Transcendent Journey

This book describes a journey into the heart. It is written for fellow-travellers.

As it is based on the narrator’s life, the book is of an autobiographical nature. But it begins before birth, in that numinous state through which all beings pass as they begin and end embodied existence. The beginning could as well have concluded the narrative.

A life with different events would have served the purpose equally. For it is not the event of this life that are of paramount importance, but the shaping consciousness that imbues them with their significance. The emphasis is not on a unique individual, but on one who sought that which is common to all beings; and in this search for the universal, came to live life uniquely.

Transcendent Journey is an unpretentious account of transformation, of an individual’s discovery that he is that which is ever free. When a great saint addressed Swami Jnanananda as ‘Asangananada’, she revealed, in a word, as is sometimes the way of saint, that bliss which he had always been aware of within himself. His journey was continued in the light of this revelation.

As the philosophy is Vedanta, the injunctions are of a universal nature. They are the outcome of an illuminated energy throwing its light on the world, dispelling gloom and fear. In the narrative darkness is dispersed as it arises. The events that cause grief, anger or despair are viewed by this bright energy in such as manner that they dissolve themselves as unreal.

The cover of the book, which contains seventeen stars, exemplifies the light of this consciousness. It is not the darkness but the stars that hold the eyes. In Hindi the number seventeen is ‘satrah’, which can be read as ‘sat’ or truth and ‘raha’ remains. By this shining truth life is revealed as a journey into that which transcends it.

In the history of written words many books of autobiography exists. But hardly any have been left behind by those souls who ‘in knowing the beautiful art of living also learnt the secret art of dying. And in knowing the art of dying, secured eternal life’.

The journey begins before birth. It is the eternal quest of the soul as outlined in the Upanishads. This quest continues until its aim is fulfilled by spiritual practice, and the Guru’s grace.

Transcendent Journey explores the Reality that gives a timeless dimension to each person’s life. It is written from the points of view of one who eventually sees that he is moving without obstruction as Asangananda, the ever-blissful one.

Modified endlessly by every individual’s attitude and ideals, life appears to have overwhelming variety. In truth, the transcendent original and nature of life has but one goal. Its realization is within everyone’s reach.