Swami Vivekananda is relatively obscure today, yet he was one of the great spiritual figures India bequeathed to the modern era. He was one of the first to introduce the ancient treasures of Indian philosophy and Classical Yoga to the world outside of India -- treasures that are commonplace today but sensational when Swami Vivekananda first introduced them at the world's first Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. A shy, almost inconspicuous persona all through the conference, when it was his turn to speak, his message was a sensation. He quite literally made national headlines in the mainstream media of the day.*

Over the next decade his international standing rose until he was reckoned one of the great religious teachers of the day. Those who were present at his lectures said in news reports and their later memoirs that his spiritual puissance was unforgettable. One of those rare speakers on spiritual matters whose oratory is matched by wisdom, he became a mahattaya, a great personage, in the then-colonial Parliament of his homeland. To the hearts and the minds of his Western followers, his message confirmed the stature of India as spiritual sourcebook to the world.

After the Parliament of Religions, he passed more than four years traveling throughout the United States, teaching to all who would listen the spiritual philosophies and practices of India. In this he was a pioneer, the first missionary of the wisdom of Yoga to the West. Some have said that he inspired the renaissance -- the resurgence -- of Indian philosophy in the West. The eloquence of his message was an antidote to Western underappreciation of the depths and subtleties of Indian religiosity. His message was simple: India's was a nobler legacy of thought than the image of it painted by missionaries whose vested interest lay in keeping up the fiction that the Indian mind knew only superstition, idol worship, and heathen ritual.

All this in itself would have been inspiring, but he was more than a popularizer, a silvertongue who could move minds with words. Any pulpit-pounder can do that. Far greater was Vivekananda's introduction of the Vedanta philosophy of the Upanishads, and in this is his enduring legacy to us today.

It is useful to step back for a moment to understand why the Upanishads are such an important part of Vivekananda's -- and through him India's -- legacy. The term "Upanishad" means literally "those who sit near," and indeed the word is generally used in the context of disciples listening closely to the doctrines of a guru or spiritual teacher. The most famous Upanishads verse distills one of the great preoccupations underlying all Indian religiosity:

"From the unreal lead me to the real. From darkness lead me to light. From death lead me to immortality."

The message of the Upanishads is that truth is not a state, it is a becoming. After all, even an utterly empty void really is made of everything, for Voidness comprises the infinite potential to be something. In the Upanishads, Truth is the becoming aware that our spiritual essence, our soul (atman), is at one with all things -- a Oneness which was, and is, created by Brahman. Although Brahman can be thought of as "God," the Western three-lettered deity is far too human to be anything but a hyperglorified human. Brahman is The Creator, and given what we know today about the vast complexity of existence, from the particle to the universe and the picosecond to eternity, cell to plasm to three billion years of life, Brahman, the All, is a far more appropriate concept than any human self-myth done up with a face and beard. By knowing the One that is our atman, we know the One that is Brahman. To sum it into Hinduism's primal concept: atman is Brahman. We are the One and the One is us. I am not a me, I am a we.

To Vivekananda, the Upanishads contained the most beautiful and poetic proclamations of Oneness ever offered to humanity. His life mission was to convey his realization to others. The path by which he did it was clearly and eloquently explaining the Classical Yoga pathways which lead to self-realization -- pathways that are taught in the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras. Vivekananda in essence opened a treasure chest of the spiritual jewels to the world, giving them freely in words the world would understand.

This was a gigantic gift, and it was quickly understood as such. As the historian R. C. Majumdar put it,

"Vivekananda championed the cause of Hinduism in the Parliament of Religions held at Chicago in 1893. There, in the presence of the representatives of all the religions from almost all the countries in the world, the young monk from India expounded the principles of Vedanta and the greatness of Hinduism with such persuasive eloquence that from the very first he captivated the hearts of the vast audience. It would be hardly an exaggeration to say that Swami Vivekananda made a place for Hinduism in the cultural map of the modern world. The civilized nations of the West had hitherto looked down upon Hinduism as a bundle of superstitions. Now, for the first time, they not only greeted with hearty approval the lofty principles of Hinduism as expounded by Vivekananda, but accorded it a very high place in the cultures and civilizations of the world."

"Vivekananda's writings are a modern commentary on the Upanishads in English. What Sri Shankara did a thousand years ago through his Sanskrit commentaries, Swami Vivekananda did in modern times through English in propagating the eternal values of our spiritual lore. His words are live and direct; you feel you are hearing him straight and not simply reading his words. They are music to the soul. They go home straight. His writings and lectures form his greatest monument and the priceless treasure of his legacy. They are the Gospel of the future. Swami Vivekananda's works will be considered one of the greatest contributions of India to the world at large."

"His Divine presence spread peace and tranquillity wherever he went. None knew him but to love him.No being lived so low, be he a man or a beast, that Vivekananda would not salute. His was not only an appeal to the poor and lowly, but also to kings and princes and mighty rulers of the earth. Vivekananda shook the world of thought in all its higher lines. Great teachers bowed reverently at his feet, the humble followed reverently to kiss the hem of his garments; no other single human being was revered more during his life, than was Vivekananda."

Until Mr. DeLuca came along, Swami Vivekananda had all but slipped off into history's footnotes. Who, after all, reads the proceedings of the 1893 Parliament of Religions in Chicago? So many events have transpired over the 100 years that not only is his memory obscured, but so is the impact he had on the world of his day. Indeed, had the world listened to him more, perhaps the litany of subsequent events wouldn't be so lachrymose -- two world wars and an uncountable number of lesser ones; at least four attempts at genocide; economic and spiritual depressions; material gluttony and spiritual poverty; new and new-age religions and movements, some pertinent, others frivolous. It is no surprise Vivekananda all but disappeared, that his gift of the Yogic way survived more as arcana on the intellectual table than the feast for the soul that Yoga really is.

The neglect is over. DeLuca's enthusiastic and inspired edition of the Swami's writings has been thoughtfully compiled and edited with a kind of popularist rigor. The result is that Vivekananda: Lessons in Classical Yoga is one of the finest books on scriptural yoga available anywhere today.

DeLuca sifted Vivekananda's key teachings out of the massive corpus of writings and lectures on Classical Yoga preserved in his nine-volume Complete Works. DeLuca then refined them into 108 really quite personable one- to four-page selections. Each is presented in such a way that it can stand on its own. As a merger of spiritual education, wisdom, and guidance, the 108 readings resemble the works of the Hazelden Foundation, though without the goal of recovery of some kind. DeLuca's approach is not about recovery, it is about discovery.

In grand scheme, the book is sectioned into six parts, starting with Swami Vivekananda's exposition of the Vedanta concept of Oneness -- the core message of the Upanishads from which authentic Yoga is derived. Part Two presents the Swami's teachings on the four Classical Yoga pathways as taught in the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The remaining four parts are devoted to Vivekananda's teachings on each of the Classical Yogas: Jnana Yoga, the pathway to Oneness through the Intellect; Karma Yoga, the pathway to Oneness through selfless service; Bhakti Yoga, the pathway to Oneness through love of a Personal God; and Raja Yoga, the pathway to Oneness through the control of mind.

The writings contained in this package are certainly stirring, inspirational-indeed universal. But more, they are practical (that rare quality in the doctrinal document) and can be used by anyone for personal spiritual grounding in today's chaotic world. These writings demonstrate why millions of people throughout the world believe Vivekananda to be one of the greatest Yogis and Yoga teachers who ever lived.

One certainly has to admire that even a short-list of his students -- especially in light of their later accomplishments -- attests to Vivekananda's lofty level of authority. They include Mahatma Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo, Leo Tolstoy, William James, Jawaharlal Nehru, and many others. Gandhi himself proclaimed, "I have gone through his works very thoroughly, and after having gone through them, the love that I had for my country became a thousand-fold."

William James, author of the classic The Varieties of Religious Experience, felt sufficiently moved to venture beyond his usual reserve to state, "The paragon of all Unity systems is the Vedanta philosophy of India, and the paragon of Vedantist missionaries was the late Swami Vivekananda who visited our land some years ago. The Swami is an honor to humanity." Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, extolled, "Where can you find a man like him? Study what he wrote, and learn from his teachings, for if you do, you will gain immense strength. Take advantage of the fountain of wisdom, of Spirit, and of fire that flowed through Vivekananda!"

Sri Aurobindo, unquestionably one of India's great sages of the last five centuries, commented on the pioneering work of Vivekananda's ministry this way:

"The going forth of Vivekananda as the heroic soul destined to take the world between his two hands and change it was the first visible sign that India was awake . He was a power if ever there was one, a very lion among men. We perceive his influence still working gigantically in something grand, intuitive, upheaving.and we say, 'Behold, Vivekananda still lives in the soul of his Mother** and her children.'"

Each selection is a clear, focused guidance-stirring, as lively as if he is there with us, spirit to spirit, illuminating us, exhorting us to spiritual action. We come away with a much clearer synthesis of the most important Vedanta concepts -- Oneness, yoga, meditation, karma, maya, rebirth, and many other practices of Indian philosophy. For the first time in any compilation of Swami Vivekananda's works, DeLuca has included the stirring account of Swami's 1893 appearance at the world Parliament of Religions, along with a biography of Vivekananda's life. The sum total of these make this book an unrivaled commentary on Yoga philosophy and practice -- spiritual nourishment is here, enough to last a lifetime.

What's to say about a package such as this, aside from the obligation to not throw on the afterburner of adjectives? Simply put, the combination of Vivekananda's sublime wisdom and DeLuca's inspired presentation makes Vivekananda: Lessons In Classical Yoga an unrivaled commentary on scriptural Yoga philosophy and practice. No library of Yoga study will be complete without the revered teachings of Swami Vivekananda, and no edition brings them to us more beautifully than Dave DeLuca's Vivekananda: Lessons In Classical Yoga. If you are thinking of buying a book on authentic Yoga, make it this one.

*For a stirring account of the Swami Vivekananda's presentation at the 1893 Parliament of Religions, see www.namastebooks.com.

**In this context, "Mother" means "Mother India" and "her children" are all Hindus.