The Way Farther (An Autobiographical Account of the Vedic Way)

" Mishraji's ' Way' lay much 'Farther'. His book reveals many stories of thrill and joy a human being in search of self realisation would like to undergo. His first person account testifies to paths of yoga, Vedanta and of quantum mysticism for the thinker and the common man.

The author considers that our two aspects -the outer and the inner- are uniquely interlinked but often neglected and forgotten. Our journey consists of not just the physical movement or progress but the harmonious accomplishment of a composite growth in the sense of the matter and the spirit. This again has its extended ends to the infinite. The two have therefore got to be combined with a consistent vigil on the play of fortune with all the needed efforts on our part.

Take this book then as what it is - an interesting and very personal account of a long spiritual journey and an introduction to some of the major threads in Hindu thought.

An eminent writer and thinker on Yoga, Gita, Upanishads and Vedas, Shri P. D. Mishra, born in 1946 in a forest village ( Barmadang) of Tikamgarh, Madhya Pradesh, after post graduating in English Literature from the University of Sagar in 1968, travelled far and wide with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for spreading the Spiritual Regeneration Movement of India. Joining administrative services of the Government of Madhya Pradesh through competitive examination in 1971, he also carried forward his scholarly pursuits undergoing deep spiritual courses of inner awakening and knowledge under the guidance and protection of great spiritual masters. Based on his initiation into Yoga, Shaktipat and Vedanta, he has delivered lectures on Yoga and Vedantic philosophy during his travels of the erstwhile USSR in 1989 and USA in 2004 and 2010. Mr. Mishra received felicitation in the Rashtrapati Bhawan in 1994 in respect of his book 'The Gita for All' and received the prestigious award `Vyas samman' from the Madhya Pradesh Sanskrit Academy in 1997 for his book `Saundarya Lahiri Ka Kavyanuvad'. He has been further conferred Pushkar Samman by Madhya Pradesh Lekhak Sangh Bhopal in 2005, Excellence Award by Penguin House 2006, Mahakavi Keshav Samman by Veerendra Keshav Parishad in 2010 and "Pranaam" by Hindi Bhawan Bhopal in 2011.

Mr. Mishra has got sixteen books published to his credit pertaining poetry, fiction and nonfiction out of which English books, 'The Gita For All'(1994), The Vedas For All (2002) and "World: The Abode of God"( 2013) have been widely acclaimed and appreciated. He has co-authored an international cross-border masterpiece, "Tojik-Indian Yoga Secrets", which is coming out shortly.

Presently Mr. Mishra is the President of Maharishi Agastya Vedic Sansthanam Bhopal and is at present associated with a number of Universities and cultural academic Institutions as consultant and guest speaker.

I am happy to write this short foreword to Shri P.D. Mishra's book The Way Farther, particularly as I accompanied him as a young man along part of that Way as a sympathetic fellow traveler. I was with him at The Source in Sagar, and I accompanied him on his first journey to the Himalayan Stair. After that, our ways parted and we have only recently (2012) found each other again.

When we first met in 1967, we were both 21 years old - one year older than independent India! I was a very young teacher, in my first post as Assistant Professor at Sagar University, he one of my Post Graduate students in English Literature. Though young, Mishraji was already deeply imbued in Hindu philosophy and the holy texts, but also open to other kinds of knowledge and curious about Western civilization. For my part, I was a true product of the West - rational, Cartesian, agnostic - but open to Hindu philosophy and curious about Indian civilization. I wrote home to my parents that I had met a young seer - a Rishi!

We became close friends, frequently visiting each other in our quarters and talking long into the night about literature, philosophy and religion. He took me to his home in Tikamgarh, where I addressed a group of B.Sc. students not much younger than myself and was surprised to be asked such questions as "What is the meaning of Life, sir?" - a question to which I still do not have the answer! In September 1968, we went to Rishikesh together to the ashram of Maharshi Mahesh Yogi. We travelled as a threesome, Mishraji, myself and a colleague Saeed Ali and all three - the Hindu, the Muslim and the Agnostic Christian were initiated into transcendental meditation. After a few days Saeed and I left the ashram and Mishraji stayed on. I wrote in my diary at the time, "Mishra is staying for some more days -his eyes burning with a strange light." After a few days, he met Maharshiji and was asked to accompany him: he wrote to me at the time, "He has asked me to accompany him on his India wide tour. I am supposed to do some writing work during this period. Those two days have appeared to me as the ultimate fulfillment of my life."

After that our paths parted. We wrote to each other for a couple of years then lost contact. I was studying in the USA, he starting a career and family life.

He found me again in February 2012 via the Internet and Face book - East and West, spirituality and technology! We met again in December. He is the same man I knew 40+ years ago - the same gestures, the same smile, the same lively mind, the same philosophical interests. Obviously we are both somewhat older... He has continued his spiritual way farther than I - his knowledge is deeper now, his experience wider than when he was a young man, but the essential does not change.

Let me say something about his book, which we have spent some time discussing together. It tells of his spiritual journey, but its structure is not linear or chronological in the sense a Western reader would expect and the chapters are of different kinds. It starts in fact in the middle - with an exchange of correspondence in 1990 when Mishraji was already travelling and spreading the Vedantic word in the former Soviet Union. There is then a step backwards in time with two narrative chapters which relate key moments in the author's earlier life - his University years and experiences in the Himalaya.

From this point on, the book becomes more philosophical, dealing with the issues and concepts which became relevant along the way - Agni-Yoga, Metalinguistics, Ultimate Knowledge and the Vedic Way.

It concludes with a chapter written down by the author in an automatic writing trance and purporting to be the work of a certain Shri Yoganand Paramhans. This is perhaps the hardest thing for a Western reader to accept, but Mishra is adamant that this came to him without his control, that he just "saw" the words and took them down. He seems to me absolutely sincere in what he says.

Take this book then as what it is - an interesting and very personal account of a long spiritual journey and an introduction to some of the major threads in Hindu thought.