VENGANOOR Balakrishnan, author of numerous books relating to spirituality is on a new mission. He is planning a series of 41 booklets on positive energies of life.
The number 41 is significant. This number signifies a Mandala period, according to traditional Kerala belief. The tradition of observing penance for 41 days before going for Sabarimala pilgrimage. The first set of the booklets are to be released shortly.
For Venganoor, spirituality is not related to religion. He says, that it is something above religion, caste, and creed. It is above all divisions and is about divine enlightenment, he said.
But before the release of the booklets based on tradition of Mandala, he plans to bring out the Marathi and French translation of his
Malayalam book Thaliyola. The book Thaliyola is an exploration on the worth and value of India’s customs, practices and belief systems. Thaliyola has already been translated into English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi. Another notable work of Balakrishnan was a Spiritual Encyclopedia which covered various topics
relating to spirituality.
However the first book penned by Balakrishnan, who begin his career as a journalist, was not on spirituality. It was on crime. The book titled ‘Jayaram Padikkalinte Crime Diary’ had created controversy. Nawab Rajendran had even moved the court against Jayaram Padikkal on the basis of this book.
However, soon he realised that spirituality was his field. Balakrishnan, a post-graduate in philosophy soon quit journalism for fully devoting his time for spiritual discourses and writing. Apart from books, he has also presented
numerous programmes on spirituality in television.
He also completed his PhD in philosophy from Lucknow University. The PhD thesis was based on Gayathri Manthram. He is at present director of the Thiruvananthapuram based Intellectual Centre for Spiritual Research (ICSAR).