The volume embodies a highly stimulating mystic composition : Atmopadesha Shatakam, literally "One Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction", unfolding magnificently the relationship of man with cosmos. Written, originally in Malayalam, by Narayana Guru: a mystic, philosopher, visionary, and poet of yester-years, these verses are like the eternal beacon showing us the way to know the meaning of life through Self-awareness.
The title, Neither This Nor That But . . . Aum, is derived from the last: the hundredth, verse of Atmopadesha Shatakam. The 99 verses that precede it clearly explain the "This" and "That" in which our lives become entangled. But as we progress from verse to verse, we find unveiled before us "the untold magic of the silent Word: the secret of supreme realization".
Guru Nitya, who is a key figure in the spiritual hierarchy of Narayana Guru, here reproduces all these ever-enlightening verses of Atmopadesha Shatakam : each in its Roman transliteration, together with its English translation, meaning and, besides these, also the guidelines for meditation.
"Each verse (of Atmopadesha Satakam)", observes Edda Walker in her Foreword, "is as perfect and complete as a rare pearl, and these perfect pearls are linked by the golden thread of pure essence, which is my essence, your essence, our inheritance".
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