"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
Deeply contemplative and inspiring, this book is a compilation of two highly revered texts in Advaita (Non-Duality). The first is a commentary on the selected names of the Divine Mother from the Lalita Sahasranāma and the second is a commentary on Adi Shankara’s Dakṣiṇāmūrti Stotram.
Lalita Sahasranāma is a treasure house of the knowledge of Sri Vidya. Seekers of all kinds, yogis, tantrics, and non-dualists alike, are drawn to it. Each name of the Goddess is packed with profound meaning - the gross, the subtle, and the subtlest. In his commentary, Sri Srinivasa Rao focuses on 108 of the 1000 names of the Goddess, and expounds on the most hidden and subtlest of the meanings of each name. Dakṣiṇāmūrti Stotram is a crown
jewel among Shankara’s hymns with the entire Advaita doctrine packed into ten profound verses.
This book is a blend of Shaiva Advaita (aka Kashmir Shaivism) and Shankara Advaita. Sri Srinivasa Rao’s penetrating vision did not see any differences in the essential message of these apparently different genres of texts. According to him, “Advaita Vedanta is not different from the Sri Vidya of the Shaiva Advaita because both culminate in the union of the finite self with the Infinite.”
“The texts discussed in this book are among the serious passages in Vedanta. Sri Yellamraju has excelled in capturing the essence of the highest concepts of Vedanta in as simple terms as possible. The outcome of the study of Vedanta, as Sri Yellamraju writes in his epilogue to the Stotram, is to attain sarvātmabhava, the experience of the self in all beings, a very egalitarian idea which is unique to Upanishadic thought.” – Dr. K. Aravinda Rao
Padma Neppalli
Yellamraju Srinivasa Rao (1927-2015) lived in Southern India. An erudite scholar and a staunch Non-Dualist, he made Shankara’s clarion call for Advaita his own, and dedicated his life to the study, practice, and teaching of Advaita. He tirelessly explained the concepts and nuances of the Advaita Vedanta to small groups of committed seekers. His sharp and penetrating Non-Dual vision often pierced through traditional boundaries, and freely explored Non-Dual concepts from Buddhism, Kashmir Shaivism, Sufism, and mystical Christianity. Alive and vibrant with the spirit of Non Duality, his talks stirred a kindred spirit in his students and challenged them to keep pace with him as he unfolded the Absolute Truth, with great clarity and insight.
Padma Neppalli is a student of Srinivasa Rao and the author of Not-Two: The Essence of Non-Duality and co-author of Knowing-Being: Direct and Intuitive Realization of the Self, originally written in Telugu by Srinivasa Rao. Padma Neppalli lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
