The story is told of a dowager who attended a talk and came out muttering, ‘Mesopotamia, Mesopotamia.’ She was in ecstasy. When a friend questioned her what Mesopotamia was, she blithely answered, ‘I do not have the ghost of an idea, but the word Mesopotamia sounds so soothing.’ Advaita is Mesopotamia to many of us. We hail it as the acme of philosophic thinking, we call it revolutionary, we term it sublime. But, if pressed, we have to admit that we have only a very hazy notion about its profound implications, not only as theory but also as a practical guide in the odyssey of life.
Sri Sankaracharya’s Bhashyas and Prakaranas are, no doubt, masterly expositions of this grand perspective of Reality, but his language is so mellifluous and alluring that we are lulled into a complacence that we have understood where we have not. The beauty veils the truth. It is in this predicament that Laghu Vasudevamananam comes to our rescue. It takes us by the hand and leads us step by easy step to the very summit.
