This book is an uncompromising response to an issue that confronts all shades of religious belief-from the simplest to the most sophisticated-because even for followers of non-dualistic Vedanta, the possibility of believing in a false God becomes greater, not less, as religion becomes more metaphysical. This is a challenge to the usual belief that religion must necessarily be more pure the more inward it is, and the reasons for this are presented with clarity. At the same time, Dr Bolton criticizes the prevalent Western belief that the Vedanta is solely a system of monistic mysticism, regardless of historical realities, and argues that when we take a more objective view of Hinduism, non-dualistic mysticism is deprived of a ready-made argument in its favour-that of a whole religious tradition supposedly devoted to it.

As in his other books, Dr Bolton helps the reader to a deeper understanding of the complex relations between God, the world, and the self, without facile reductions that eliminate realities we ought rather to be trying to understand.