Clear Water

Thirty-two meditations?each short enough to read in minutes?based on a boundless religious outlook, offering self-help baby steps through invocations, from Buddha to Jesus.

Mahakali?a Guru in the Hindu tradition who teaches non-sectarian care of the Inner Self at the Hari Om Tat Sat Hermitage in New York State?begins each piece with the same phrase: "Hello Friends, We welcome you with all our hearts!" Fortunately, despite the affected repetition?or perhaps because of it?the proclamation rises above banality and approaches the level of beatitude. Her meditations assume the aspect of motivational, spiritual speeches, echoing the cadence of a good sermon, and gently urging the audience to express gratitude for a life of plenty and to meditate daily to make God the center of life. Always optimistic and constructive, she ranges across topics such as living a compassionate life filled with love and understanding, achieving peace and self-acceptance, and deriving spiritual practice from pragmatism in everyday life. Indeed, she emphasizes the importance of conflating the worldly and spiritual to avoid compartmentalization and achieve personal wholeness. Skeptics may find fault, but Mahakali's writing emerges as undeniably comforting and soulfully pure?all warmhearted encouragement compiled from what the Hermitage considers "truth in all the great traditions." Rigorous theologians, dogmatic fundamentalists, and anyone else convinced that their own sectarian beliefs reign supreme should steer clear; however, those with an open spiritual mindset and a taste for uplifting religious philosophies will likely find much to devour in this grab-bag of fables, aphorisms and general horse sense.

Appealing, if lite, fare, and just the balm for the devotionally-inclined.