Overview: Are you interested in Advaita and want to become enlightened? How should you go about it? What will happen if you do? How can you know what works and what doesn’t? In particular, how should you go about finding a teacher? What books should you read? Author Dennis Waite answers all these questions and more, having communicated with many teachers and seekers over the past 25 years, accumulated around 1500 books on Advaita, and written more than 10 books himself.

Verdict: In these pages, you will learn how to identify false teachers by spotting irrelevance, pitfalls, fallacies, and mystical /mumbo jumbo/. You will be warned against grandiose marketing claims, spiritual catchphrases, unclear language and poetry, and why you should be wary of various transcriptions and translations.

For instance, the styles of Neo-Vedanta, Neo-Advaita, Direct Path, and /satsang/, in general, are compared with the original traditional teaching, and the relative values of scriptures, psychology, social media, and even AI are investigated. An attempt has been made to research all living teachers and organizations that claim to be teaching Non-Duality in the West and establish whether it is really Advaita. Do they help you to seek the Self or are they simply self-seeking?

For those unaware, much like myself, Advaita is a non-dualistic school of Hindu philosophy that teaches that the individual soul ((<>Atman<>)) and the universal spirit ((<>Brahman<>)) are one and the same. This core idea, which can be summarized as Brahman is real, the world is an appearance, and the sentient being is none other than Brahman, means there is no true distinction between the individual and the ultimate reality. Popularized by the philosopher Adi Shankara, Advaita states that the diversity of the world is an illusion ((<>maya<>)) and the goal is to realize this underlying oneness.

  Ok, so, you might need a little more here, so let us look at it all this way. Searching for the truth is rather like trying to find gold, or other rare metals. It is certainly possible simply to stumble upon a nugget whilst looking for something else entirely. One can also waste years sifting through silt on the bed of a stream, only occasionally finding a few particles of value. And then there is the fool’s gold of pyrites or iron sulfide, which may superficially resemble gold but is of zero value.

It is especially appropriate for Advaita, which is the metaphorical gold to be sought and sifted from one of the Vedas. As is explained within the pages of this dutifully written and expertly crafted new book, the larger part of the Vedas relate to the actions - rules and rituals - to be followed by the seeker.

These certainly promote a worthy lifestyle, respectful and sympathetic to others, and presumably give some sense of achievement and virtue to the performer. Since they also help to prepare the mind for the real task, they are certainly not without any value. But they are the mineral content only: there is no elemental gold there.

I could go on, but I hope what I have written, and at times have quoted from within has fueled your own fire to want to get to know this book better. To settle in with it and find out for yourself just how well written, how decisively clear and concise is it, how every page is as insightful as the one before it.

About the Author - Following an education in Chemistry, Dennis Waite worked in computing for the next 30 years. Since 2000, he has devoted his life to the study of Advaita and making this teaching more accessible to seekers. His first book, The Book of One, provides a summary of the entire teaching. It was published in 2003, extensively revised and republished in 2010.

An introductory book on Sanskrit The Spiritual Seeker’s Essential Guide to Sanskrit was published in India in 2005. How to Meet Yourself was published in 2007, aimed at the non-specialist reader and addresses the fundamental topics of meaning and purpose. Back to the Truth (2007) is a systematic treatment of Advaita which, by using examples from many sources, helps the reader to differentiate between approaches and teachers. Enlightenment: the Path through the Jungle was published in 2008. It contrasts the proven methods of traditional teaching with Western approaches.

Advaita Made Easy, published in 2012, aims to summarize the essentials of the subject in a short, easily assimilable form. Sanskrit for Seekers (2014) gives the reader just enough understanding of the language to be able to use a Sanskrit dictionary. A-U-M: Awakening to Reality (2015) is a presentation for the modern reader of the Mandukya Upanishad and Gaudapada kArikA-s. Answers… to the Difficult Questions (2019) presents questions from hundreds of seekers and the answers given. These are organized into topics, with introductory and summary sections, together with extra material and clarifications where appropriate.

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