The ever-popular Book of Good Counsels from ancient India. One of the best-known Sanskrit classics, Narayana’s Hitopadesa is a fascinating collection of animal and human fables augmented with polished verse epigrams and gnomic stanzas, many of which have become proverbial. This satirical, often irreverent and sometimes ribald text has been popular for centuries as a compendium of worldly advice on matters ranging from statesmanship and detailed battle plans to personal conduct and marital fidelity. It has also served generations of students as a model of grammatical and metaphorical excellence. In this ‘Garden of Pleasing Stories’, as Narayan himself describes it, birds, beasts, men and women scheme, suffer, lust, err, grieve and rejoice, acting as perceptive social critics and astute commentators on the absurd nature of human folly. Combining his own literary genius with skilful selections and modifications of material from the Panchatantra and a host of other traditional sources, Narayan has created a refreshingly original masterpiece. This excellent new translation faithfully renders the wit and wisdom of the original.

The Ever-Popular Book Of Good Counsels From Ancient India. One Of The Best-Known Sanskrit Classics, Narayana&Rsquo;S Hitopadesa Is A Fascinating Collection Of Animal And Human Fables Augmented With Polished Verse Epigrams And Gnomic Stanzas, Many Of Which Have Become Proverbial. This Satirical, Often Irreverent And Sometimes Ribald Text Has Been Popular For Centuries As A Compendium Of Worldly Advice On Matters Ranging From Statesmanship And Detailed Battle Plans To Personal Conduct And Marital Fidelity. It Has Also Served Generations Of Students As A Model Of Grammatical And Metaphorical Excellence. In This &Lsquo;Garden Of Pleasing Stories&Rsquo;, As Narayan Himself Describes It, Birds, Beasts, Men And Women Scheme, Suffer, Lust, Err, Grieve And Rejoice, Acting As Perceptive Social Critics And Astute Commentators On The Absurd Nature Of Human Folly. Combining His Own Literary Genius With Skilful Selections And Modifications Of Material From The Panchatantra And A Host Of Other Traditional Sources, Narayan Has Created A Refreshingly Original Masterpiece. This Excellent New Translation Faithfully Renders The Wit And Wisdom Of The Original. &Nbsp;

The soul of the true philosopher is in perfect harmony with his divine spirit. It is the duty of every man who is capable of an unselfish impulse to do something, however little, for the welfare of Humanity, the great Orphan. Only those of exceptional purity and unconditional love for their fellow man and every living creature, may approach the sacred Majesty of Truth and hear within the sanctuary of the heart the Voice of the Silence. Raja Yoga deals with the inner man and therefore neither encourages sham, nor requires physical postures. Hatha Yoga is triply distilled selfishness. By encouraging mental passivity, it hastens the opening of mediumistic faculties resulting in gradual loss of self-control. Inductive reasoning from the known to the unknown should be promoted and practised. True contemplation is the yearning of the human soul to ascend in spirit towards its divine parent, by studying and assimilating the divine laws that govern Universe and Man, and by applying them in everyday life. In this sublime effort the soul relies on the immutable Law of Analogy that underpins the affinity between stars and man. This is the lost thread of Ariadne, which alone can guide us through the labyrinth of matter, and lead us from the unreal to the real. Those who pray silently and intensely gain their object, while those who merely mumble some formula get no answer to their prayers.

The absurd idea of an extra-cosmic personal God does not exist anywhere in our Cosmos or beyond — it is a philosophical impossibility. The God of Theosophy is Cosmos itself; our earth is His footstool. Our Deity, as the “God” of Spinoza and of the true Advaitī, neither thinks, nor creates, for it is All-thought and All-creation. Moreover, there is no over-soul or under-soul, but only One Infinite pre-Cosmic Substance and Thought, which remains in the Universe of Ideas. The first differentiation of its reflection in the manifested world is purely spiritual, and the Beings generated in it are not endowed with a consciousness that has any relation to our highest conceptions. Deity is a Unity, in which all other units in their infinite variety merge, and from which they are indistinguishable — except by the prism of Theistic Maya. Can the individual drops of the curling waves of the universal Ocean have independent existence? While the Theist proclaims his God a gigantic universal Being, the Theosophist declares that the One Absolute (or, rather, Absoluteness) is not-Being but an ever-developing cyclic evolution, the Perpetual Motion of Nature visible and invisible — moving and breathing, even during its long Pralayic Sleep. Apprehension of the term Logos, Verbum, or Vāch, the mystic divine voice of every nation and philosophy, by the spiritual intuition of those few who are not wilfully obtuse, will presage the dawn of One Universal Religion. Logos was never human reason with us. Logos is Divine Thought Concealed, i.e., a purely metaphysical concept far above and beyond the repulsive cerebrations of lower minds. Radiation, emanations, and their endless pantheistic differentiations are master-keys to the enquirer’s innermost perceptions, if he adopts the Platonic deductive method of study and reasoning from Universals to Particulars, i.e., from Cosmogenesis to Anthropogenesis.

Where is the necessity for imposing our personal views upon others who must be allowed to possess as good a faculty of discrimination and judgment as we believe ourselves to be endowed with? It is difficult to obliterate innate differences of mental perceptions and faculties, let alone to reconcile them by bringing under one standard the endless varieties of human nature and thought. No attempt toward engrafting our views and beliefs on individuals, whose mental and intellectual capacities differ from ours as one variety or species of plants differs from another, will ever be successful. Nor we will ever be able prove our love to our fellow man by depriving him of his divine prerogatives — those of an untrammelled liberty of reason, right of conscience, and self-reliance. The religion of love and charity is built upon the gigantic holocaust of the faithful, fuelled by the illegitimate desire to impose a universal belief in Christ. Where is that creed that has ever surpassed it in bloodthirstiness and cruelty, in intolerance, in papal bulls, and the damnation of all other religions? Genuine morality does not rest with the profession of any particular creed or faith, least of all with belief in gods or a God. No matter how sincere and ardent the faith of a theist, unless he gives precedence in his thoughts first to the benefit that accrues from a moral course of action to his brother, and then only thinks of himself (if at all), he will remain at best a pious egotist. Theism and atheism grow and develop together our reasoning powers, and become either fortified or weakened by reflection or deduction of evidence. Why should not men imagine that they can drink of the cup of vice with impunity when one half of the population is offered to purchase absolution for its sins for a paltry sum of money? The more a child feels sure of his parents love for him, the easier he feels to break his father’s commands. One ought to despise that virtue which prudence and fear alone direct. We have therefore no right to be influencing our neighbours’ opinions upon purely transcendental and unprovable questions, which are speculations of our emotional nature, for none of us is infallible. Opinions are never static: they are amenable to change by reason and experience. By stirring up religious hatred, propagandism and conversion are the fertile seeds of cruelty and crimes against humanity. Where is that wise and infallible man who can show to another man what, or who, should be his ideal? The most fragrant rose has often the sharpest thorns. And it is the flowers of the thistle, when pounded and made up into an ointment, that will cure the wounds made by her cruel thorns the best. For all its beauty, it is an ungrateful task to seek to engraft the rose upon the thistle, since the rose will lose its fragrance, both plants will be deformed, and become a monstrous hybrid. Theosophy is Religion itself. Loyalty to Truth is its creed. Virtue, morality, brotherly love, and kind sympathy with every living creature are its noble objectives. Godless Buddhism ennobled the least philosophical of the dissenting sects of his religion, the Lamaism of the nomadic Kalmyks.