Book Reviews

All unsigned reviews are by the editor

JOEL GOLDSMITH *

*While going to Press we have just heard of his unexpected demise (18-6-1964) and sympathise deeply with his many followers and friends.

When Joel Goldsmith heard of the founding of The Mountain Path he immediately sent us his good wishes and took out a life subscription. Our readers will recall the article on 'The Infinite Way in Life' that he wrote for our April issue. He also sent us copies of all his books (about a dozen mostly published by Allen and Unwin in England and Harper and Row in America). This was a valuable acquisition. There is a deceptive simplicity about them. They display no knowledge of Eastern doctrines, employ no philosophical terminology, scarcely ever quote from or even refer to any book except the Bible, and yet they are pure advaitic teaching, the pure doctrine of Identity.

"Your Selfhood is the unconditioned Selfhood. So is my Selfhood. It is wholly spiritual: It is, in fact, Spirit Itself, which has no race, nationality or religion. This Selfhood of you and of me co-exists with God, has co-existed with God in the Is-ness which God is - without beginning and without ending - and this Selfhood has known individual expression throughout all time.

"You are this Selfhood and I am this Self-hood, living as one of God's incarnations; and that Selfhood remains eternal in the heavens, untouched and unaffected by the surroundings in which we find ourselves. With birth, however, there has sprung up around the one Self a sense of human identity, and from the moment of conception this begins to be identified with its surroundings....

"To accept intellectually the truth that we are that unconditioned Self is one thing, but to experience It in a measure is another thing, and to experience It in Its completeness is quite another." ('A Parenthesis in Eternity', p. 138-9).

Never has advaitic teaching been so simply expressed and widely distributed for ordinary people of goodwill in the Christian world. Moreover, this teaching has not gathered dust on the bookshelves; it has led to the founding of the Infinite Way groups throughout the countries of the world.

Although the teaching given to the Infinite Way groups through the books of Joel Goldsmith accords with that of the Maharshi, the path followed is different. It is not Self-enquiry but dwelling on a number of pregnant biblical texts such as: "I and my Father are One ... Be still and know that I am God." "The kingdom of heaven is within you." It will be observed that this has great affinity with the use of Mahavakyas, which was one of the methods recommended by Sankaracharya.

Another difference is that the Infinite Way technique includes the practice of spiritual healing (which has been an important element in the Christian tradition from the beginning) whereas the Maharshi deprecated any use of powers. However, Joel Goldsmith insists again and again that healing must never be the goal to be aimed at. It must be viewed as no more than a by-product of spiritual progress. "The object of the Infinite Way is to develop spiritual progress, not primarily to produce health out of sickness or wealth out of lack." (Ibid., p. 121). Moreover, as he explains in 'The Art of Spiritual Healing', the method of healing taught is not to concentrate on either the patient or the disease or to make any conscious attempt to heal. Having taken cognisance of the patient's needs, the healer is simply to turn his mind to God, still thoughts, stop interfering, and allow the Divine Grace to flow through him. He is not to attempt to use God but to allow God to use him. "If we were asked to give spiritual help to someone who needed physical healing, mental stability or moral regeneration, our only possibility of success would be in proportion to our ability to be still, to refrain from using spiritual power, and let spiritual power flow through us." ('A Parenthesis in Eternity', p. 127).

All the books say the same, and yet they are never stale, there is no dull repetition. They remain vital and urgent from beginning to end. Spiritually there is not much to say - that Being IS - that you are That, that the One appears in many forms. But the mind constantly forgets, asserts itself and needs reminding. One can distinguish the reminders that stem from illumination and those of the theorist who repeats what he has learnt. Joel Goldsmith's are of the former category.

WORLD INVISIBLE: A Study in Sages, Saints and Saviours. By Prynce Hopkins. (Traversity Press, Penobscot, Maine, U.S.A., pp. 165, Price not mentioned.)

Dr. Hopkins prefaces his quest with the following statement. "The peregrinations among sages, saints and saviours herein described who, within various traditions - Hindu, Muslim, Christian - seek to penetrate to some reality beyond the visible world were undertaken by me in the spirit of scientific enquiry. From the time I entered the Scientific School at Yale and followed, elsewhere, with study for advanced degrees in psychology, I have been trained to apply the scientific attitude, and, so far as possible, scientific techniques to all problems. I was taught to renounce the hope of absolute certainty but to be content with the formulations which held the greatest probability of accounting for all facts known at the time." This means that his quest was foredoomed to failure because the approach was wrong. He was trying to assess the higher or spiritual knowledge, which is absolute certainty, by the lower or rational, which can only estimate probabilities, whereas it is only by letting go the lower that the higher can be attained. As Chuang Tzu said: "If you get rid of small wisdom great wisdom will come in." The prudent rationalist like Dr. Hopkins wants to investigate the great wisdom by the light of the small before opening the door to it, and of course never discovers it.

Personally he was impressed by the Maharshi who, he says "had achieved jivanmukti if ever man did." "Among all whom I met in India, Maharshi remains to me the truest figure of the sage." Nevertheless, he believed that he was discussing with the Maharshi as one philosopher with another and never understood that the Maharshi had transcendental knowledge, absolute certainty, and was trying to show him the way to it.

This limitation is only too common among scholars. As Christ said: I thank Thee O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto 'babes'. What is not, or should not be, is the extraordinary inaccuracy which makes even the superficial information given by Dr. Hopkins unreliable, He tells us, for instance (on page 20) that he met the leader of the Egyptian Sufis and adds: "Because of their greater liberality, the Shi'ahs have been especially hospitable to this famous order of Muslim mystics (the Sufis) who have, therefore, flourished in Persia and given to this country much of its greatest poetry." There is no such thing as Egyptian Sufism, any more than there is Spanish monasticism, nor is there an order called Sufism any more than there is a Christian order called monasticism. There are a number of Sufi orders, each with its own head and all of them international. Furthermore, all of them are Sunni and none Shi'ah. The great Persian poet-saints were all Sunnis; it is only in more recent centuries that Shi'ism has overspread Persia.

The information given about the Maharshi is also misinformation. We are told that he ran away from home in order to have leisure to think out the answer to the question 'Who am I?' Actually he left home after having already realized the Self and passed beyond the need for thinking out. We are also told that the disciples who gathered round him were simple peasants. They were anything but.

Contrary to the introductory paragraph quoted above, the book is mainly about Buddhist teachings and practices and scarcely mentions Islamic. The occasional expositions of doctrine, Hindu or Buddhist, partake of both the author's faults: the lack of understanding common to rationalists and the inaccuracy peculiar to the author.

HOW GOD CAME INTO MY LIFE: Series I and II. (Bhavan's Book University, Bombay-7, pp. 46 and 53, Rs. 1 each.)

Tales of Divine Intervention in physical form were much commoner in ages of faith than they are now. Even in recent times they are not altogether unknown. Perhaps the best known modern or fairly modern instance is the appearance of Mother Kali to Sri Ramakrishna when his longing and desperation had reached the point of his seizing a sword to put an end to his life. There was one that Ramana Maharshi told about an engine driver who neglected his work to attend a bhajan, a session of religious singing. He was threatened with dismissal if it happened again. Nevertheless when he next heard the bhajan he was drawn to it so irresistibly that he could not refrain. Next day he went sadly to report his fault but was met with incredulity: "What do you mean? You turned up on duty as usual. You signed the attendance book as usual." He had been impersonated. W. B, Yeats wrote a poem about a similar instance happening in Ireland. There are other cases. It they are less common than in ages of faith it is perhaps because faith itself provides an atmosphere for the materialisation of non-material forces, while materialism impedes it.

The first of these two little volumes records nine very varied cases of Divine Impersonation for the benefit of Indian saints or devotees in earlier centuries - the trusting child from whose hands a statue took food, the dutiful wife who was impersonated so that she could attend bhajan, the poet-saint for whom God worked as a servant, and others.

The second volume is modern but not well chosen. Instead of seeking out genuine cases among the humble, the editor has compiled a list of famous persons some of whom qualify only vaguely, if at all, for inclusion - for instance Devendranath Tagore's dream of his dead wife and Annie Besant's conversion to occultism. Except insofar as they quote the originals, the stories are not well told.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI: By Paramahamsa Yogananda. (Jaico, Bombay, pp. 510, price Rs. 5).

Paramahamsa Yogananda is one of those Swamis who is better known in the West than in India. Even after his death his Self-Realization Fellowship continues to flourish in many countries. His autobiography, now republished in a paperback edition for sale in India, was certainly one of the influences that carried him to fame. Many will find it fascinating reading. These who follow the path of Advaita or Identity, however, may be put off by just that feature which attracts another class of reader: that is by the undue prominence of the miraculous powers he ascribes to various Masters and, to a lesser extent, claims for himself, and the supernatural events he describes. Such powers are an ignis fatuus which can well lure the wayfarer aside from the path; and followers of a Swami who describes them with such relish are particularly liable to this danger, even though the Swami himself may warn against it.

- Arthur Osborne

THE GITA AND INDIAN CULTURE: By H.H. Sri Jaya Chamaraia Wadiyar. (Orient Longmans Ltd. Pp. 68. Price Rs. 3).

In giving the main characteristics of Indian culture, the author of this weighty little work underlines its spiritual fundamentals and chooses the Bhagavad Gita as best illustrating this tradition. The Gita represents a synthesis of the diverse lines of spiritual effort down the ages in India and its message is of perennial import.

The writer dwells upon what he considers to be the crux of the teaching in this scripture, the separation of the self from the non-self, the 'field' from the 'knower of the field', and deepening of this awareness of the Inner Person till its identity with the Supreme Self is realised. He mainly follows Acharya Sankara in his interpretations, which are remarkably catholic.

The author is convincing in his appraisal of the Gita as primarily a spiritual rather than an ethical or social guidebook. He keeps close to the tradition of Upasana in dwelling upon the proper mode of studying this scripture.

UPANISHADS: By C. Rajagopalachari. (Bhavan's Book University, Chowpatty, Bombay-7. Pp. 67. Price Rs. 1).

In introducing his selections from the Upanishads, Sri C. Rajagopalachariar points out, rightly, that these texts are not meant to replace the Teacher, but are more in the nature of notes of lessons imparted by the sages to their disciples. Though the object of all the Upanishads is one, i.e., Knowledge of Reality, the standpoints are different, the routes taken are many and consequently the lines of exposition are varied. The author takes up a few of these Upanishads, viz. Katha, Isha, Kena, Svetasvatara, Chhandogya, Taittiriya and Mundaka, introduces their subject matter in his own words and then proceeds to give some portions of the original with renderings in English, and a connecting and running commentary. In places he differs from the current interpretations and gives his own explanations, which, however, are not always acceptable. The renderings also have, at times (Katha II-23-24), a tendency to move away from the text.

REMINISCENCES OF A JURIST: By Prof. K. R. R. Sastry. (Pub. Author. 29 Dwarka Colony, Edward Elliots Road, Madras4. Pp. 96. Price Rs. 4)

The author of this book is evidently fortunate in being able to look back upon his career of 65 years with an amount of satisfaction that is not given to most. He speaks of his varied innings as an educationist, a lawyer, a jurist, a palm-reader on the sly, a journalist and finally a confident seeker after Realisation, in a racy style and lets the reader have a peep into this bright progression through the diary notes, fragments of correspondence and autobiographical reminiscences brought together in this miscellany.

Prof. Sastry has met a number of spiritual figures and has been, so to say, a theosophist on the fringe. But the Master who has given him real solace of the spirit is the Maharshi. "This sage of Arunagiri, Maharishi Ramana, stilled all my debts [doubts?]. My morning begins with his memory, as I go to sleep with the never ending quest over the Self within the right side of my heart. I feel the strength of a lion when I take refuge in him. My Master has saved me from many a slippery situation in London, New York .... In his life of steadfast wisdom we found the Muni; in his eyes projected towards the Ever-distant we got the Diksha of initiation." - Interesting though sketchy.

- M. P. Pandit

THE BUDDHA'S ANCIENT PATH: By Piyadassi Thera. (Rider. Pp. 239. Price 30 s.)

Some thirty-five years ago, when my interest in Buddhism was first aroused, the literature on the subject available in English was already quite extensive. Theosophists, agnostics, sympathetic up-to-a-point missionaries and orientalists, each of these last intent on proving a thesis and disproving that of his immediate predecessor, offered the innocent enquirer a rich and bewildering choice of fare. One learned that Buddhism was something excitingly esoteric; it was not esoteric at all but a charter for rather outmoded rationalists; it was a solar myth; it-agreed-with-modern-science; it was a providential soil for the sowing of the gospel; and to add to the confusion, or perhaps to dispel it, there were those recently published essays of Dr. D. T. Suzuki.

True, there were the excellent translations of the Pali Text Society, but these stately volumes were obviously not for beginners. The London Buddhist Society, then in its infancy, was making noble efforts to sort things out, but with so many Right Views in the arena it had its work cut out maintaining peace and endeavouring to offer a fair forum to all protagonists.

Happily all component things are subject to change, and the Buddha's unchanging dhamma is now in the hands of more reliable exponents. In recent years there has been an ample flow of authoritative presentations of the dhamma, both Hina and Mahayana, from scholarly Buddhists who are also living the life and practising its discipline.

The Venerable Plyadassi Thera, revered and erudite pupil of a revered and erudite teacher, the Venerable Vajvanana Sangha Nayaka of Colombo, is the latest in the field and we can only regret that he was not there earlier. Valuable as his 'Buddha's Ancient Path' is today, it would have been even more so thirty years ago.

The Venerable Piyadassi speaks from the heart of the Theravada Establishment and he makes no bones about it. He simply hands on to us the tradition as it was handed on to him, clearly, authoritatively, and, by means of lucid and comprehensive expositions of the key concepts, makes quite sure that we understand what he is talking about.

Any student aspiring to come to grips with an ancient tradition must at least acquire a working knowledge of its vocabulary, for which there is rarely an exact equivalent in the modern languages of the West. Here again our author serves us well. His thoughtful translations of the many words involved are always followed by their Pali original.

After clarifying the basic concepts of dukkha and nibbana, he leads us with scholarly precision through the threefold division of the Noble Eightfold Path, sila, samadhi and panna, morality, concentration and wisdom. Morality, with its emphasis on loving-kindness and compassion, engages the heart, concentration the will, and wisdom the intellect. Here we have a truly integral yoga.

In the section on concentration it is pointed out that jhana or samadhi, however lofty, is never an end in itself but simply serves the purpose of purifying the mind and fitting it for the one all-important task, insight into the doctrine and its eventual realization.

The Theravada, ruthlessly pragmatic and frankly dualistic, offers little solace to the metaphysically inclined. Samsara is no Maya but terribly real. Herein perhaps lies its attraction and value for the modern West. There is no reliance on an external God, so difficult apparently even for an Anglican bishop to believe in, no reliance on a guru, so difficult nowadays to find.

Theravada Buddhism dispenses not only with the need for God but even with the need for a human guru. 'The doctrine and discipline which I have set forth and laid down for you, let them be your teacher after I have gone ..." This may have been a necessary warning against false and authoritarian teachers so prevalent in any age, but anyone who has attempted to practise the Way of Mindfulness or the various exercises in concentration described in the Sutta Pitika and Visuddhi Magga soon finds himself in need of a wise and reliable guide not only to clarify the text, but also to save him from the many delusions, excesses and shortcomings to which every psycho-physical complex is prone.

The venerable author offers us the Buddha Dhamma as the solution to our ills. In such a practical book it would have been encouraging if he had told us something of the fruits the Buddha Dhamma is bearing in this twentieth century world. Is the Noble Eightfold Path still producing Arahats, Anagami and Sakadagami? Are there Stream-Winners in the Buddhist lands today?

ALL ELSE IS BONDAGE, NON-VOLITIONAL LIVING: By Wei Wu Wei. (Hong Kong University Press. Pp. 55. Price H.K. $ 5. 00).

To a generation no longer content with the bland agnosticism of its grandparents and in open revolt against the sophisticated indifference of the inter-war years, Advaita-Tao-Zen is beginning to look suspiciously like the perfect answer. The difficulty is that the answer turns out to be a no-answer. There is simply the realization that there is no questioner and no question. A doctrine whose ultimate ideal is Silence and which demands the abandonment of all points of view is hardly one to write about. A few stray words of Ramana Maharshi or a Zen Master may put one on the right track, but if the unwary enquirer goes on to read a dozen or so books 'about' Zen or Advaita he is likely to find himself back in the quagmire.

Wei Wu Wei is one of the very few exponents who seem aware of this difficulty. Confining himself to short dialogues and aphoristic meditations, he drives home what has to be driven home and scrupulously avoids all side issues. After all, the doctrine has not so very much to say - only the basic truths which are repeated and repeated until they perhaps do their work and conceptual split-mind realizes itself as whole-mind.

Wei Wu Wei's repetitions are never monotonous. His masterly manipulation of the English language and the feeling he gives us of being not so much his 'public' as privileged participants in his own forthright efforts to understand make him an ever stimulating companion on the way. His books are not to be read through but worked with. He may be the star pupil, but we are all in the class together, and it's an exciting class.

When the doctrine went East with Bodhidharma it quickly shed its Indian decor and most of its Aryan metaphysics. The pragmatic but endless sculptures of the Mahayana were reduced to brief questions and answers about everyday things and a providential whack on the head. The question inevitably rises what happens now that the doctrine is taking a bold leap West,. Its first heralds, finding the Oxford dictionary inadequate, were forced to teach us a little classical Sanskrit and Chinese. But language is largely the expression of national psyche and it is not the ultimate goal of the doctrine to make Western minds oriental. In a short foreword Wei Wu Wei discusses the problem he is himself boldly tackling: "It may be doubted whether an entirely modern presentation of oriental or perennial metaphysics would be followed or accepted as trustworthy at present. Probably an intermediate stage is necessary, during which the method should be a presentation in modern idiom supported by the authority of the great Masters, with whose thoughts and technical terms most interested people are at least generally familiar."

His latest attempt to do this is very much as before. It is much shorter than his previous books and perhaps on that account even more potent.

- R. F. Rose

THE GOD-POSSESSED: By Jaques Lacarriere. (Allen and Unwin. Pp. 237. Price 35 s.)

No one has done a greater disservice to Christianity than the Emperor Constantine. Previous to his time it was a persecuted religion, so that the mere fact of accepting it meant rejection of 'this world'. When 'this world' became nominally Christian it suddenly became possible to accept both. A new mode of rejection was needed. In Egypt this took the form of anchorites going out into the desert, living lives of almost incredible hardship; and from this Christian monasticism took its origin.

'The God-Possessed', translated into English by Roy Monkcon, gives a scholarly but vivid account of these Desert Fathers, of the later rise of corporate monasticism among them, and of the spread of both movements into the Syrian and Judaean deserts. The author is inclined, after the style of modern scholarship, to give a psychological explanation of the forces of good and evil that were evoked by this austere life in the harsh and weird conditions of the desert. However, he gives the accounts faithfully and with scholarly criticism and is not altogether blind to the powerful forced that were engendered.

One of the things that gives credence to the accounts is that by no means all the ascetics were revered as saints or credited with supernatural powers. That some attained powers and were stabilised in a spiritual state there can be no doubt. What is most interesting (and the author recognises this) is that some advanced beyond powers and visions back to an apparent normality. He quotes from the 'Treatise of Prayer' of Evagrius Ponticus, a 4th century Egyptian ascetic: "When you pray do not picture the Godhead within yourself, do not let your intelligence receive the impression of any shape at all; remain in an insubstantial state in the presence of the Insubstantial." Even visions of Christ and his angels were to be rejected.

As the final consummation he mentions that transcendence of the ordinary laws of good and evil which the Old Testament indicates by saying that a man has become 'a law unto himself', and which modern Christians protest so piously against when they see it alluded to in Eastern religions: "Man had reached the supreme state of asceticism where his inner cleansing was so thorough that he could, in the words of Diadochus of Photike, 'without sin and even without risk, give himself up to good living and licentiousness, since he was no longer subject to passion and so could indulge in forbidden pursuits.'" It should be added, however, that one sign of this is that he would not want to.

BATTER MY HEART: By Donald Hayne. (Hutchinson. Pp. 303. Price 30s.)

Faith is not the same as intellectual conviction. It is an inner certitude experienced emotionally and felt physically as a vibrant current. It infused the mind and by the mind is directed to the particular dogmas of whatever religion one may follow, but its foundations lie much deeper. Father Hayne does not seem to have understood this. He was a Catholic priest and a lecturer on religion at a university when he found his intellectual conviction waning. At the same time he began to feel emotional stress from enforced celibacy. Genuine faith could have withstood this twofold attack intellectual conviction could not: and the result was stomach ulcers and other psychosomatic illness which pursued him till he left the priesthood.

He tells us then of the vicissitudes of a life no longer sheltered, struggling for means of subsistence, which he found at length in Hollywood. Also of his religious quest. Although put off by the extreme Protestants, he was strongly attracted to the Anglicans. He appreciated the intellectual eminence, the sincerity and the graciousness that he found among them, but was eventually repelled by that lack of fire from which he himself (though he does not seem aware of it) suffered so badly. He meditated for a while with the Californian Vedanta Society under Swami Prabhavananda and made some progress but not enough to satisfy him. He also tried marriage but (whether due to this same lack of fire he does not tell us) lapsed into wedded celibacy after four years and into divorce after ten.

The book ends rather unsatisfactorily, leaving him reconciled with the Church but as yet only as a layman. A sequel is promised; but unless a real fire is kindled within him it seems unlikely to lead to a satisfactory outcome whether in the Church or outside it.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT ACCORDING TO VEDANTA: By Swami Prabhavananda, being No. 165-166 of 'Vedanta and the West'. (Vedanta Press, Hollywood, pp. 113, - price $1.50.)

'To me the Sermon on the Mount represents the essence of Christ's Gospel,' Swami Prabhavananda declares. Those who read the article on 'Spiritual Traditions of the Greek Orthodox Church' by Father Lazarus in our issue of January 1964 will remember that he denounces this as a modern heresy. The essence of Christianity, he claims, is the good news of the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ. Certain it is that Christian mysticism has been inspired rather by this good news and its symbolism in the aspirant's own being, while those who are satisfied with the leavings of religion after mysticism has been lost, that is with ethics and devotion, cling rather to the Sermon on the Mount.

Swami Prabhavananda does not go very deep in his interpretation. What distinguishes it is the way he draws parallels to Christ's teachings at every point from Vedanta or from the sayings of Sri Ramakrishna. He has some pleasant stories to tell about Sri Ramakrishna and his immediate followers, especially Swami Brahmananda who was Swami Prabhavananda's own guru.

- Sagittarius

A MOSLEM SAINT OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, SHAIKH AHMAD AL-'ALAWI: By Martin Lings. (Allen and Unwin, pp. 224, price 28 s.)

Although Shaikh Ahmad AI-'Alawi died as recently as 1934, the title chosen by Mr. Lings for this study of him is misleading, since he was a conservative turned towards the heritage of the past and took no cognisance of twentieth century trends except to oppose them.

The book begins with an attractive account of the Shaikh by a French doctor who, while remaining an agnostic, developed affection and respect for him. It then continues with autobiographical notes left behind by the Shaikh himself. This makes it rather scrappy.

Mr. Lings is obviously on more congenial ground when he comes to doctrine. He gives an excellent exposition of the Sufi doctrine of wahdatu'l wujud, 'Oneness of Being', which he shows to be the same as Advaita or Identity. In subsequent chapters he shows how Shaikh Ahmad himself, following the grand Sufi tradition, also taught this supreme doctrine couched in Sufi terminology and based on the symbolical interpretation of certain Quranic verses.

This leads him into the curious mistake of classing Sufism, and indeed Islam itself, rather on the side of jnana-marga than bhakti-marga. Actually, a marga is a path, not an outlook. There is no reason why a bhakta should not understand Advaita. Many of the great Hindu bhaktas have. What makes them bhaktas is that they follow a path of bhakti, that is of love, worship, devotion, submission, using techniques such as ritualistic worship and invocation of the Divine Name. This implies that Sufism is a characteristically bhakti tradition and Shaikh Ahmad was a true bhakta.

Certainly the Shaikh's poems, with extracts from which the book ends, show rare understanding and ecstatic exaltation. Unfortunately the awkward translation makes them far from easy to read.

Most people who write about a saint nowadays seem to feel the need to equate him with the Maharshi. It is a pity that Mr. Lings thus lifts out of context a saint who, even if not Bhagavan, was gracious and powerful in his own right and stands in no need of comparisons to establish his greatness.

- Abdullah Qutbuddin

IN THE VISION OF GOD, Parts I and II: By Swami Ramdas. (Published for Anandashram by Bhavan's Book University, Chaupatty, Bombay-7, pp. 270 and 264, price Rs. 2.50 each part.)

Swami Ramdas of Anandashram was both an advaitin and a bhakta. He said: "Ramdas is like the river Ganges which, having reached the ocean and become one with it, still continues running towards it." He found life more zestful because he had found its culmination. Realization did not deaden life for him but lighted it up. An aura of cheerfulness was always about him and nothing of that gloomy austerity which is sometimes supposed to be an accompaniment of holiness. When he talked he bubbled with joy.

The Swami is a good raconteur with an impish sense of fun. He describes, for instance, a jostling kumbha mela crowd wherein a fat lady standing on the prostrate form of a sadhu preaches patience to him.

But all this was only the soft green lichen covering the hard rock of his realization won by austerities deliberately practised and hardships accepted. Miracles sometimes issued from him, rousing the wonder of his devotees but almost apologetically slurred over by the Swami himself. His life and teachings are inseparable, and his autobiographical account is filled with references to his invocation of the Name and complete reliance on it. 'In Quest of God' tells the story of his early wanderings before he attained illumination. The present work, now republished, continues the story up to his settling down at Anandashram where so many thousands of people came to know and love him.

SOURCES OF INDIAN TRADITION: Compiled by William Theodore de Bary and others. Published in India by Motilal Banarsidass. (Delhi-6, Varanasi-1, Patna-4.) By arrangement with Columbia University Press, New York. Pp. XXVII and 959. Price Rs, 18.

This compilation is a masterpiece of editorial ability. It brings together extracts Illustrative of Indian wisdom and thought, both spiritual and secular, through the ages, from the Vedas down to Vinobha Bhave. Scholars from the U.S.A., England, India and Pakistan have made contributions conforming to the pattern set by the general editor and his team.

Assisted by Dr. R. Wellen of Columbia (who has written the introduction to the section on Brahmanism, i.e. Vedic Hinduism including the Upanishads) and Dr. S. N. Hay of the University of Chicago (who was in charge of the section on Modern India and Pakistan) the Editor compiled this volume as part of the Columbia University programme of general education. The introduction to the section on (later) Hinduism is by A. Yarrow, who was the original editor of the scheme, when it first came up. From London University's School of Oriental and African Studies, A. L. Basham is responsible for the section on Jainism and Buddhism, and J. B. Harrison for Sikhism. I. H. Qureshi of the Centre for Pakistan Studies at Columbia was in charge of the account of the Muslim revival in India from the 19th Century onwards. R. N. Dandekar of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute and Prof. Raghavan of Madras University were in charge of sections on Hinduism.

Others too numerous to mention have contributed to the volume, but it is its planning and arrangement in sections that gives it its peculiar merit. It is so compiled as to give a bird's-eye view of a vast region of wisdom and thought. Readers particularly interested in any area of this region may find this a valuable point of departure from which to launch out into wider study. Those who have already covered the ground in a general way will be interested to find such a wealth of documents and quotations Illustrating it. It might be possible to cavil at some items of inclusion or omission, but that is Inevitable in a book of this scope. The extracts for quotation are chosen in an objective spirit and with sympathetic discernment, the editors keeping themselves well in the background and their introductions being short, though useful.

The bibliography is particularly valuable; in fact it is a compendious guide to further studies. But it would be even more useful if it were arranged according to subjects and not alphabetically.

THE DIVINE MESSAGE: By V. Kameswara Rao.

Of the core-scriptures of the Hindus, the prastana traya, the Bhagavad Gita has been the most widely read and interpreted, not only by great acharyas but by men of action also. This is as it should be, for in spiritual life each aspirant follows his own path.

The present book is a consecutive statement of the truths of the Gita, which the author regards as an allegory of the soul fighting for dharma against desire. There is no very penetrating personal insight, but such unpretentious studies are a stimulus for each one of us to go afresh to the fountainhead.

- Prof. K. Subrahmanyam

SANKARA'S HYMN TO SIVA: (Sivanandalahari) Translated with commentary by Dr. T. M. P. Mahadevan. (Ganesh, Madras. Pp. 132. Price Rs. 4.)

Adi Shankara sang hundreds of soul-thrilling hymns to the Supreme Self conceived in many forms. None of these are more inspiring than Sivananda Lahari, a song of the Inner Light, of the fervent heart in communion with Siva. Its flowing cadences and mellifluous style create waves of spiritual emotion in the heart of singer and listener alike. Dr. T. M. P. Mahadevan, a lifelong champion of Sri Shankara's absolute monism, has given us in this book an able translation and thoughtful commentary on this memorable hymn to Siva.

GITA: By K. Padmanabhan, with an introduction by Swami Rajeswarananda. (Ambika Publishing House, Bangalore-4. Pp. 46. Price Re. 1.00).

In a simple style, K. Padmanabhan has given his own exposition of the yogas of action, love and knowledge contained in the Gita. In his rapid survey he also considers the commentaries on this universal scripture by great teachers of various schools, notably Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva.

Swami Rajeswarananda's introduction enhances the value of the book.

- Yogi Shuddhananda Bharati