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Yoga Vashisht or Heaven Found
by Rishi Singh Gherwal

Excerpts from the shorter Yoga Vasishta

This is a translation of the Laghu Yoga Vashishta, traditionally written by the sage Vasistha, one of the teachers of Rama. This is the ‘shorter’ Yoga Vashishta. This is not an academic or critical translation, but it may appeal to the casual reader. The author of this book, Singh Gherwal, may have been a westerner with a Hindu pseudonym. He states that he is a teacher of Kundalini Yoga. Gherwal wrote a number of popularized books on this and related topics.

We have two Yoga Vashishts, one going under the name great, the other small. This is the small book; both hooks are the work of the Rishi Vashisht, and it is the book for those who are seeking truth but not for the ignorant. It is the best book on wisdom and gives seven states of wisdom by understanding the liberation easily to be attained, and it also gives us the seven states of ignorance. It gives spiritual food for those who hunger. “No one can miss the God consciousness within,” Swami Ram Tritha once said. It is true and I agree with the Swami. It is the best work for self realization. In it, one will find the answer to, who created this universe; the cause of and how to cure diseases. It reveals the mastery of the Kundalini, the Mother of the Universe, and her power; how to perform levitation, and the secret of the long lived Yogi.