Foreword

 This book. The Supreme Yoga, is a translation into English. accompanied by brief expositions. by Swami Venkatesananda of the Divine Life Society. Rishikesh. India. of the well-known Vedanta treatise in Sanskrit. The Yoga Vasistha.

The Swami has arranged the verses of the book in such a way as to convert them into a rosary of daily thoughts throughout the year. on the lines of his two other books already published, namely The Srimad Bhagavatam or Book of God and The Bhagavad Gita or The Song of God.

The Yoga Vasistha has been a favourite book of spiritual seekers in India these Several centuries Its special appeal lies in its thoroughly rational approach. and in its presentation of Vedanta as a philosophy which dares. like the The Bhagavad Gita, to bridge the gulf between the secular and the sacred action and contemplation. in human life. through a comprehensive and lofty spirituality. The reader will come across passages such as the verse entry for 31 st January. highlighting the importance of reason:

"The remark of even a child is to be accepted. if it is in accordance with reason: but the remark of even Brahma Himself: the creator of the world, is to be rejected like a piece of straw, if it does not accord with reason."

It is this philosophy of a comprehensive spirituality. rational and prac- tical. that man in the modern age needs to rescue himself from his stagnation of worldliness and put him on the high road of creative living and fulfilment.

Swami Venkatesananda. who has been working untiringly for decades to spread the life-giving message of Yoga and Vedanta in East and West, has done a great service to spiritual seekers far and wide by bringing out this translation of The Yoga Vasistha in the wake of his translation of the other two great books.

The Chiltern Yoga Trust of Elgin. South Africa, deserves the silent thanks of readers for publishing these three books of the Swami and helping to broadcast far and wide the life-giving, purifying. and inspiring ideas of Eternal India. Amar Bharat, in her Vedanta.