Self-Realization: Unveiling Sanatana Dharma's Essence
What Sanatana Dharma actually says about who you are, without the ritual and without asking you to believe anything first.
This was the first one, written when I was nineteen.
Sanatana Dharma has a lot to say about who you are, and most of what reaches people is the part around it: the ritual, the observance, the things you are told to do. The question underneath all of it gets less attention than any of that.
That question is what this book is about.
What it covers
Four chapters, each built around one question.
- Sanatana Dharma? What the name actually means.
- Who am I? The need to know the self, and whether I am my body, my mind or the spirit soul. The eternal nature of the soul (Atman), and our Svarupa, or eternal position.
- What is the purpose of my life? The role of Dharma, interconnectedness and cosmic harmony, balancing material success with the spiritual, and detachment from possessions.
- What is the ultimate truth? Brahman as eternal reality, the non-dual nature of existence, the paths to liberation (moksha), the cycle of birth and rebirth (samsara), devotion and surrender to the divine, and Lord Krishna's teachings in the Gita.
45 pages, which is short on purpose. The ideas do not need length, and most of what makes them hard to reach is the volume of material surrounding them.
Reading it back
I wrote this in 2023, and I would write it differently now.
Māyā Interface is the same territory approached from another direction, three years later and in the vocabulary I actually think in. This one is more traditional and closer to its sources.
Both are trying to say the same thing. This was the first attempt.