Dave DeLuca is one of the West's most passionate and highly regarded teachers of India's ancient Vedanta wisdom. He presents services, classes, and workshops on spiritual growth at temples, churches, conferences, and learning centers all over the United States. In this helpful anthology, DeLuca has gathered 166 sacred passages from some of India's yoga scriptures: the Rig Veda, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, Patnajali's Yoga Sutras, the Bhakti Sutras, the Astavakra Samhita, and the Srimad Bhagavaram. For added value he has also included teachings from Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda.
In the introduction, DeLuca lays out some of the basics of yoga wisdom: the oneness behind reality; the divinity of each human soul; the highest purpose of life as expressing and manifesting the Divine within us; the makeup of the soul, the causes of pain, and the obstacles on the human path. He outlines the Four Scriptural Yogas and enables us to appreciate the backdrop of the sacred jewels to come. Here is a selection from the Mundaka Upanishad called "The Lord of Love":
Seeing Him in all creatures,
the wise forget themselves
in the service of all.
The Lord is their joy,
the Lord is their rest;
such as they are
the lovers of the Lord.
