What is reality? is consciousness only an epiphenomenon of the neural functions of the brain? Where does life begin? Physicists like Paul Davies have concluded that the rapidily approaching twenty-first century demands "a new way of thinking that is in closer accord with mysticism than materialism." And books like "The Tao of Physics", "Ancient Science and Modern Mysticism", and "God and the New Physics" have drawn clear parallels between Western science and Eastern mysticism. If consciousness is the substratum of reality, what is the superstruture that is built upon it? In "Subjective Evolution of Consciousness", the author B. R. Sridhara traces the development of consciousness from the origin of the species to various theistic and scientific postulates, and then takes an unexpected ascent into the plane of ecstasy. "Subjective Evolution of Consciousness" transcends the existential doubt of science and surpasses the esoteric wisdom of mysticism. B. R. Sridhara contends that, "Three things must be conceived: existence, consciousness, and the food of consciousness, ecstasy."