A Mauritian reader sent me photographs of my book “The Tri-Intelligence Leadership: Mastering IQ, EQ, and SQ” from Ganga Talao (Grand Bassin, Mauritius). Temples stood in the background. Deities watched with that familiar stillness that makes your mind feel a little too loud.
I looked at those pictures longer than I expected. Not because I needed validation, but because the gesture felt both audacious and tender. A book usually sits on a bedside table or a work desk. Grand Bassin is not a prop. It is a living symbol in Mauritius, a place where the ordinary becomes sacred through collective memory.
That is why this felt like a bigger reward than sales or compliments. It was a reader saying, without writing a single grand paragraph: your ideas are not staying trapped in my head. They are travelling with me into the places that shape who I am.
The Boldness of Placing Words Near the Divine
Let’s call it plainly. Taking a book to Ganga Talao is a bold move.
Sacred spaces do not tolerate performance for long. You can arrive with a camera, yes. You can leave with a post, yes. But the place still asks: what are you really doing here? Are you here to be seen, or to see yourself?
When I saw my book framed against temples and gods, I felt humility first. My mind did not say, “How flattering.” It said, “Who am I to be placed there?” That question matters, not as false modesty, but as psychological hygiene. When our work brushes against the sacred, ego tries to sneak in quietly.
Yet the reader’s gesture did not feel like ego. It felt like an offering. In yoga, devotion is not only about ritual. It is a quality of attention. It is sincerity, directed towards something that can actually transform you. Perhaps the reader was saying: this book is part of my inner work. It belongs beside my prayers, my vows, my silence.
Why We Crave Symbols in a Noisy World
Here is a simple psychological truth. The mind remembers experiences better when they are anchored to a symbol and emotion. We do not live by facts. We live by meaning.
Grand Bassin is not merely a location on a map. It is a symbol of ancestry, faith, pilgrimage, discipline, and the longing for inner purity in a world that constantly stains us. When someone places a book there, they are ritualising their learning. They are making the invisible visible.
If you have ever wondered why people take their biggest decisions to sacred places, the answer is not mystical. A symbol interrupts autopilot. It slows the mind. It pulls you out of petty urgency and drops you into a deeper time-scale.
And it raises a cheeky question for modern Mauritius: when did we start treating reflection like a luxury, and distraction like a lifestyle?
Mauritius, Identity, and the Risk of Shallow Spirituality
Mauritius is beautifully close-knit in culture and faith. We celebrate across communities. We borrow. We learn. We also sometimes perform. We can reduce spirituality to an annual event and call it “tradition” while living the rest of the year in low-grade anxiety and high-grade hurry.
Grand Bassin quietly resists that reduction. It reminds us that devotion is not a weekend hobby. It is a way of living.
So when this reader took my book to Ganga Talao, I saw a small rebellion against shallow consumption. A refusal to treat reading as entertainment only. A decision to make reading a practice.
In an age where attention is constantly stolen, this act felt like attention being offered back.
When a Reader Becomes a Co-Creator
People assume a book is finished when it is printed. I have learnt the opposite. A book begins when it is read.
The reader is not a consumer. The reader is a co-creator. Every time someone underlines a sentence, they rewrite it in their nervous system. Every time they pause, they meet themselves. Every time they disagree, they discover their own spine.
Those photos from Grand Bassin reminded me that the book is no longer “mine” in the possessive sense. It is the reader’s companion now. It has entered the reader’s spiritual geography. That is intimate. That is brave.
It also exposes an uncomfortable question: why do we need a sacred backdrop to take ourselves seriously? We will spend hours consuming other people’s lives, yet we hesitate to sit with our own thoughts for ten minutes. Then we stand at Ganga Talao and suddenly remember we have a soul.
Grand Bassin as a Psychological Mirror
Ganga Talao carries an atmosphere that does not need explaining. It is not loud. It does not persuade. It simply holds a certain weight, the weight of collective yearning.
From a psychological lens, places like Grand Bassin work like mirrors. They invite self-observation. They shrink trivial concerns. They widen the horizon of time. They make you ask, gently but firmly: what are you doing with your life?
In coaching, I often say clarity is not found through more information. It is found through better questions. Grand Bassin is a question in physical form. It nudges you to notice what you keep avoiding, the resentment you keep feeding, the promise you keep postponing.
If my book, in that setting, helped the reader face even one honest question, then yes, that is a reward. Not the kind that feeds ego. The kind that feeds purpose.
The Real Work After You Leave
One of the greatest illusions we live with is the separation myth. We separate prayer and behaviour. We separate values and choices. We separate the person we are at Grand Bassin and the person we become in traffic on the M1.
But the nervous system does not separate. The patterns you carry to a sacred lake are the same patterns you carry into relationships, leadership, parenting, and self-talk.
So the question is not, “Did you visit Grand Bassin?” The question is, “Did Grand Bassin visit you afterwards?” Did you become a touch more patient, more truthful, less reactive, more willing to apologise, more able to sit with discomfort instead of fleeing into distraction?
That is the integration yoga keeps pointing to. Not spiritual theatre, but spiritual traction.
A Quiet Thank You, and a Gentle Invitation
To the reader who did this, thank you. Thank you for showing me that words can be carried like offerings. Thank you for reminding me that Mauritius still makes space for depth. Thank you for giving me a moment of awe, the quiet kind that makes you write more responsibly.
And to you reading this, here is a small experiment. Do not treat a book like a product. Treat it like a practice. Take one paragraph and sit with it the way you would sit with a prayer. Ask what it is asking of you. Then live the answer, even in a small way, today.
Because sacred spaces have always been trying to teach us one thing. The divine is not impressed by ceremony. It is moved by sincerity.
Leave a Reply