This book deals with the meaning of a science rooted in the sacred, the metaphysical foundation of such science, its contrast to modern science and its pertinence to some of the major issues facing humanity today. In the first part, the author turns to the fundamental question of the multiplicity of sacred forms. He discusses why it is necessary in the contemporary world to treat sacred science in the context of diverse religions. He also deals with the importance of sacred science in providing a meaningful study that would remain religiously significant of religions themselves.

Buddhism teaches that to become happy, greed, ill-will, and delusion must be transformed into their positive counterparts: generosity, compassion, and wisdom. The history of the West, like all histories, has been plagued by the consequences of greed, ill-will, and delusion. A Buddhist History of the West investigates how individuals have tried to ground themselves to make themselves feel more real. To be self-conscious is to experience ungroundedness as a sense of lack, but what is lacking has been understood differently in different historical periods. Author David R. Loy examines how the...

Harold Coward explores how the psychological aspects of Yoga philosophy have been important to intellectual developments both East and West. Foundational for Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist thought and spiritual practice, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, the classical statement of Eastern Yoga, are unique in their emphasis on the nature and importance of psychological processes. Yoga's influence is explored in the work of both the seminal Indian thinker Bhartrhari (c. 600 C.E.) and among key figures in Western psychology: founders Freud and Jung, as well as contemporary transpersonalists such as Washburn,...

Harold Coward explores how the psychological aspects of Yoga philosophy have been important to intellectual developments both East and West. Foundational for Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist thought and spiritual practice, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, the classical statement of Eastern Yoga, are unique in their emphasis on the nature and importance of psychological processes. Yoga's influence is explored in the work of both the seminal Indian thinker Bhartrhari (c. 600 C.E.) and among key figures in Western psychology: founders Freud and Jung, as well as contemporary transpersonalists such as Washburn,...

Although Gandhi has been the subject of hundreds of books and an Oscar-winning film, there has been no sustained study of his engagement with major figures in the Indian Independence Movement who were often his critics from 1920-1948. This book fills that gap by examining the strengths and weaknesses of Gandhi's contribution to India as evidenced in the letters, speeches, and newspaper articles focused on the dialogue/debate between Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Annie Besant, and C. F. Andrews. The book also covers key groups within India...

In the wake of September 11, 2001 religion is often seen as the motivating force behind terrorism and other acts of violence. Religion and Peacebuilding looks beyond headlines concerning violence perpetrated in the name of religion to examine how world religions have also inspired social welfare and peacemaking activism. Leading scholars from the Aboriginal, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions provide detailed analyses of the spiritual resources for fostering peace within their respective religions. The contributors discuss the formidable obstacles to...

The Deities Are Many is a lively and learned introduction to polytheism. Drawing from both his scholarly research and his personal experience, author Jordan Paper is the ideal guide into this milieu. Paper was drawn to polytheism through his love of nature, seeing it as a source of the divine. In this book he focuses on Chinese and Native American religious traditions, as well as West African, African-Brazilian, Hindu, Polynesian, and circum-Polar traditions, to describe the theology of polytheism. The book provides a topology of polytheistic deities, focusing on the cosmic couple, Father Sky...

In this book, Anantanand Rambachan offers a fresh and detailed perspective on Advaita Vedanta, Hinduism's most influential and revered religious tradition. Rambachan, who is both a scholar and an Advaitin, attends closely to the Upanisads and authentic commentaries of Sankara to challenge the tradition and to reconsider central aspects of its current teachings. His reconstruction and reinterpretation of Advaita focuses in particular on the nature of brahman, the status of the world in relation to brahman, and the meaning and relevance of liberation.

Rambachan queries contemporary...

This is a collection of careful, objective, historically sensitive studies of modern commentators on the Bhagavadgita, one of the basic scriptures of Hinduism, and one which has been widely read in the modern West. Experts on modern Indian religious thought show how Ghandi, Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, Bhaktivedanta, Aurobindo, Tilak, Bhave, Sivananda, the Theosophists, and Bhankim read, used and interpreted the Gita. Collectively, the essays display the different backgrounds and orientations of the major Indian thinkers of our time. An Introduction and a Conclusion provide a perspective on...

This book explicates the origin, nature, function, and significance of mantras within the bounds of the Hindu tradition. It explores the use of mantras in the Vedic age, in Saivism and Vaisnavism, in Tantra, and in Ayurvedic medicine.