When we were old enough to recognize the world around us, we began to ask questions. Simple though the questions were at first, they expressed a profound and complex inner quality. That quality is the need to know and understand ourselves in relation to our environment. “Daddy, why are there clouds? Mommy, how does grass grow? Teacher, what causes the planets to revolve around the sun?”
As experiences accumulated and mental ability expanded, the simple objective questions gave way to more complex, abstract ones, Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? What is that, by knowing which, all else is known? These or similar questions have been part of human life since the dawn of recorded history.
We are all, in our own way, seekers after truth, with a built-in need to draw together the seemingly fragmented world into a pure statement of truth that harmonizes all seeming contradictions, a realization that sets the mind and heart at rest.
From known historical accounts of humanity, we, as the family of humankind, have not found that pure statement. This collective failure, however, has not dampened the need of the human spirit to question and seek after truth. No matter how difficult the question or how seemingly incomplete the answer, that spirit of the truth seeker in humanity goes ever onward.
In the art of questioning and seeking after truth we have, as in all areas of life, those who through rigorous effort, practical application, and patience have removed the dust obscuring the light of inner wisdom and gained access to that realm where the question, the answer, and truth become one. This implies that though collectively we may not be able to scale the pinnacle of truth, individually we may.
This book represents the wisdom of one such individual: Gururaj Ananda Yogi. Born in the province of Gujarat, India, as a child he displayed a remarkably advanced spiritual consciousness. Already by the age of four his questions were consistently about the meaning and purpose of life and the possibility of truly knowing or experiencing the Godhead. As he matured, his reading and highly developed intuition made him more and more aware that what he sought actually lay within himself and within all human beings.
Once having permanently entered the Self-realized state, Gururaj could perceive with perfect clarity and simplicity a truth which he had often encountered in his philosophical reading. In his own words, “It was very obvious to me that having realized this state, it made very little difference how one arrived there, provided the path a person chose was right for that individual. One could be a Christian or a Jew, a Hindu or a Moslem, a Buddhist or a Taoist, a student of Eastern or Western philosophy.”
Gururaj’s work is to provide instruction and guidance through meditation and self help programs to many people in the world. He stresses the importance of matching the right meditation techniques to the individual and has evolved a method of selecting meditation practices that would meet the unique mental, emotional and spiritual needs of each person. Over the years he has personally instructed into meditation thousands of individuals from many racial, religious, and cultural backgrounds.
There is an important point regarding Gururaj and his work which must be made very clear. According to Gururaj, “The purpose of the external guru is to help awaken the internal guru within each person. Therefore, my work is to guide people in learning how to experience their own inner guide, to awaken them to an inner awareness of their own greater Self. When this becomes accomplished, my guidance is no longer required, for each person becomes a guru unto himself.”
The essence of thought contained within these pages is universal, without regard to culture, doctrine or dogma. They are not intended to be the expression of any single point of view that must be believed at face value, but fuel that will add to your won fire of further inquiry and knowledge. Take this information and test it in the laboratory of your own life. If it benefits you, hold tightly to it; if not, discard it.
These passages reflect a masterful awareness of the universal truths they express. Like Truth itself, they can be so simple as to seem obvious, or so paradoxical as to seem impossible. Apparent contradictions are inevitable when speaking from many levels of understanding, so the paradoxes and contradictions are to be enjoyed for what they are—expressions of the multi-dimensional quality of human existence. More than most of us, Gururaj lives the many levels of which he speaks in these passages.
This book is not necessarily intended to be read cover to cover, like a novel. We have noticed, while editing and therefore rereading the various passages many times, that they have taken on different meanings. The passages that took on the greatest importance for us shifted from day to day. Already-familiar passages would come alive with a new depth, mirroring our changing needs or a new area in which our awareness was growing.
Long after the mind thinks it knows the contents of this short book, the heart will continue to find fresh life in its passages.
Sujay Anderson
November 1983
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