Publisher's Synopsis
This second volume of Musings and Messages From the Heart is more diverse, ambitious, and (hopefully) more illuminating than Volume I. Included are selected writings from 1990 to 2014, comprised of poetic reflections, efforts at Haiku, a public talk reflective of Paramahansa Yogananda's Christian teachings - delivered in 1978, and four commemorative addresses on Rosa Parks, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the 60th Anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and the 20th Anniversary of the establishment of the Multicultural Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Also included is a brief talk delivered at an interfaith event on Pilgrimages, with a focus on Hinduism, and a short story entitled, Master Yu that was inspired by one of a different title that I read in the early 1970's, forgot about, and then recalled many years later. In 1985 I took my second solo trip to India to visit Sathya Sai Baba at his ashram in Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh. This astonishing visit of 9 days was filled with staggering experiences day in and day out. It marked a pivotal episode in my life that continues to deeply impact me. His all-embracing Vedic teachings on One God, One Humanity, the essential unity of faiths, and the variety of ways that humankind can reach its final, preordained destiny of spiritual union with the One Divine is evident in several of the verses and narratives. This Volume will likely be challenging for those who may be single-minded on one stream of wisdom and who are unappreciative of the Ocean from which all waters emerge. I have often remarked that "all rivers flow with the same H2O." Divinity is One, not two. And thus no matter the Name or Preceptor we may focus on or prefer - all good, this One is omnipresent throughout all of creation, seen and unseen, directly experienced or not. In this author's view, our common task as human beings is to accept all as expressions and manifestations of this unfathomable Unity, and learn to love all and serve all, notwithstanding any thought or 'lean' to the contrary.
