Customer Reviews

The Book of One

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The Book of One by Dennis Waite is an accessible yet wide-ranging presentation of the philosophy of Advaita, which is an approach to spiritual development and awakening that stretches back thousands of years. In this excellent and highly readable book Dennis Waite presents all angles of Advaita, also known as non-duality, in a systematic, thorough and logical way. This is a serious and respectful presentation of the subject, yet in spite of this it's a book that's both entertaining and easy to read. Throughout the book, there is a large number of relevant and interesting quotes from many sources, both ancient and modern, but who would have expected to find a quote from Sophia Loren in a book on Advaita?

The book is divided into three main sections; The Unreal, The Spiritual Path and The Real. The Unreal deals chiefly with what Advaita is not, The Spiritual Path contains an overview of the various methods and approaches to spiritual awakening and enlightenment that are relevant to Advaita and finally, The Real goes straight to the heart and soul of Advaita.

While everything in this book is well worth reading, it's the last section that is the most engaging and enlightening. It's obvious that Dennis Waite is very passionate about Advaita and nowhere does this come across more clearly than when he writes about the essence of Advaita in this last section. In many ways Dennis Waite takes a fairly traditional approach to Advaita, and stresses the importance of the master/disciple relationship and spiritual development through the transmission of the teaching in an authentic lineage. He doesn't seem to be too impressed by more modern expressions of Advaita as it is expressed through so-called Direct Path teachings and especially so through the flourishing neo-Advaita movement so popular these days.

He makes a good case for why occasional attendance of Satsang meetings with whatever teacher might happen to be in vogue or passing through town is unlikely to produce results in the long run. He may have a valid point in this regard, but does sometimes come across as a little too harsh on the kind of Advaita teachings that don't follow a more traditional way.

The other small objection I have to Dennis Waite's book is the way he has chosen to write Sanskrit words and terms. He uses something called ITRANS transliteration, which makes Maya look like mAyA and Pranayama like prANAyAma, just to give two examples. This makes Sanskrit words much more difficult to read than they have to be, and even though it might be a more `correct' way of doing it, for the general reader who might not be fully attuned to the finer points of Sanskrit, it's not very helpful at all.

The above are only minor objections though and shouldn't stop anyone from reading this brilliant book. As an added bonus, The Book of One also comes with a series of very comprehensive, eminently useful and highly informative appendices. These appendices, the glossary of Sanskrit terms, the bibliography and the index, fill more than a hundred and thirty pages, and Dennis Waite lists an enormous number of organisations, groups, internet sites and books that will be of interest to anyone who wants further information about Advaita. All in all, The Book of One is highly recommended for anyone who is at all interested in Advaita and the ancient teachings of non-duality.

Pathik Strand, author of All This is That

I was so looking forward to reading this book, but I feel quite disappointed now that I started to read it. I only managed to get to pg.53 and already forgot what it is that I'm reading. I kept trying to continue my reading in hopes of gaining understanding, but the author seems to keep going round & round, attacking our usual beliefs without telling us the real solution. I get that how I think/feel is not where the truth lies, now please tell me how to attain the truth!

I really think the subject of this book is very interesting, however the writing style is very hard to swallow. One other thing that really annoys me (not sure if I'm the only one) is how the author keep referring to the sources, even explaining in detail right in the middle of the paragraph, and referring to websites where you can find more information on whatever it is he's writing about, it's VERY distracting. It would be much better if he would dedicate another section for this kind of information,instead of smacking it in the middle of his writings, which always throws me off track.

All in all, I feel this book could have been better organized, the subject itself is already quite heavy, this style of writing simply makes it even harder to enjoy.

This book by Dennis Waite, makes an excellent introduction to the teachings of Advaita.The book is ordered into 20 chapters on different topics such as mental preparation,the myth of action,enlightment,gurus,appearance and reality, and others. Each topic is in the format of a brief overview of the subject followed by a profound investigation of the topic.The author take one,from simple to more deeper inquiries. The material has been well researched and collected from several important and reliable sources. It presents the teachings of the great masters [Gaudapada,Shancaracharya,and other] including the moderns ones too [Swami Dayananda,Swami Paramarthananda,Nisargadatta Maharaj,Ramana Maharshi], and the neo-advaitas and neo-vedantas too, in as clear and concise a manner as possible.Dennis Waite, did an astounding job complying various quotations and assembling them into lucid, thematic investigations. It is perhaps one of the few case in which I think an author has actually improved upon his original presentation [the first edition of this book]on the Advaita teaching. This book is without doubt one of the most simple,logical, well organized, and most comprehensive summary of the Advaita teaching available today. In this time where all sorts of neo and pseudo-spiritual conflictive ideas flourish, it is essential a "coming home" to the fundamentals. The book is divided into 9 parts followed by a quite helpful glossary of sanskrit terms,ITRANS transliterations,recomendation for readings,more sources of further information,bibliography, references,bibliography, and an excellent index."The book of the one" [second edition], will really fills in the gaps of doubts, and misunderstandings that the inquisitive mind may have upon the inquiry into the truth of oneself. This book is a must read for anyone on the spiritual path. And all this for the price of a few bucks,

Atagrasin

Reading the broken English of some Indian sages is easier than reading this.
I've only read 23%, and only got that far with brute force, but I think I'm ready to give up now (or maybe I'll skip to the last chapter(s), since the author keeps mentioning that he'll get to the interesting bits in those.)

It doesn't seem like a book, more like a massive collection of notes, that nobody bothered to put into a decent structure, and then edit into something readable.

The most obvious two points of unnecessary ballast are all the Sanskrit words with the idiotic spelling that's supposed to teach me how to pronounce them (why should I care? That does not add anything of value) and the constant "we'll be getting to that in Chapter X."

If you keep telling us that most of the book is nonsense, and the truth will be discussed at the end of the book, maybe it would have been better to just write the end of the book?

Edit: Section 2 is much better than Section 1, and Section 3 seems promising as well, so I'm upping the stars to 3. If you just can't get into Section 1, skip it!

Edit 2: Downgrading to 2 stars after reading the rest of the book. The author seems to have some strong opinions about what does and doesn't work, but completely fails to show why he believes those opinions. One of the odd things fresh in mind, since it's towards the end of the book: he repeatedly says that meditation with an object works (unlike meditation without an object), but he doesn't mention what it works for. This "book" reads more like a blog, or a forum, with no real structure, and with lots of distractions; You can have that for free on the web.

A great read explaining traditional Advaita and the more recent and contemporary versions of it. Dennis
Waite does a great job tackling those difficult to explain subjects like the fact that time and space (and indeed the creation) in truth do not exist, or at best have a relative existence at a certain level...
It is clear that Mr Waite has directly experienced certain insights of the teaching, otherwise he could not answer these deeper questions with such clarity and a little humour. Neo-Advaita is also dealt with, with insight, particularly as to its drawbacks. To someone without a pretty solid understanding Neo-Advaita can cause confusion and do more harm than good.
I note also that Dennis Waite has put in the "hard yard" with the SES :) and nothing could provide a better grounding in the "teaching" and practice... similar to myself having put in an even longer stretch with the SOP in Australia.
A great book to be read slowly and considered - the elucidation of these subjects is worth more than gold.

I purchased this book from Borders, on spur of the moment, and have been reading it ever since. Like a Christian studies his Bible, I read this book. I'm now on my third reading, and loving it as much as on the first.
My only complaint is that Dennis inserts Sanskrit terms constantly into his writing. I do not think it's necessary to know the Sanskrit terms in order to study Advaita. After all, Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote his original works in Russian, but they can be enjoyed in a good translation without the use of Russian words. I find my train of thought interrupted by these too-frequent Sanskrit terms, and that can get a little frustrating.
That said, this book is a must for the sincere soul-seeker. Because of The Book of One, I also have discovered, with astonishment and delight, books by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Sri Ramana Maharshi. This book by Dennis Waite has opened up my spiritual quest like no one else. I am very grateful for it!

This book does a pretty damn good job of describing the undescribable. It tackles such a transcendent subject matter in a clear and accessible way. For the genuine seeker, thsi book drops breadcrumbs to mark the way....