Author Description

Reflections & Resonance (Foreword by Justice M N Venkatachaliah)Dr. Vishal Rao is an eminent surgical-oncologist with a high reputation for his most gracious ethical standards of sensitiveness in the art and science of healing. But equally impressive and note-worthy is his extraordinary spiritual proclivities which border on the mystic."Beyond Aum" is the out pouring of this mystic urge, in which he says that this "work is not for the learner or the learned, but is for the unlearner"; it is not for the 'intellectually spiritual' but for the"spiritually intellectual". When the author says that "man's goal is to go beyond Aum" he hits the quint-essential, fundamental theme of Vedanta. The 'purpose for which the study of the problem of knowledge is under taken', says a philosopher, "is not to solve the problem, but to go beyond it'. it is this that the author conveys: "The answer to all questions is revealed when the question ceases to exist, when the question becomes irrelevant". This is the authors metaphor of the 4th Syllable.The essence of religion is not dogma or rituals; but mysticism. There is nothing that is inert in the universe. The arcane, mysteriously ordered beauty of the Universe hides a cosmic consciousness, purpose and destiny. Without the expansion of consciousness knowledge becomes a burden like a donkey, which carries a load of sandalwood, is aware only of the weight and not the fragrance. The Sun, says the author 'never sets. It is the earth that sets its back on the Sun'. That is the predicament of ignorance. The author takes-on, up front, the great riddle of the apparently irresolvable issues of man's eternal spiritual quest. His musings contain the strong beauty of the ultimate Truth and the universality of mystic experience. These inspired and inspiring aphorisms need to be contemplatively savoured one at a time. -----------------------------------'Beyond AUM - The Fourth Syllable' is an endeavour to present timeless inspiring messages. They ref