Mirabai, a sixteenth-century Indian princess, wrote passionate love songs to Lord Krishna. Hadewijch, a thirteenth-century European Beguine, wrote of her yearning to become Love itself, to be "God with God." Each woman practiced a full-bodied, sensuously-imaged longing for love; at the same time, each also practiced certain ascetic disciplines. Spanning centuries, continents, and religious traditions, this book juxtaposes Hadewijch's and Mirabai's inextricable energies of longing and letting go as resources for a comparative theology of passionate non-attachment. Within both Hinduism and...