A Closing Word

You began this book as someone who likes to ask “How do you know?” Never stop asking it, not of your science teacher, and not of your tradition. The deepest secret of Sanatana Dharma is that it has never been afraid of that question. It opens with “Now, the inquiry begins,” and its oldest hymn has the courage to end with “who really knows?”

You now hold the outline of your inheritance: the library and its two kinds of knowledge; the rishis, your first grandfathers, and your duties to them; the devathas and the fourteen worlds; the wheel of time and the order of creation; the inner technology of yoga; the honest logic of the customs; the five debts of gratitude; the living voices of the Upanishads and the Gita’s counsel for the hardest day; the example of the scientist-monk Vivekananda; and the purpose of it all, to live peacefully and purposefully, attaining knowledge, until the river reaches the ocean. Question everything, test what you can, hold resonances lightly, defend with grace, repay the five debts, and practice a little every day.

“Satyam jnanam anantam brahma.”“Reality is truth, knowledge, and the infinite.”, Taittiriya Upanishad 2.1

May you grow into both, true and wise.