without retaliating – a brilliant metaphor which only someone like Naimy can think of!] With a wonderfully-simple simile of an Ovum of Space within a Ovum of Time, the latter being bounded by a wall beyond which the Macro-God resides, he challenges the ‘Micro-Gods’ which each one of us is, to spread and crack the said wall and merge with the Macro-God who has created us in His form – the ultimate goal of any human being! It is a fond hope that this peep into this masterpiece will result in more of you opting to purchase a copy of the book and keep it as a vade mecum for ‘eternity’…to be passed on down the generations in the household. It would be a wonderful and fitting gift a father or mother could give to his/her son/daughter…ad infinitum.
Review: Worth content for a spiritual seeker. - Book content is amazing specially if you are seeing spiritual knowledge.It will help you to understand a lot and deep dive.There is a lot of use of symbols in the text .The book will surely take you to your oneself and also help us relate with modern day life . But I found the book language very difficult to understand at once .I took a lot of time to discover it's hidden meaning.Once I decoded it became a blessing for me ..

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars (1,060) |
| Dimensions  | 12.6 x 1.4 x 19.6 cm |
| Edition  | New |
| ISBN-10  | 1907486402 |
| ISBN-13  | 978-1907486401 |
| Importer  | Bookswagon, 2/13 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002, Sales@bookswagon.com , 01140159253 |
| Item Weight  | 187 g |
| Language  | English |
| Net Quantity  | 181.00 Grams |
| Packer  | Bookswagon, 2/13 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002, Sales@bookswagon.com , 01140159253 |
| Print length  | 192 pages |
| Publication date  | 1 January 2019 |
| Publisher  | Watkins Publishing |

## Images

![The Book of Mirdad: The strange story of a monastery which was once called The Ark - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71UAuslfS8L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A must-read....
*by G***H on 16 July 2021*

Finding the Bhagavad Gita incomprehensible? There is a solution G Venkatesh ‘Set no limits to yourselves. Spread out until there are no regions where you are not.’ - The Book of Mirdad by Mikhail Naimy; Watkins Publishing, London, UK. 2015. 185 pages. This is, in sooth, a book of poetry, masquerading as prose, for those who would care to look closely. The choice of words and phrases – from a spiritual fount and not a mental/intellectual exercise – serves to not just elucidate transcendence, but make the same seem attainable. Most of all, the Book of Mirdad is for one and all – for human beings who have been created by God in His own image. Though there is a reference to the Gita in the headline, one may very well replace it with ‘Bible’, ‘Qoran’ etc. and gather in readers from different religions like moths to a universal flame. Of course, it starts off with Noah and the Great Flood and a hypothetical Ark [which is a metaphor for the Soul and Spirit manifested on earth]…and Hindus may wish to replace Noah with Manu and read on. The best way to introduce readers to this book, and thereby keep this review interesting and purposeful, is by taking recourse to ‘quotable gems’ from each of the 37 + 3 chapters in it, though that may not be the conventional approach adopted by reviewers. Mirdad advises his disciples to defy questionable and decadent conventions and ascend up to a more sublime understanding of their purposes in life. So, it is apt that yours sincerely does as advised while writing about The Book of Mirdad. In ‘The Bound Abbot’ – the first of the trio of introductory chapters, one gets an inkling of how God /the Universe acts mysteriously, and makes men (the so-called chosen ones) decide to walk down the untrodden paths – decisions which one would not otherwise take. That leads the narrator up a long and winding, tortuous ‘Flint Slope’ [recall a lovely poem by Swami Vivekanada about the beauty of the long and hard path], en route which he encounters strange people and inexplicable incidents, which create the so-called ‘tower moments’ in Tarot-speak, stripping him down of all his material possessions, to prepare him for the higher purpose chosen for him – something he is absolutely unaware of. The purpose being an introduction to the said abbot who is the ‘Keeper of the Book’ [the Book of Mirdad]. The narrator gets access to the book and is entrusted with the responsibility to disseminating the messages to Homo Sapiens. The ‘Book’ itself has 37 chapters…the first one very aptly exhorting readers and listeners to ‘unseal their lips’ and ‘unveil your eyes’ to be able to not just ‘talk’ but ‘be able to communicate’ and not just ‘see’ but ‘be able to observe’. The same goes for the ears [though Naimy has not said that per se} – enabling one to not merely ‘hear’ but ‘listen’. Here, one can leap forward to cite Naimy from a later chapter – ‘Speech is at best an honest lie, while silence is at best an honest verity.’ The wise, as we know, speak less and listen more and thereby are often able to read between the lines, look into hearts and souls, and offer just the right advice/suggestions. To be a conduit for Truth, the tongue must never be a flail, a fang, a weather-vane, an acrobat or a scavenger. Digressing a lot, recall Anand Kumar’s [played by Hrithik Roshan] advice to his students in the movie Super 30 – tips to IIT-JEE aspirants reading this piece! Once the unsealing and unveiling happens successfully, one may very well be able to understand that the ‘I’, ‘Me’ and ‘Myself’ which man [and woman] use to ground their respective identities in chains, are entirely misleading. Naimy calls man a ‘God in swaddling bands’. These are bands which need to be shredded as the narrator experienced on his climb up the Flint Slope, if one wishes to understand the purpose of his/her/their existence. If the Trinity [Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva in Hindu mythology; and the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in Christianity] is a bit abstruse to understand, Naimy refers to these three as simply consciousness, word and understanding. There is an analogy here to Thought, Word and Deed. ‘Consciousness’ is all-pervading, the ‘word’ is something which manifests itself, encouraging us to ‘understand’. Taking recourse to alliteration of the most supreme kind, Naimy asks us not to be cribblers [sifters judging, choosing and rating and ranking evanescent objects and interests] but rather submit ourselves to Divine Will, the so-called Crucible [the melting-pot] in which we will be melted and recast according to His will. There is a fervent exhortation in one of the chapters to wage wars, if at all one needs to, within one’s heart and subdue one’s heart and mind to the Omniwill. The Kurukshetra war which Arjun had to wage on the advice of Lord Krishna, the Omniwill’s representative. Bitter words hurt more than arrows and bullets. While the latter cause physical pain which recedes if the said arrows and bullets have not delivered the so-called ‘fatal hits’, bitter words linger on in the hearts of those at the hearing end. Naimy observes, ‘ Better by far to be without a tongue than to have one whose words are snares and briars.’ This may be a bare minimum which one would consider as his/her duty towards humankind. Step a little higher after sampling this, ‘ You must be ever strong and steady that you may prop the wavering. You must be ever ready for the storm that you may be able to shelter the storm-tossed waifs. You must be ever luminous that you may guide the walkers in the dark.’ ‘Jettison your silver and gold as they will drag you down with them to the bottom. Release your grip on things if you would not be in their grip.’ The metaphor at once hits the nail on the head and drives home the point – the lighter you are, you will float on the sea of life and stay alive…and maybe even rise up to higher levels of happiness and understanding. Naimy says that a crown of gold studded with diamond, ruby and sapphire sits very cumbrous, sad and ill at ease upon the head swollen with ignorance, vainglory and lust for power over men…a stinging mockery of its own pedestal. Over the years, humankind [mankind or womankind, rather; for ‘human’ is an adjective one needs to strive hard to attain – note the subtle difference between ‘aadmi’ [man] and ‘insaan’ [human]] has given itself to judging, criticizing, comparing and contrasting and striving to get to the top of the proverbial materialistic garbage pile [an expression credited to George Bernard Shaw]. ‘Ignorance alone likes to be decked in wig and robe and to propound the law and mete out penalties.’ This however must not be taken literally, as the world as it is now, does need law enforcers, judges and lawyers and police-people. Transcendence is the keyword here, if one wishes to understand what this advice implies. The word ‘love’ is often not understood perfectly by any of us. It ranges from physical attraction of boy for girl and vice versa, to a mental/emotional understanding to an intellectual friendship to a soul-connection. The last-named often is the fundament on which true love abides and flowers to become an oak which is unshaken by the fiercest of storms. Naimy avers that as long as one is pained by Love, one has not really understood what it means…in other words, one has never loved. Or at best, it is love which is ephemeral. It is the spiritual bonding with another [which is divine – divine counterparts meeting and coexisting in harmony on the surface of the earth, by God’s Will] which is the truest, noblest and the most sublime of all. Naimy refers to the one who is not pained by Love or Loss of the same, as an Overcomer – the one who believes in the said soul connection which has endured for time immemorial and will do so, for eternity. In the 21st century, sufficiency has been a watchword, overtaking efficiency as a sine qua non for sustainable development. Sample this from Chapter 24 – ‘….take unafraid your need, but no more than your need, of the generous heart of the earth…for the Earth is so hospitable and loving that her heart is ever spread before her children.’ A beautiful poem, which one may well print out, and keep in one’s home-temple or even on one’s work-desk, ends Chapter 11…three lines from the same are reproduced hereunder: God is your captain… Love is your compass… Faith is your anchor… Sail on, my Ark… Compare with William Ernest Henley’s Invictus – I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of the soul. When a disciple asks Mirdad a question about prayers, he has something to say, which may disappoint most readers – ‘Take not to God your countless cares and worries. Implore Him not to open for you the doors whereto He furnished you with keys. But search the vastness of your hearts. For in the vastness of the heart is found the key to every door. Therein lie all the things you thirst and hunger after….you do not need a lip or tongue for praying; a wakeful heart is all that is needed.’ When disciples seek advice on how to respond to insults and humiliations, Naimy [using Mirdad as the medium] says exactly what Jesus said in the Bible, though much more poetically – Like the Earth be generous and calm, and turn impurities of men’s hearts into pure health and beauty. Like the Air be supple and free, the sword that would wound you would finally rust and tarnish. The arm that would harm you would finally weary and halt. The world if it does know you cannot contain you; it shall receive you with a snarl. But you know the world and so you can contain it.’ When loved ones pass away, undeniably, an unpluggable void is left behind in our lives. Time, the ‘greatest juggler’, they say, heals. Perhaps, but that is only if you reconcile to this truth – ‘……because the one that has passed away is now in a light which your eye is not accustomed to and in a form which you cannot discern, you say that he/she/they is no more. Man’s material self, no matter where transported and how changed, is bound to cast a shadow until dissolved entirely in the light of Man’s God-self.’ Naimy says that the course of duality is long and labels those who measure it with calendars, as foolish. Naimy unifies dualities beautifully by writing thus: ‘The slow is the mother of the swift.’ ‘Has anything ever sprung up except out of something which has decayed?’ ‘Are not the dead the subsoil of the living?’ ‘Life is the mother of Death and Death is the mother of Life.’ ‘Accept a misfortune as if it were a fortune.’ Here is where he talks of the Omniwill and the need to surrender to it, no matter how hard that would seem prima facie. ‘Speak to relieve the speechless. Be speechless to relieve yourselves.’ Naimy talks of Logic [which is an anthropogenic, intellectual creation] as a crutch for the cripple, a burden for the swift of foot and a greater burden for the winged as it tends to cause what we know as analysis-paralysis. Talking of the limits of anthropogenic [engineering and technological, if one may9 skills and abilities, he addresses the ‘Friends of the plumb-line and the rule, companions of the hammer and the anvil, road-fellows of the chisel and the saw’, and asks these ‘skilled craftsmen’ if they have it in them to shape the raw Man with the hammer of Will and the anvil of Understanding [the anvil which takes any number of blows silently without retaliating – a brilliant metaphor which only someone like Naimy can think of!] With a wonderfully-simple simile of an Ovum of Space within a Ovum of Time, the latter being bounded by a wall beyond which the Macro-God resides, he challenges the ‘Micro-Gods’ which each one of us is, to spread and crack the said wall and merge with the Macro-God who has created us in His form – the ultimate goal of any human being! It is a fond hope that this peep into this masterpiece will result in more of you opting to purchase a copy of the book and keep it as a vade mecum for ‘eternity’…to be passed on down the generations in the household. It would be a wonderful and fitting gift a father or mother could give to his/her son/daughter…ad infinitum.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Worth content for a spiritual seeker.
*by P***A on 13 September 2025*

Book content is amazing specially if you are seeing spiritual knowledge.It will help you to understand a lot and deep dive.There is a lot of use of symbols in the text .The book will surely take you to your oneself and also help us relate with modern day life . But I found the book language very difficult to understand at once .I took a lot of time to discover it's hidden meaning.Once I decoded it became a blessing for me ..

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Meditative Poetry
*by C***N on 15 December 2025*

Masterful work. Along with Siddharta by Herman Hesse and The Prophet by Khalil Ghibran a must read for meditators.

## Frequently Bought Together

- The Book of Mirdad: The strange story of a monastery which was once called The Ark
- The Prophet
- Siddhartha

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