Peculiar Stories, Mora Fields O Street Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-0-9791416-1-4. (92 pages), Ages 6-10 and up.
Mora Fields Mora Fields has been an inquirer her entire life, although she didn’t always realize it, and translated her early wonderings about the nature of life into these stories of inquiry for children. She has long been a reader and admirer of the English philosopher/sage Douglas Harding. She co-authored a previous book called Aspects of the One: the 99 Names of God.
Sri Satchidanandendra Saraswati Swamiji (5 January 1880 – 5 August 1975) was the founder of the Adhyatma Prakasha Karyalaya in Holenarasipura, Hassan district, Karnataka, India. Born as Sri Yellambalase Subbarao, he worked as a school teacher in the Indian state of Karnataka. He gave many lectures and wrote many articles on the Vedanta in English, Kannada and Sanskrit.
Satchidanandendra Saraswati was a philosopher who dedicated all his life for the Vedanta sAdhana and attained brahma-j~nAna. He was known as a jIvanmukta sage. He was the best example of a Sanskrit saying, “One should spend one’s life until sleep and until death only in Vedantic contemplation”. (Wikipedia)
Heart of Shri Shankara Swami Satchidanandendra, translated by A. J. Alston. A detailed consideration of what Shri Shankara said about the nature of ignorance, and other views. A translation of a work by Shri Swami Satchidanandendra first published in 1929 under the title Refutation of Root Ignorance or The Heart of Shri Shankara. It considers the philosophical view that there is a ‘root-ignorance’ that ‘creates’ the phenomenal world and which in some sense really exists. The Swami sets out to show that this view arose among Advaitins after Shri Shankara and is contrary to his true teaching.
Another review from 10+ years ago at Advaita Academy. I have amended this to bring it up to date.
Vivekachudamani (vivekachUDAmaNi), Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Sri Gangadadharesvar Trust, 1997, No ISBN. (312 pages), $12 from Arsha Vidya Bookstore, Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Institute of Vedanta & Sanskrit, P.O. Box 1059, Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, 18353, USA Tel: 570.992.2339 (http://books.arshavidya.org/) The book is in English. Verses are given in Devanagari, followed by transliteration and then word by word translation. Direct Devanagari quotations from other sources are provided in footnotes.
Note that, when I originally reviewed this book, it also included a free DVD of extracts from the interviews. This is no longer the case.
Premananda is the author of a number of books, including ‘Indian Masters: Blueprints for Awakening’, which I have reviewed at http://www.advaita.org.uk/reading/read_general.htm#blueprints. He spent 15 years with Osho, followed by another 5 with H. W. L. Poonja (Papaji) and much of his teaching now is influenced by Ramana Maharshi. He runs the Open Sky Satsang Community in Germany (between Cologne and Düsseldorf) and periodic meetings are organized throughout Europe.
Note that, sometime during the elapsed time since I wrote this review (around 2011), he has reverted to his (presumed) birth name of John David. All reference to the name ‘Premananda’ appears to have been removed from his website and books (although the URL remains the same). I have left the words of the review itself, and the images, as they were in the original review.
I am still trawling through old blogs and articles which I wrote around 2011, and that are no longer available on the Internet. Here is a short one which may amuse…
This is the unlikely title of a book which is ostensibly an introduction to Western Philosophy, but is perhaps better viewed as a book of themed jokes. It is not even remotely anything to do with Advaita, so I wouldn’t be happy writing a formal book review.
If you are at all interested in philosophy in general; like reading about it, without necessarily learning very much; and enjoy a good joke, then this is definitely the book for you! It has chapters on many of the key Western names and schools and each has a few paragraphs telling you very cursorily where it fits into the history and what, essentially, it deals with. But this is interspersed with witty remarks and lots of full-fledged jokes which purport to illustrate the particular branch being discussed.
Over the next couple of months, I will be posting some book reviews that I made 10+ years ago, which are no longer available elsewhere on the Internet.
The first of these is: dṛg dṛśya viveka, Clarissa, Lulu Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4452-0858-9. (171 pages), $19.62 from Amazon.com. Also available from Watkins Books, 21 Cecil Court, London WC2, £12.99.
On the face of it, this is a well-written and readable book, ideally suited for a new seeker. E.g. the sections on ‘The Illusory Nature of the Separate Self’ and ‘Knowledge Dispels Ignorance’ are excellent.
Unfortunately, should any reader accept everything that is written at its face value, they will come away with some serious confusions. In what follows, I apologize in advance for some of what may seem to be harsh criticisms, but my own perception of these points is heightened as a result of spending the last year writing my own work on ‘confusions’ of precisely this sort.
The author uses the traditional teaching method of adhyāropa-apavāda but it is not made clear when what is being said is only provisional. Also, there are very few references to the source of what is being presented. (And one of those that is provided doesn’t exist!) There are many places where the author writes ‘as Shankara said’ but scarcely a single pointer to where he said it. There are numerous places where I, as an informed reader, need those references before I will even consider what is being said to be credible!
Natural Realism and Contact Theory of Perception : Indian Philosophy’s Challenge to Contemporary Paradigms of Knowledge, Chittaranjan Naik, Notion Press, 2019. ISBN 978-1-64678-012-9.
[Note that the conventional view of how we perceive objects is what is called the Representational theory of perception. This is the belief that light rays from a source hit the object and are reflected to the eye of the observer. The light is focused by the eye onto the retina, where it triggers responses in receptors. Electrical signals are generated, which pass along the optic nerve and thence to the visual cortex of the brain. Something else then happens to make us somehow reconstruct an image of the original object. It is this representation that is actually perceived and not the object itself.
I am in the process of reviewing old material relating to Advaita Academy as part of my background research for a 2nd edition of Back to the Truth. There are a number of essays, blogs and book reviews by myself and others which I will be reposting here over the next few months (they can no longer be found on-line at present). Here is the first of these – a two-part essay by Peter Bonnici, explaining why Sanskrit is so valuable and why a qualified teacher is necessary. Dennis
Sanskrit: language of the gods – Peter Bonnici
There are many who declare themselves to be students of advaita vedAnta but do not see the value in pursuing the study of texts in Sanskrit as they believe that the proliferation of translations and commentaries on texts like the Upanishads and Bhagavad GIta available in native languages are sufficient. Then there are those who have a working knowledge of Sanskrit who feel that, armed with a dictionary and other necessary tools, they can arrive at the meaning of texts by themselves.
Both are missing something, and for the same reason: namely, the enormous expressiveness, subtlety and flexibility of the language to express the precise meaning that the speaker or writer wishes to convey. (Most of the valuable teaching of advaita was passed on orally and the written form came later.) Not only is one missing out the subtlety of meaning by side-stepping the language, but one can also be lulled into a false sense of security by the book knowledge one has. An example of this can be seen when one compares translations. Here are three translations of the first verse of shankara’s DakShiNamUrti Stotra:
Bad news: Some readers may have noticed that the series ‘Introduction to Vedanta’ by Dr. K. Sadananda disappeared from my website a few days ago.
Good news: The series has now been published by Sethu R Rathinam in a quality, 218 page paperback and as an E-book on Amazon Kindle.
From my foreword to the book:
‘An Introduction to Vedanta’ was originally serialized on the Advaitin discussion group where it was justifiably well-received. As they say in the advertising media: ‘it does what it says on the box.’ It covers all of the material needed to introduce the subject to a new seeker, clarifying aspects that could otherwise prove difficult or even dampen enthusiasm. He never talks down to his listeners but speaks directly to them using everyday examples that resonate immediately. No doubt he benefits from having been taught directly by Swami Chinmayananda and more recently by many other teachers including Swami Tejomayananda and Swami Paramarthananda, but his scientific background also brings naturally clear reasoning ability to his analysis of the subject with the result that he seems able to explain the most difficult topics.
Anyone looking for an overview of the essential teaching of Advaita could not do better than to read this Introduction.
And I consider myself fully qualified to recommend the book since I editied it myself!
