Tag Archives: book

Problems with Confusions 2

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Just to let any readers who have purchased the Kindle version that there is a problem with the text. As I noted earlier, Indica Books kindly agreed to let me publish this via Kindle in advance of the books. They also converted the text from a non-Unicode font to Times New Roman so that the transliterated Sanskrit would render correctly. Unfortunately, as I only discovered yesterday, the process resulted in quite a few words beingjoinedtogether and I failed to spot that before publishing.

I will shortly be receiving the final (correct) proof copy for indexing. As soon as I have done this, I will republish the Kindle version.

You will NOT have to re-purchase. I will update the version held by Amazon and they will flag the book as having an ‘Update Available’. You will be able to see this by logging in to your account and looking at ‘Your Account/Digital content and devices/Content and devices/Books’. You can then find ‘Confusions in Advaita Vedanta: Ignorance and Its Removal’ and click on the ‘Update Available’ link to update automatically to the corrected version.

This should hopefully happen within the next few weeks. The books themselves may not be available before the end of the year (since it is India!). I will post again when the Kindle update has been done.

For Automatic Updating: Go to your Amazon account and select: Digital Services and Device Support/Manage Content & Devices/Preferences and select ‘ON’ for ‘Automatic Book Updates’.

Self Seeking – Teacher List

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In this book (published last week), I attempted to list all living, Western teachers who might be though to be teaching Advaita. Clearly, not everyone was going to agree with my assessment, maybe especially those teachers (and their students) who had been deemed ‘Not Advaita’.

There has already been a 1* review at Amazon UK which contained no comments and did not include a name. There is no way to cancel this so that the only way to redress the situation is for there to be positive reviews. I do not want anyone to provide insincere reviews. Please read and review honestly – 1* reviews are fine if justified.

Here is what I said in the book about my assessment of teachers:

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Confusions over Kindle

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(Potential) readers of my last book – Confusions in Advaita Vedanta: Knowledge, Experience and Enlightenment – will have been experiencing difficulty when trying to purchase the book from Amazon. The book was published in India and, although available from Amazon in India, it is currently only available in the US in hardback (at $42.48). In the UK, you can purchase the hardback for £55, providing you are prepared to wait for 2 -3 weeks for delivery. Clearly not very satisfactory! The main problem appears to be the 50% tariff imposed on India by Trump, making the process not economically feasible.

Now, my Indian publisher – Indica Books – has very kindly agreed for me to publish the series on Kindle. This is an unusual arrangement, for which I am very grateful. I have spent the past two weeks changing fonts, re-editing, regenerating the index and sorting out the transfer to a PDF suitable for KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). Fortunately, I recruited the help of ChatGPT here and, after probably a dozen VBA macros (ChatGPT is still learning, unfortunately, and tends to over-complicate things!) and a lot of manual work, this conversion is now complete – published by Advaita Vision.

Accordingly, you may now purchase Vol. 1, ‘Knowledge, Experience and Enlightenment’, on Kindle. In the US, this is $9.99 and in the UK £7.50. It is also available at other Amazon stores around the world – Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Australia and India. The prices are similar (converted at appropriate exchange rates).

Purchase from Amazon US……………………Purchase from Amazon UK.

Note that you can still puchase hardback and paperback versions direct from Indica Books. Just email  indicabooksindia@gmail.com or info@indicabooks.com and the book will be posted. Payment is via PayPal or direct bank transfer. The direct link to purchase is here.

The task of converting and issuing Vol. 2, ‘Ignorance and its Removal’, will be much easier as my publisher has supplied the Word document already in the font in which I am publishing the Kindle version. Since this book has not yet been printed in India (and may yet be some weeks away), the Advaita Vision Kindle version will be available in advance of that.

Finding a Teacher

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Over the years, many seekers from all over the world have asked for my help to find a teacher. Rarely have I been able to do so. To paraphrase a common saying: a good teacher is hard to find. If there is one within striking distance of your home, you will be very lucky indeed! My new book, out this month, explains why, and endeavors to look at all of the ‘teacher resources’ available through books and Internet.

Self Seeking:- Finding a Modern Teacher of Advaita

Below is the Contents List so that you can see what you will be getting. For a general summary of its aim, I cannot do better than repeat the publishing summary: Are you interested in Advaita and want to become enlightened? How should you go about it? What will happen if you do? How can you know what works and what doesn’t? In particular, how should you go about finding a teacher? What books should you read? Author Dennis Waite answers all these questions and more, having communicated with many teachers and seekers over the past 25 years, accumulated around 1500 books on Advaita, and written more than 10 books himself.

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SELF SEEKING: Finding a Modern Teacher of Advaita

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This book may now be pre-ordered from bookstores around the world. It will actually be available on 28th October but, from Amazon at least, there is a 20% reduction if ordered now (normal price £19.99, pre-order £15.99; $27.95 with no reduction from Amazon US). The links to buy from Amazon are: UK and US. The ISBN is 978-1803418896.

[The E-Book should be available imminently but is an EPUB file so cannot be read on Kindle readers without first converting (e.g. using an app such as Calibre).]

Here is the publishing blurb:

Are you interested in Advaita and want to become enlightened? How should you go about it? What will happen if you do? How can you know what works and what doesn’t? In particular, how should you go about finding a teacher? What books should you read? Author Dennis Waite answers all these questions and more, having communicated with many teachers and seekers over the past 25 years, accumulated around 1500 books on Advaita, and written more than 10 books himself. In these pages, you will learn how to identify false teachers by spotting irrelevance, pitfalls, fallacies, and mystical mumbo jumbo. You will be warned against grandiose marketing claims, spiritual catchphrases, unclear language and poetry, and why you should be wary of various transcriptions and translations. For instance, the styles of Neo-Vedanta, Neo-Advaita, Direct Path, and satsang, in general, are compared with the original traditional teaching, and the relative values of scriptures, psychology, social media, and even AI are investigated. An attempt has been made to research all living teachers and organizations that claim to be teaching Non-Duality in the West and establish whether it is really Advaita. Do they help you to seek the Self or are they simply self-seeking?

Book Review: European Masters – John David

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Blueprints for Awakening: European Masters: Unique Dialogues with 14 European Masters on the Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi Who am I?

Premananda, Open Sky Press Ltd, Nov 2010, ISBN 978-0956607003. (350 pages).

Buy from Amazon US
Buy from Amazon UK

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.

(Extended biographical details may be found at his website – http://www.premanandasatsang.org/.)  

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.

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New Book Announcement

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Confusions in Advaita Vedānta: Knowledge, Experience and Enlightenment

This is being published by Indica Books at Varanasi and may be purchased directly from them (PayPal accepted) at indicabooksindia@gmail.com.

It will also be available to buy from Amazon and I will post the links as soon as this is possible. (Note that it may still be cheaper to buy from Indica, even with postage costs, but it will obviously take longer to arrive in the West.)

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Answers

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I would like to announce publication of my book ‘Answers… to the Difficult Questions’. It will be ‘in the shops’ (if you know of a shop that sells this sort of book) on March 27th.

All seekers encounter problems periodically. A question arises which appears to challenge the veracity of their chosen path. If an answer is not found quickly, there is a great danger that the particular teaching will be abandoned and another sought. I cannot speak for other teachings but I know that traditional Advaita has answers to all (seeker-related) questions. This book records the questions from hundreds of seekers over the years and the answers I gave. (I first invited questions to my website in 2005.) It would be surprising if your particular worries are not covered somewhere and it is likely that there will be answers to many questions that have not yet occurred to you! (If you have one which is not answered, contact me via the website!)

The questions that are covered (over 450) can be read here but there are several problems with doing this. Firstly, the questions here appear in the order in which they were asked; questions covering a particular topic could be anywhere. Secondly, my own understanding and knowledge has obviously increased over the 15 years since I first began answering questions. Accordingly, my answers to early questions may not be as informed as they would now be. Thirdly, there is no introductory or summary material for the various key topics in Advaita. Continue reading →