"Beauty can be the boat that carries meaning across the waters of the mind home to the heart. Women Who Wear Only Themselves is a rare book that combines substantial spiritual insight with gorgeous writing. It is lyrical and wise, poetic and revolutionary. The four contemporary women sages the author lifts up are extraordinary, no doubt about it, yet it is Arundhati Subramaniam’s own author’s note and preface—among the finest pieces of spiritual truth-telling literature I have ever read—that rewove the tattered strands of my feminine soul. A book to savor and celebrate." — Mirabai Starr, author of Wild Mercy and Ordinary Mysticism
"To be guided by a guru who died three centuries ago, to converse daily with Shiva, to be possessed by mantras in earliest infancy, to live naked the year long, whatever the company … Subramaniam’s frank interviews with four women who have lived their Hinduism to the full allow us a precious insight into experiences that might seem far beyond our Western understanding. As the pages turn one feels a growing sense of shared humanity, even kinship with these extraordinary practitioners of the sacred. It’s hard to think of a more effective way of overcoming our cultural incomprehensions." — Tim Parks, author of Teach Us to Sit Still: a Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing