We have great pleasure in placing before our readers this selection of the writings and addresses of His Holiness Srimat Swami Vireswaranandaji Maharaj, 10th President (1966-85) of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission.

The title of the present volume is significant. Though the lectures and the essays belong to different years and contexts, all of them deal with the burning problem of the modern age-the quest for an ideal that can guide us through the stormy sea of life. Humanity today is at the cross-roads. Never before in the history of the world has the predicament of man been so agonising. Science has given us the power of the gods, but we are bent on using that power like angry apes for mutual destruction. Any day, a nuclear war may wipe off the human race itself from the face of the earth. In the midst of material plenty, we pine for inner peace. It is in this crisis that the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna become highly relevant to us. Through his multifarious spiritual disciplines carried out with scientific precision he has established that there is but one Reality and we are all sparks of that Divine. The purpose of life is to realise God and this can be achieved by any spiritual path sincerely followed. In the present book Swami Vireswaranandaji Maharaj gives an authentic articulation of the teaching of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda and of their relevancy in solving the spiritual problems that face us in our individual and collective life.