The book is available in Europe (Czech Republic).

Before you begin your spiritual path, you need to understand four principles:

1. Impermanence. Everything in this world is impermanent; time mercilessly eats up human bodies.

2. The law of karma. The law of karma (cause and effect) works flawlessly for people - “what goes around comes around.”

3. Suffering. A person most often suffers because of his desires.

4. The Precious Human Birth. We must live our lives so that there will be no excruciating pain for the years lived unconsciously.

"To understand
                      that everything in samsara
                                                            leads to suffering –
                                                                                        is not enough,
Do you feel,
                as if stung
                              by the sting
                                              of birth and death?

Thinking
            about the law of karma –
                                                is not enough,
Do you fear
                  unconscious
                                    and impure actions
                                                  even in small things?
The mere desire for Liberation –
                                                    is not enough,
              whether you aspire
                                for Liberation,
                                      like an enslaved person
                                                                    in a cage?
The mere understanding
                  of the preciousness
                                        of human birth –
                                                      is not enough,
Do you feel,
            that everything but the Dharma –
                                                            is a waste
                                                                    of time?
A mere understanding of impermanence –
                                                        is not enough,

do you see 

             the conditioned life

                             as the dance of a criminal,

                                                          going to the gallows?

A mere interest in the Dharma –

                                                is not enough,

Do you have

                                    disgust

                                                  for samsara?

The mere recollection

                            of rebirths -

                                              is not enough,

Do you remember

                                 day and night

                                              of impermanence?

The mere desire to practice –

                                               is not enough,

Are you willing

                 to give your whole life, 

                                     your heart, and your thoughts

                                               to the practice of the Dharma?

The mere desire

                     of Liberation –

                                          is not enough,

Do you have the determination

                                             to practice Dharma,

                                                      like a warrior going into battle?"

From the song "Instructions on Not Enough and the Necessary."

Shri Guru Swami Vishnudevananda Giri

We live in our cramped little world of frozen ideas, like flies caught in a sticky web. That web is maya (illusion), a creeping whisper that keeps us asleep from birth to death. We sleep soundly, forgetting our true nature, the transcendental consciousness of Atman. We spend our lives dreaming, building castles of air in our minds, but in reality, we live like animals, worrying about momentary worldly pleasures. Never realizing our destiny, we waste precious years on work, food, sleep, life, and entertainment and go into oblivion in bewilderment and sadness.

Reality does not want to reckon with our dreams. Impermanence, transience, reincarnation, suffering – no high position, no big money, no reputation, no strong bonds, and no stable state system can protect against them. Furthermore, all this is because it is a part of the great dream named Samsara.

It is a world of suffering, a world of existence in duality. Our dreams lead us to believe in the reality of Samsara by wrapping our true Selves in the chains of false notions – personal, family, social, national, and human. We unthinkingly follow them, imitating others, unaware that once again, we have swallowed the bait – karma, a program laid down by ourselves in a past dream. Falling into the patterns of mass consciousness, we mechanically follow our role in society, like robots implementing the program of past karma. Then we create a new program to be implemented in the future. Our sleep is solid; it keeps us ignorant, making us believe, "I am a permanent being. This world is eternal and absolute. I must live this way."

To embark on the path of Liberation and Enlightenment is to begin to awaken. To wake up, we need to experience the shocking nakedness of being to see reality as it is.

The Four Awarenesses is a traditional meditation theme to awaken students and strengthen them on their path to Enlightenment.