{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1556436335?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"1556436335","authors":["Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj","Robert Powell"],"book_id":"9781556436338","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/the-ultimate-medicine-9781556436338","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781556436338.jpg?v=43d5e92f374a3ff7","description":"The Ultimate Medicine is not for those who like their spirituality watered down, but for serious students searching for awareness. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) lived and taught in a small apartment in the slums of Bombay. A realized master of the Tantric Nath lineage, he supported himself and his family by selling cheap goods in a small booth on the streets outside his tenement for many years. His life exemplified the concept of absolute nonduality of being. In this volume, Maharaj shares the highest truth of nonduality in his own unique way. His teaching style is abrupt, provocative, and immensely profound, cutting to the core and wasting little effort on inessentials. His terse but potent sayings are known for their ability to trigger shifts in consciousness, just by hearing or reading them.\"The point is that man freed from his fetters is morality personified. Such a man therefore does not need any moralistic injunctions in order to live righteously. Free a man from his bondage and thereafter everything else will take care of itself. On the other hand, man in his unredeemed state cannot possibly live morally, no matter what moral teaching he is given. It is an intrinsic impossibility, for his very foundation is immorality. That is, he lives a lie, a basic contradiction: functioning in all his relationships as the separate entity he believes himself to be, whereas in reality no such separation exists. His every action therefore does violence to other 'selves' and other 'creatures,' which are only manifestations of the unitary consciousness. So Society had to invent some restraints in order to protect itself from its own worst excesses and thereby maintain some kind of status quo. The resulting arbitrary rules, which vary with place and time and therefore are purely relative, it calls 'morality,' and by upholding this man-invented 'idea' as the highest good–oftentimes sanctioned by religious 'revelation' and scriptures–society has provided man with one more excuse to disregard the quest for liberation or relegate it to a fairly low priority in his scheme of things.\"","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9781556436338","publication_date":"20060928","publisher":"North Atlantic Books","slug":"the-ultimate-medicine","subtitle":"Dialogues With a Realized Master","title":"The Ultimate Medicine"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"REL007040","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Theravada Buddhism","score":0.7744,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"REL007020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Buddhist Practice & Ritual","score":0.7694,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"OCC011020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Prayer & Healing","score":0.7672,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"REL007040","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Theravada Buddhism","score":0.7744,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"REL007020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Buddhist Practice & Ritual","score":0.7694,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"OCC011020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Prayer & Healing","score":0.7672,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"OCC019000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Inspiration & Personal Growth","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"PHI033000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Hindu Thought","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"REL032040","confidence_band":"high","label":"Hindu Theology","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Theravada Buddhism","score":0.7744,"slug":"theravada-buddhism"},{"label":"Buddhist Practice & Ritual","score":0.7694,"slug":"buddhist-practice-ritual"},{"label":"Prayer & Healing","score":0.7672,"slug":"prayer-healing"}],"reader_fit":["For serious spirituality students seeking awareness","Good for readers interested in teachings on nonduality"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["James Swartz"],"book_id":"9781591810940","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781591810940.jpg?v=e66a03d7d0985656","score":0.7245,"title":"How to Attain Enlightenment","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781591810940"},{"authors":["Anthony De Mello","J. 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