Wednesday, 21 March 2007

New enlarged e-book edition of Happiness and the Art of Being

Yesterday I posted on my website at www.happinessofbeing.com/resources/happiness_art_being.html a revised and enlarged second e-book edition of Happiness and the Art of Being.

Since I published the first e-book edition on 15th December 2006 I have revised it thoroughly, making many small amendments and incorporating a considerable number of additional explanations, together with translations of several more passages from the original Tamil writings of Sri Ramana.

Though I have incorporated the equivalent of about 80 pages of new material in this second e-book edition, the actual number of pages has increased only by about 32 pages, up to more than 570 pages, because the software that I have used to create the PDF file of this edition has produced a more compact but still very readable font, thereby ensuring that the printed version of this book will be a somewhat less massive volume.

Since the beginning of February I have posted in this blog most of the major additions that I have now incorporated in this second e-book edition. I have not incorporated any major addition in the introduction, in chapter 1, 'What is Happiness?', or in chapter 7, 'The Illusion of Time and Space', but the following is a list of most of the major additions or modifications that I have incorporated in the other eight chapters. For each addition, I have listed the page numbers at which it now appears in the new edition, a link to the article in this blog in which I posted it (if I did do so), and finally in brackets the page number of the location in the first edition in which I incorporated it.

Chapter 2, 'Who am I?':

Chapter 3, 'The Nature of Our Mind':

Chapter 4, 'The Nature of Reality':

Chapter 5, 'What is True Knowledge?':
Chapter 6, 'True Knowledge and False Knowledge':
Chapter 8, 'The Science of Consciousness':
Chapter 9, 'Self-Investigation and Self-Surrender':
Chapter 10, 'The Practice of the Art of Being':
Having completed this second edition of the e-book version of Happiness and the Art of Being, I will now begin to compile an index for it, after which it will be ready for print. Therefore if it is the will of our sadguru, Bhagavan Sri Ramana, I hope that printed copies of it will be available sometime during the summer. Whenever it is published as I printed book, I will announce it here in this blog.

4 comments:

Hans said...

Dear Michael,
thank you for letting us participate in the edition and revision of your book. The abundant material doesn't encourage quick response.
However the statements about un/consciousness in sleep in particular were helpful to me.

Good luck with publishing the paper-book.
Hans

Sankarraman said...

Eagerly looking forward to the book in the material shape as this is too lofty a theme to be read over the internet but for some cursory glances which are also very useful. Looking at the fact that in recent times there are very few good writings on the exalted theme of self-enquiry, this is a god-send gift. May Bhaghavan confer on you the Beatitude of self-realization, which is the one and only purpose of life, all the other being meaningless meanderings in the unreal non-self.

Sankarraman said...

I should like to read the entire text even in the internet. Which is the only panacea for people like me who are not able to plunge into deep meditation, that is self-enquiry. It is grand substitute to keep ourselves anchored to the true Self in some form. Since the theme is only on the unadulterated path given to humanity, it will go a long way in creating a good samskara in the subterranean depths of the consciousness. Why a mere samskara, by Bhgahvan's grace let the entire existence be conferred this exalted state of awareness of the Self, to quote the Bodhisatva ideal.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Michael. I have enjoyed reading the initial edition of your book. I went through the chapters very carefully and slowly. It enhanced and improved my understanding of Sri Ramana's teachings considerably. I am looking forward to reading your latest additions to the book. Thank you again

Robert