Customer Reviews

The Wisdom of the Vedas (Theosophical Heritage Classics)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I give my highest recommendation to this book. It was my first introduction to Vedic philosophy and I found it to be an excellent one. It explains the existence of the world and God in a way that accords with physics, string theory, and science despite the fact that this philosophy was developed 4,000 years ago or more. I was also fascinated to read about the connections with Buddhism and Christianity (in the footnotes).

Very few persons have taken the time to read the entire collection of writings comprising Vedantic wisdom.
Some have read the Upanishads; many more the Bhagavad Gita. Very few have read these and the most ancient texts -- the four Vedas.

In this very short book, Chatterji, a respected Indian scholar presents the "gist" of Vedantic wisdom.

As the author says in his preface, his purpose was to present "...a concise and comprehensive statement as to how the Veda, the most ancient wisdom of India, regards life, its origin, purpose, and goal."

In my opinion, he has succeeded admirably.

I've spent decades searching out truths about existence which made sense, gradually gravitating toward Hinduism. The ancient Vedas contained details about the physical nature of reality (corresponding to quarks and string theory etc) which only recently have started to be confirmed by modern science, due to the increasing power and sophistication of microscopes and telescopes. They were written thousands of years ago, allegedly revealed by "higher masters."

This incredibly informative and concise book explains the deepest, most profound beliefs in clear simple terms. Beautifully written, there is nothing excessive about the prose. Every page contains important information explaining everything you need to know about God and life and the nature of the universe.

Hinduism is the only major monotheistic religion on earth which acknowledges there is some truth in the others, and it is (to my mind) clearly the most objective and intelligent.

Forget all the "New Age" books and read this instead. It is the REAL DEAL.

It is a good book about Hinduism, Spiritual and Philosophy, and was well written. I enjoyed reading it, and I did learn a great deal.

It's all relative I suppose.

After reading many books from Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ramana Maharshi, Ramesh Balsekar, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, the Upanishads, the Gita, any many teachings from the various ancient Zen Masters, this book, to me, was just a bunch of intellectual babbling.

Reading books from the Enlightened always quiets my mind because of the profoundly powerful energy of Silence they have. This book seems to have the opposite effect.

But like I said, it's all relative to one's current level of awareness and what some people find to be useless on their spiritual journey, others might need. Personally I've lost interest in the intellectual stuff and am aiming to reach and maintain Silent Awareness devoid of all concepts. If you're still in need/want of the intellectual stuff, this might be the book for you. If not, you might want to stick to the teachers I listed above.