In each of the ten lectures collected in this book, the author, a master of Vedantic elucidation, speaks to the average spiritual aspirant � one who desires spiritual enlightenment, but is not yet willing to let go of worldly pleasures. He shows us a gradual way � not a way of compromise, but a way of steady and sure advancement toward the ultimate goal of illumination. In these lectures he tells us how to go about it and why it is the only natural and rational thing for human beings to do.
The animal has its happiness in the senses, the human beings in their intellect, and the gods in spiritual contemplation. It is only to the soul that has attained to this contemplative state that the world really becomes beautiful.
-Swami Vivekananda