Back to the Truth: 5000 Years of Advaita

Back to THE TRUTH - 5000 Years of ADVAITA. By Dennis Waite. O Books: Winchester UK and Washington USA, 2007. Paperback, xix + 620 pages. ISBN 9781905047611Although in some ways this book is a competent in-depth survey of Advaita, I'm sorry to say that (despite the effusive gushings of Mr. Waite's groupies) for me the book, besides being terribly dry, is marred throughout by his decision to employ (inconsistently) the grotesque and unreadable system of transliteration known as ITRANS. So obsessed is he with ITRANS - an affliction one is tempted to call 'ITRANS-itis' - that he has even tampered with the work of other authors by replacing their regular transcriptions with it. See for example his mangling of "Mandukyakarika" which he gives as 'mANDUkyakArikA' (Reference #69, page 541) and imagine a book of over 600 pages spattered throughout with this sort of tiresome nonsenseWaite's position is that ITRANS reproduces the sounds of Sanskrit more accurately. But is this desire for an extreme (and unattainable) precision of SOUND really necessary in a book intended for the general reader? Isn't SENSE more important for us than SOUND? No-one is going to be reading this book aloud. And what does it matter how we sound a Sanskrit word in our mind so long as we can read it with ease, relate it to other Sanskrit words that we know, understand what it means, and find it in a dictionary if we don't know what it means?On pages 512-13 Waite mentions a book by Shankara and tells us that:"Its title cannot even be written satisfactorily in the Roman alphabet, so here it is in ITRANS: dRRigdRRishyaviveka."To this I would ask "satisfactorily to whom?" Satisfactorily to, for example, the Indians who run Advaita Ashrama? But if you go to advaitaashrama dot org you will find the book on sale and listed there as Drig Drishya Viveka.The regular transcription is obviously satisfactory to them and is perfectly satisfactory to me, and I'm pretty sure their sales of this book would rapidly decline if they started listing it as dRRigdRRishyaviveka.So who does the regular way of transcribing Sanskrit words not "satisfy"? One obvious answer, of course, is that class of technical experts commonly referred to as 'techies' - elitists who relish complexity and technical refinement for its own sake and are prepared to sacrifice anything to get it which in this case means sacrificing the beauty and intelligibility of regularly transcribed Sanskrit.On page 434 Waite tells us that "the previously most widely used scheme [of transcription] used symbols called macrons (lines above letters) and dots above and below letters, so that it was quite unsuitable for computer keyboards." But keyboards can easily be configured to produce any kind of accent or diacritic. So why is Dennis pretending that it's impossibly difficult? And the diacritics he's talking about are often omitted, even in scholarly writing, without causing any problem. They are needed only for specialized purposes.The general reader on opening this book and being confronted with the weird and unreadable mixtures of upper and lower case letters generated by ITRANS - monstrosities such as mANDUkyakArikA and dRRigdRRishyaviveka - is going to be baffled. Suddenly the fascinating subject of Advaita Vedanta is going to seem much less like fun. And he's certainly not going to be bothered to study and assimilate Waite's Appendix A on the ITRANS Transliteration of Sanskrit, certainly if he has had no previous exposure to Sanskrit. He's going to put the book down and look for something else, something he can actually read with pleasure without constantly stumbling over grotesque and unreadable words.One such book I can strongly recommend, certainly to the newcomer to this field, is Hans Torwestern's  Vedanta: Heart of Hinduism . In contrast to Waite's dry, over-technical, indigestible and well-nigh unreadable tome, Torwestern has given us an extremely well-written and interesting survey of Vedanta that we can actually read with enjoyment (without the constant struggle to pronounce Sanskrit that has been tortured into the bizarre procrustean bed of ITRANS), a book that, in contrast to Waite's, will actually inspire readers to adventure further into the fascinating field of Advaita Vedanta, and that provides many pointers to further reading for those so motivated.

Dennis Waite's book is a must buy for the serious student of nondualism/advaita interested in a comprehensive review of different viewpoints applied to the many different aspects of this approach.Everything is covered; Discovering Who We Are Not, Karma, Meaning and Purpose, Knowledge and Ignorance, Paths and Practices, Who We Really Are, Nature of Reality, and Teaching Methods in a fairly balanced way. While there is some author's bias towards what Dennis calls "traditional advaita", it is not strong.Dennis does a wonderful job categorizing the different teaching approaches in a very useful way between "traditional", "direct" and "neo". He does seem to go a little far in trying to appease Tony Parsons, the current iconic "neo".The summaries at the end of each chapter are well done and very useful.There is also great value in the 180 pages of appendices. Sections on the advaita "timeline", teacher lineages, modern teacher listing, internet resources and recommended reading are noteworthy. It is unlikely that teacher lineages will mean much in the future as knowledge is now so ubiquitous that the classical model of studying with just one teacher and approach will be rare, but it is interesting history.A criticism would be with Dennis' using the iTrans transliteration of Sanskrit, which is infrequently used. ITrans was created to make Sanskrit keyboard-friendly in that capital letters, tildes, and "h"s are used with typical Roman alphabet characters in place of the Devanagari characters.As few readers will know or learn the Devanagari, what is typically done is to approximate the sounds with Roman characters, without resorting to iTrans. ITrans requires making the same Roman character be two different characters/sounds, depending on whether it is a Sanskrit word, or an English one, which can be overly confusing without being illuminating.Interestingly, Dennis' favorite advaita book from a teacher he regards very highly, Swami Dayananda's Vivekacudamani, does not use iTrans, nor do any publications from that particular lineage that I have seen.Another criticism is Dennis' refusal to entertain any possibility of a role for science in advaita, a typical "religious" argument, which is surprising in something as arguably "scientific" and logical as advaita. In the 50 page section on "Knowledge and Ignorance", Dennis covers "Science" disparagingly in less than one page.In a recent workshop I had with one of the senior swamis in Swami Dayananda's gurukulam, a Ph.D. in chemistry, he readily acknowledged the importance of modern physics, and folk like Einstein, in supporting and validating the claims and teachings of advaita. To write "science" off in such an uninformed and cursory manner as was done in this book, is really unfortunate. Dennis needs to read up on his "science".All in all, this is a fine book, and well worth the purchase.Gary WeberHappiness Beyond Thought

Dennis Waite eloquently details that Self-Realization or liberation while in the body is often taught in THREE Advaitin ways; Traditional Advaita, Neo-Advaita and the Direct Path. I believe, however, he left out a FOURTH way, rarely talked about or demonstrated, to my knowledge, by any living sage other than Ramaji. It is taught through RASA, Grace or Shaktipat transmitted in silence that has the potential to stabilize one in a permanent, non-dual realization and even complete Self-Realization. There is historical evidence of Ramana Marharshi, a teacher of the Direct Path, having this ability and repeating often, that the highest truth is transmitted in silence.My personal experience with silent transmission or RASA is that my mind goes perfectly still, like the tranquil waters of a beautiful, crystal clear pond. I feel a peace undisturbed by any definition of peace. I have experienced RASA three different ways; remotely, in person in a group setting, and in person one on one. All were equally effective and essential on my so called 'journey'.I would love to see Dennis investigate this FOURTH way and write about it, someday.

So lucid and easy to understand, follow & imbibe. Take the journey!

This is a fundamental text for my study of traditional Advaita Vedanta. It was one of the first I read and I continue to refer to it again and again. It is inexhaustible. I cannot add the the previous reviews. If you are interested in traditional Advaita Vedanta, whether at the introductory or more advanced levels, read this book! You will not be disappointed.

It is the best thing in English language on Advaita. I have been reading about Advaita since a long time, but here, one has the ultimate compendium of everything said and discussed about Advaita. Buying the book is the best thing I have done in a long, long time. Advaita has the answer to every profound philosophical question troubling mankind since thousands of years. Every religion and every philosophy struggles but Advaita is clear cut and lucid on those issues. The Western philosophers could not understand it, the Indian philosophers misunderstood it. A few giants like Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Ramana Maharishi, and Nisargadatta showed the way, but the philosophy was largely ignored, unfortunately. Here is a book which brings out in the crystalline, pure form the thoughts of all the great Advaitins , the foremost being , of course,Adi Shankara. All the answers are there in this book which reads like almost a thriller. Just buy it.

Loved every word of it. It's gold...

Excellent, profound, well-written, intelligible, exhaustive... What else can I add? I hate the woord 'must' with regard to books etc., but I'll make an exception for this book. It IS a must for those who are interested in traditional advaita (vs. neo-advaita, which is rightly criticised in this book) - together with 'How to attain enlightenment' by James Swartz and 'Standing as awareness' by Greg Goode.