By Dr K B M Nambudiripad

Dean (Academic Affairs), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, India

This is a "spiritual" book with none of the jargons or technical terms that often scare away prospective readers from reading such books. This fact makes it special, and different from many other books on spirituality. Its main feature is that it is free from "impressive incomprehensibility" and pedantry. Another special feature of this book is the highlighting of a higher dimension in education, which appears to be completely missing in the modern world, and which India was renowned for in ancient times.

Some people seem to believe that spiritual awakening is at variance with excellence in performance in the material world. The author of this book, Dr Devdas Menon, by his personal example as a successful consultant and professor of structural engineering at IIT Madras, bears ample testimony to the fact that this is not so. All indications are that spirituality does improve the quality of whatever work is undertaken.

Dr Menon is well exposed to the various traditions of spirituality represented by Buddhism, Zen, Vedanta, Taoism, Christianity and Sufism, and has a special preference for the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, Chuang Tzu, J. Krishnamurti, Nisargadatta, and now, Eckhart Tolle. He has received guidance from some highly evolved persons, a fact that will be evident on reading this book. As the focus of this book is not on the author, and not even on the contents of the book, but decisively on the reader - spirituality is about the subject, and not the object - it is not proper to write much more. The less said, the better.

Dr Menon's brilliant and popular lectures, which I have attended during the past two decades, have been peppered by some of the ideas expressed herein. This book is an outcome of persuasion by many of his friends, including myself, to articulate his insights in a logical order and publish them in a popular book form, so that many more people may be benefited.

I consider it a special privilege to have been called upon to write this Foreword, and I thank him sincerely for this honour.