Product Description

An inspiring collection of hard-to-find writings from spiritual traditions around the world. Included are works by Ramana Maharshi, H.P. Blavatsky, Francis Thompson, and Franz Hartmann, as well as selections from the Upanishads, the Platform Sutra, and Elegant Sayings.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1500951 in Books
• Published on: 1988-02
• Binding: Hardcover
• 242 pages

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The mind has nothing to do with thinking because its fundamental source is empty. To discard false views, this is the one great causal event. If within and without you are not deluded then you are apart from duality. If on the outside you are deluded you cling to form; if on the inside you are deluded you cling to emptiness. If within form you are apart from form and within emptiness you are separated from emptiness, then within and without you are not deluded.

Customer Reviews

Vastly underpublicized and underappreciated
If you'd completed the trip to self-realization and then put together a selection of readings that you thought other seekers might find invaluable, what do you suppose you would include? This is a selection by Richard Rose, from across continents and eras, that he found profound and moving.

Should be a best seller
Long before such books as "The Enlightened Mind" hit the shelf, this anthology was languishing in obscurity. It has some excellent material from Ramana Maharshi, Francis Thompson, and Richard Rose, among others.

A marvelous anthology of enlightened mystical wisdom
The marvelous thing about this book is that it combines in one volume the highest mystical teachings from several, seemingly disparate religious and metaphysical traditions. And yet while the spiritual "language" and paradigms of each tradition are different, they all point to the same path, that of "dying to the self", from non-attachment to the ego towards realization of the One Eternal Essence. "Profound Writings" contains poetic descriptions of the ego-death (Francis Thompson and Richard Rose), teachings and methods of practice (Ramana Maharshi and Hui-Neng), and precepts (Tibetan teachings, the Upanishads, and Franz Hartmann). There is also a brain-teasing chapter entitled "The Lecture of Questions", formulated by Richard Rose, founder of the TAT Foundation, under whose auspices this book was published. There is so much wisdom to be fathomed in "Profound Writings" that it will provide the spiritual seeker a source of inspiration for meditative and contemplative practice, as well as spiritual guidance, for many years to come.