What Hinduism needed, amidst the general disintegration of the modern era, was a rock where she could lie at anchor, an authoritative utterance in which she might recognize her self. And this was given to her, in these words and writings of the Swami Vivekananda. What Hinduism had needed, was the organizing and consolidating of its own idea. What the world had needed was a faith that had no fear of truth. Both these are found here.

The author Sri "M" is an extraordinary individual. His uniqueness lies not only in the fact that at the young age of 19 and a half, he travelled to snow-clad Himalayas from Kerala, and there he met and lived for several years with a "real-time" yogi, Babaji, but also that he should undertake such an unusual and adventurous exploration, given his non-Hindu birth and antecedents. The metamorphosis of Mumtaz Ali Khan into Sri "M", a yogi with profound knowledge of the Upanishads and deep personal insights, is born of first-hand experiences with higher levels of consciousness....

In the Upanishads, illumined sages share flashes of insight, the results of their investigation into consciousness itself. In extraordinary visions, they experience directly a transcendent Reality which is the essence, or Self, of each created being. They teach that each of us, each Self, is eternal, deathless, one with the power that created the universe.

This universe of ours, the universe of the senses, the rational, the intellectual, is bounded on both sides by the illimitable, the unknowable, the ever unknown. Herein is the search, herein are the inquiries, here are the facts; from this comes the light which is known to the world as religion. Essentially, however, religion belongs to the super-sensuous and not to the sense plane. It is beyond all reasoning, and is not on the plane of intellect.

The Bhagavad Gita, "The Song of the Lord", is the best known of all the Indian scriptures, and Easwaran's reliable and accessible version has consistently been the best-selling translation. Easwaran's introduction places the Gita in its historical setting and brings out the universality and timelessness of its teachings. Chapter introductions give clear explanations of key concepts in that chapter.