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.
I am the thread that runs through all these pearls, and each pearl is a religion or even a sect thereof. Such are the different pearls, and God is the thread that runs through all of them; most people, however, are entirely unconscious of it.
-Swami Vivekananda