The Hindu Way of Awakening : Its Revelation, Its Symbols [Paperback]

Swami Kriyananda (Author), J. Donald Walters (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1998

This book is delightful reading for anyone interested in spirituality and the deeper meanings ofreligion. A master of word imagery, Swami Kriyananda brings order to the seeming chaos ofsymbols and deities in Hinduism. This book reveals the underlying teachings from which thesymbols arise, the truths inherent in all religions, and their essential purpose the direct innerexperience of God. Divided into two sections of ten chapters each, the author leads the reader toclarity as can be done only by someone who has achieved that clarity himself.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

J. Donald Walters (Swami Kriyananda) is an internationally known author, lecturer, and composer. Widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on meditation and yoga, he has taught these principles and techniques to hundreds of thousands of students around the world.

An advocate of simple living and high thinking, his more than 80 books emphasize the need to live wisely by one’s own experience of life, and not by abstract theories or dogmas.

In 1968, Walters founded Ananda Village in Nevada City, California, dedicated to spreading the spirit of friendship, service, and community throughout the world. Ananda is recognized as one of the most successful intentional community in the world. Today, over 1,000 people reside in five Ananda communities throughout the U.S. (Seattle, Palo Alto, Portland, Sacramento and Ananda Village) and in Europe. The European retreat and community located in Assisi, Italy, also serves Ananda meditation groups in Europe, Croatia, and Russia. Both the Nevada City and Assisi communities have world-renowned guest retreat facilities where thousands of visitors annually visit for renewal or instruction in many aspects of meditation, yoga, and the spiritual life. Walters has also established "Living Wisdom" schools for grades K-12 in Nevada City, Sacramento, Portland, and Palo Alto.

Mr. Walters books and music have sold over 3 million copies worldwide and been translated into 28 languages. He is the author of more than 80 books on a variety of topics including leadership, education, creativity, and moral values. His Best-selling titles include Awaken to Superconsciousness, Meditation for Starters, God Is for Everyone,The Art of Supportive Leadership, The Path – One Man’s Quest on the Only Path There Is, Money Magnetism, The Essence of Self-Realization, Affirmations for Self-Healing, Education for Life, and his best-selling Secrets gift books.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: What is Revelation?

Revelation is a sudden and complete knowing-usually of some spiritual truth, though, not always so. The certainty that revelation suggests comes not from any process of reasoning, but as a direct inspiration from the superconscious, or, more exactly, in a state of superconsciousness.

Revelation may also be less purely spiritual in nature. Composers, for example, have spoken of receiving their inspiration from higher realms: from God, as some of them have put it. Scientists, too, have sometimes had a sudden glimpses into the nature of material reality for which they could not account in rational terms. The Physicist Albert Einstein stated that the Law of Relativity came to him in a flash. After that experience, he labored for ten years to present it understandably to his fellow scientists.

Mahatma Gandhi's uncanny knowledge of just the right tactics to follow in the crises he faced during his struggle to free India from English rule cannot have been due to political astuteness alone. His decisions were more than intelligent: They were intuitive; as such, they were, at least to some degree, born of revelation.

Paramhansa Yogananda, a born leader of men, was approached in Calcutta when he was young by persons who wanted him to lead a revolution against the British. Demurring, he replied, "India will be freed during my lifetime, by peaceful means." His inner certainty in this prediction may also be classed as a kind of revelation.

Any flash of certainty that enters the mind with sudden clarity, and that is neither clouded by imagination nor merely formulated as a reasonable hypothesis, is, in its own way, a revelation.

Revelations must be in some way verifiable. That is they must be able to withstand the test of objective reality. If they really are soul-intuitions, they will be superconscious and as such will belong to a higher, not a lower (such as subconscious), level of reality. The products of fantasy or of wishful thinking have a different quality. They might be described as tentative. Revelation doesn't merely "make sense." The deep inner certainty it conveys is absolute. It comes not as a "conclusion" to some process of thinking or reasoning, but fully developed, like the goddess Athena from the brow of Zeus.

There are, as I have said, many levels of intuitive insight. By intuition one may gain access even to trivial knowledge-solutions, for example, to every-day problems. Normally, however, revelation refers to the highest order of intuition, and concerns especially the soul's relationship to the Absolute. Indeed, the more clearly a superconscious inspiration reveals the Divine Will, the more it deserves to be classed as a revelation.

An important feature of revelation is that it is always personal; it is not public. A genuine revelation may be declared in scripture and accepted as the truth by millions, but what those millions understand of it is not their revelation. It is only what they have read about someone else's experience. Scripture itself can only echo revealed truth.

Words are but symbols. They do not present: They represent. Even when multitudes receive a revelation directly, as has in fact happened occasionally, it remains personal for each member of the crowd. If an entire nation were born blind, then suddenly given the gift of sight, the experience would be personal for each citizen. Sensory in nature, the thrill would of course diminish in time as novelties always do, but even accepting that this experience was a "revelation" of a sort to each of them, it would still be personal, and would depend on each person's ability to see.

Einstein's intuitive recognition of the Law of Relativity was a revelation in a more valid sense of the word, for it was (indeed, it could only have been) inspired by the superconscious. For us, the beneficiaries of his discovery, his revelation is not our own. Nor does it extend to those few scientists who have been able to understand it intellectually. It is a revelation only for that rare person, if such a one exists, who has been uplifted in awareness to the same degree as Einstein was during his moment of discovery.

Revelation is not static. It brings an outwardly expanding awareness, which bestows more and ever deeper insights. Einstein, after that first revelation, continued throughout his life to receive further, often amazing, insights into cosmic reality. It wasn't intellect alone that brought him those perceptions: It was the fact that he had, even if only once, touched the hem of Infinity. As he was to write many years later, the essence of scientific discovery is a sense of mystical awe before the wonders of the universe.

Meanwhile, others have been left with the mere effects of his revelation. Indeed, all he could give them was, in a sense, its symbols. The revelation was his alone.

Revelation is wisdom as distinct from intellectual knowledge. The intellect analyzes and separates, then painstakingly reassembles the parts in the hope of making them fit together again. The intellect is like a child who, after taking apart a watch, tries to put the pieces back again as they were. The intellect, though gifted at analysis, lacks the understanding necessary for anything more thereafter than synthesis. But revelation transcends reason; it perceives the essential truth of a thing in its entirety, and in a flash.

St. Teresa of Avila, in Spain, wrote, "The soul in its ecstatic state grasps in an instant more truth than can be arrived at by months, or even years, of painstaking thought and study."

Superconscious revelation perceives an underlying unity, whereas the intellect perceives only diversity. Superconscious revelation may come in an instant, whereas the intellect must plod slowly over muddy fields, its boots gathering heavy clods of definitions. Superconsciousness is solution-oriented; ordinary consciousness is problem-oriented. Theology, for example, reaches learned conclusions by careful deliberation, sometimes by heated debate, and always by a process of laborious intellectual refinement.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Crystal Clarity Publishers (June 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565897455
• ISBN-13: 978-1565897458
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #141,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kriyananda shows his spiritual understanding...., June 28, 2005

By 

Siva Balan "Cosmic Consciousness" (Singapore) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hindu Way of Awakening : Its Revelation, Its Symbols (Paperback)

If one wants to understand the basic philosophy of Hinduism and the other religions, this book is a MUST have. Each page of this book is filled with divine and impartial wisdom. Kriyananda also gives the reader one of the most clearest definitions of an "Avatar". For example, he states that Christ had to work his way up towards perfection (just like all of us) and once attaining full liberation, Jesus chose to come back into the physical universe as a "divine incarnation of God'. Nowhere is this concept stated more clearly. Other books only gives a brief definition of an "Avatar".

Kriyananda has also been able to strictly keep within the central themes of this book. He only allows his ideas to sidetrack a bit from the main theme and quickly brings the reader back to the core of the topic. The intellectual discipline by kriyananda is commendable. If J.Donald Walters was to dedicate his life to philosophy (instead of monkhood), he would definitely become one of the greatest intellectual giants of our time. His ideas would shake the very core of fundamentalist religious beliefs, creating uproar and praises alike.

But Mankind is not ready yet to appreciate Kriyananda's writings. By his own intellectual and spiritual insights through his books, he has earned the ultimate blessings of his (and mine) Guru - Paramhansa Yogananda. This particular book will enable the reader (and especially orthodox SRF members) to appreciate more deeply the work of Ananda society. This organization actually complements and NOT act like a rival to Self-Realization Fellowship. I would also like to recommend other books written by the same author.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars spiritually and intellectually pure, February 18, 2006

By 

Tim Hickey - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hindu Way of Awakening : Its Revelation, Its Symbols (Paperback)

Swami Kriyananda has done a great service in writing this book. He explains and communicates the heart of the Way of Awakening as distinct from the Way of Belief, and reveals it as the truth behind every religion. He does not propose a watering-down or merging of religions, rather a recognition of their common underpinnings. He explores and explains a great deal about Hindu religion and others, within today's context. While quite comfortable stating disagreement with some views, he consistently projects true and consistent compassion. His explanation of the four ages, or 'yugas' is an enlightening view to which I have not previously been exposed.

Time with Kriyananda is time spent with 'Satsanga' - good company. He has a great command of language and smoothly communicates many complex subjects. He understands many details about his topic - and he embodies its wisdom.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For All Who Seek Inner Awakening, April 28, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Hindu Way of Awakening : Its Revelation, Its Symbols (Paperback)

Each chapter of this book provides gems of insight into the true nature of human spirituality. If you are interested in self-reflection, no matter what your spiritual background, you will find many universal concepts to ponder in this very readable book.