Narayana Guru was a mystic poet and social visionary of the early 20th Century, whose seminal poem,written in his native Malayalam language was Atmopadesa Satakam, One Hundred Verses of Self Instruction. This current book takes that poem as a basis, along with its two masterful commentaries by Naryana Guru's immediate successors, and uses them to shed light and offer guidance on many day-to-day conundrums and universal life challenges. Almost as if by magic, there emerges a rare combination of profundity and playfulness that has the potential to elevate our spirit in joyfulness and orient our behavior and pursuit of a rich and meaningful life.
Dr. Peter Oppenheimer Ed.D. has devoted his life to understanding the nature of the Self, of Happiness and of the surest Path to Happiness. His goal and dedication has been to share his discoveries with others. through his teaching, his counseling, his writings and his photographic expressions. He has taught children, youth and adults in various settings ranging from public middle and high schools in Northern California to Universities such as Stanford as well as in community based. continuing education programs.
In our modern, materialistic, pragmatic and mechanistic world, self-enquiry is most often dismissed and derided as a navel-gazing luxury of an increasingly remote leisure class. Long lost in the mists of time are the many and varied wisdom traditions, vision quests and rites of passage practiced by indigenous peoples for thousands of years or more around the globe. The aim of such traditions and practices is none other than self-discovery, understanding nature and one's place in it and embracing community. Self-Realization and self actualization have been considered cornerstones of one's life pursuit, for far longer than they haven't. Consider the ancient wisdom schools of India, the tenants embedded in the mystical wings of Judeo Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic belief systems, including Indigenous and/or animistic ways of teaching about the nature of the self and its relatedness, indeed oneness, with the world around us. In fact, it is only recently that we no longer consider a deep understanding of the self as a crucial component of one's education and life-long learning. It even can be said that we imagine some kind of self-actualization without an investigation of what this "self" actually is. All of the above-mentioned traditions aim at a particular kind of self-knowledge, where the self under scrutiny is not separate from others or from nature, but rather is co extensive with it. And, again, such self-knowledge does not lead one into some solipsistic withdrawal from common life, but rather draws one into an intimate embrace of and engagement in the ever-evolving pageantry of life - be it human society or that of Nature which, after all, is our source, sustenance, inspiration and destiny. Narayana Guru was a South Indian mystic-poet and social-visionary of the early 20"Century, who fits squarely into this time-honored and universal tradition of self-enquiry and self-realization. Lauded by many as a social reformer who radically broke through the encrusted caste oppressions of his society; in truth, it was his vision of the true nature of the Self that was Narayana Guru's most liberating and revolutionary treasure to posterity. His social stands and ethical practices flowed naturally and inevitably from his vision of the true nature of the Self.
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