Advaitic Sadhana (The Yoga of Direct Liberation)

Advaitic Sadhana is an inspired trilogy that constitutes a thorough, practical guide on the path to Self-realisation. Book I has particular relevance to spiritual aspirants visiting Sri Ramanasramam, as it was written by the author in the 1940s for the sole purpose of making their visits meaningful. It throws much light on the practice of sadhana, especially meditation, and the insights and guidelines presented are as applicable now as when they were written.

Book II contains the well known Mandukya Upanisad with brief notes. This Upanisad is said to offer the briefest, clearest, and most practical study of the nature of man, or Atman (Self). Atma Bodha of Book III was composed by Acarya Sankara, the greatest expounder of the Upanisads. In sixty-eight short stanzas the celebrated author delivers the cream of Vedanta.

This essay was drafted many years ago, when the author was residing in Sri Ramanasramam at Tiruvannamalai in the gracious presence of his Master, Sri Ramana Maharshi, where many foreigners used to flock on short visits. He used to watch their comings and goings and the haste with which most of them expected to pluck the plum of Self-realisation, immediate apprehension of the Reality, before even grasping the elementary principles of the Master’s teaching or the Vedantic truth. It is especially for their benefit that this treatise has been written.

The term "Direct Liberation" used in the subtitle seeks, as in the Bhdgavata Purdna, to distinguish the "direct" path of the Jidna Marga (the path of immediate knowledge), whereby Liberation is gained and the essence of bliss tasted by the Paramahamsas in this very life, from the "indirect" path, which is said to take several million years spent in a disembodied state by the Hamsas in a number of subtle spheres and results from the practice of prandydma (breathing exercises), ritualistic and devotional worship (updsanda), etc.

This book is a small trilogy on the science of Self- knowledge, a science which has been from time immemorial inculcated in this country by the great Vedantic Masters to those who sat at their feet, seeking release from the misery of birth and death and succeeded. Its greatest exponent in our own age, who lived more then half a century in our midst, was the celebrated sage Ramana of Arunachala, who left behind him a compendious literature which benefited thousands of truth seekers all the world over and led a number of them to final and complete Emancipation.

The trilogy consists of (1) Advaitic Sadhana or the Yoga of Direct Liberation,which throws much light on the practice of sddhand, especially meditation, (2) The well known Mandiikya Upanisad with brief notes and (3) Atma Bodha of Sankara, the greatest expounder of the Upanisads, with simple comments bringing out the meaning of the stanzas, in simple language, comprehensible even to foreign beginners.

**Contents and Sample Pages**