Sivananda Lahari
Translated by Swami Tapasyananda, 87 Pages, Paperback.
'Sivanandalahari' or the 'Inundation of Divine Bliss', is a work noted as much for its literary beauty, as for its devotional fervor. It is attributed by tradition to the great Acharya Sankara, the commentator on the Vedanta texts and the main architect of the Advaita Vedanta philosophy. Some people find a kind of inconsistency in a great philosopher being the author of a fervently emotional piece of Bhakti literature. But to those who know the Vedantic tradition, there is no inherent inconsistency in this. For, unlike some intellectuals, the authentic teachers of the Vedanta have held that Jnana and Bhakti are not opposites but only the obverse and reverse of the same coin, being but two aspects of the impact made on the human mind by the realisation of the Personal-Impersonal Being revealed by the Vedas. According to the Vedanta, a philosopher can be a devotee, and a devotee, a philosopher.
'Sivanandalahari' or the 'Inundation of Divine Bliss', is a work noted as much for its literary beauty, as for its devotional fervor. It is attributed by tradition to the great Acharya Sankara, the commentator on the Vedanta texts and the main architect of the Advaita Vedanta philosophy. Some people find a kind of inconsistency in a great philosopher being the author of a fervently emotional piece of Bhakti literature. But to those who know the Vedantic tradition, there is no inherent inconsistency in this. For, unlike some intellectuals, the authentic teachers of the Vedanta have held that Jnana and Bhakti are not opposites but only the obverse and reverse of the same coin, being but two aspects of the impact made on the human mind by the realisation of the Personal-Impersonal Being revealed by the Vedas. According to the Vedanta, a philosopher can be a devotee, and a devotee, a philosopher.
