Download or read book Bad Gurus written by Jay O’Connell and published by Jay O'Connell. This book was released on with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Con Men. Ex-lovers. Time-line Wizards. Cyborgs. Zen Master Private Detectives. Dead-Enders. Wunderkind, and Fools. "Jay O'Connell has something to say and he says it with passion and fire." --Warren Lapine Prepare yourself for the happy ending that tears your guts out. Costas had a terrible secret. His work helping the Old Man on the first floor had turned into something both wonderful and horrific. The Old Man was insane and now Costas hoped he was, too. Otherwise, the fate of the Earth lay in his hands… Mostly, Garrison wanted to be living another life. One in which he was happily married, meaningfully employed... and thinner. Much, much thinner. A late night infomercial turned his dream into a reality, and then, a nightmare... Morgan hated the term 'con man.' He thought himself more of a... rogue psychotherapist. He helped clients make the most important decisions of their lives, and wasn't the least bothered if they wound up dead. There were far worse things than dying. Morgan knew this from personal experience. Helen had been the girlfriend from hell—beautiful, irresponsible, irresistible and imperious. Now she was standing on Evan's doorstep with a child—ostensibly his. Helen was fleeing a cult on route to Oceania, the Libertarian Free State... and did Evan want to come along for the ride? Stanley, the last human employee at the Lower South Bronx TeachNet facility, was a glorified security guard and janitor tending the automated learning systems. He knew that Joel, the poverty-stricken kid acing his corporate qualifying exams at terminal 1050 would be worth a hundred of him—if he survived the recruiting process... Chris hired Peebles, the pot-bellied, hairy private detective and zen master as a dating coach. "Insight is painful," Peebles told him, and so Chris endured his abuse, only to discover that getting everything he'd ever wanted came at an unforeseen cost… These stories are filled with people you know living fifteen minutes in the future. Hero and Antihero, losers and the lost, dreamers and fools and people stuck in ruts, in for a rude awakening. People that want things. People that need things. People on the brink.
Download or read book Stripping the Gurus written by Geoffrey D. Falk and published by . This book was released on 2009-06 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Armed with wit, insight, and truly astonishing research, Falk utterly demolishes the notion of the enlightened guru who can lead devotees to nirvana.--John Horgan, author of "Rational Mysticism."
Download or read book The Guru Papers written by Joel Kramer and published by Frog Books. This book was released on 1993-05-20 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of “the most comprehensive, erudite, and timely” explorations of power dynamics and authoritarianism in religions, institutions, relationships and even personal struggles (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review) Authoritarian control, which once held societies together, is now at the core of personal, social, and planetary problems, and thus a key factor in social disintegration. Authoritarianism is embedded in the way people think—hiding in culture, values, daily life, and in the very morality people try to live by. In The Guru Papers, authors Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad unmask authoritarianism in areas such as relationships, cults, 12-step groups, religion, and contemporary morality. Chapters on addiction and love show the insidious nature of authoritarian values and ideologies in the most intimate corners of life, offering new frameworks for understanding why people get addicted and why intimacy is laden with conflict. By exposing the inner authoritarian that people use to control themselves and others, the authors show why people give up their power, and how others get and maintain it.
Download or read book The Leap written by Steve Taylor and published by New World Library. This book was released on 2017-02-14 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to be enlightened or spiritually awakened? In The Leap, Steve Taylor shows that this state is much more common than is generally believed. He shows that ordinary people — from all walks of life — can and do regularly “wake up” to a more intense reality, even if they know nothing about spiritual practices and paths. Wakefulness is a more expansive and harmonious state of being that can be cultivated or that can arise accidentally. It may also be a process we are undergoing collectively. Drawing on his years of research as a psychologist and on his own experiences, Taylor provides what is perhaps the clearest psychological study of the state of wakefulness ever published. Above all, he reminds us that it is our most natural state — accessible to us all, anytime, anyplace.
Download or read book Bad Girls Do It written by Michael Newton and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Short biographies of female mutiple-murderers from around the world.
Download or read book How to find the Guru written by Sanjeev Sareen and published by sanjeev sareen. This book was released on with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a real need for a Guru if we are undertaking a spiritual journey. But before embarking on a spiritual path, we must honestly determine whether we are ready and whether our need for a guru is genuine, as opposed to just an emotional outburst. Ask yourselves this question: “Am I committed, or am I just involved?” We do not need a guru if we do not want God. The complications in life are so great that the poor mind is unable to handle them. When we are moving blindly through the valley of life, stumbling in darkness, we need the help of someone who has eyes, who has been on the path, who has followed it to the end, and who can tell us the right way to go. Guru is not the body; Guru is light; and Guru is wisdom. Light and wisdom are essential in human life. By divine right, the title of guru is conferred only upon those exalted souls who, through their own Self-realization and oneness with God, are qualified to lead others from the darkness of ignorance to the everlasting light of truth. He is a humble prophet or messenger, invested with the duty of showing the true spiritual way to ordinary people. God sends the seeker indirect guidance at first, through books and lesser teachers. When the desire for Him is very strong, He sends the help of a Self-realized guru. There are many who are trying to lead others but who have no right to do so. No one can take you to God unless he himself has found God. The blind can't lead the blind. There is also a difference between a Guru and a spiritual teacher. A teacher is one who has some experience, who can guide you to a certain point, and who is perhaps capable of transmitting some spiritual power, but he would not be a guru. That does not mean that spiritual teachers are bad, but they must recognize their limitations. They must see that they do not have all the answers. There is a need to exercise some prudence to distinguish a true guru from a sea of self-styled leaders. The fake gurus are all over the place, and they can hide themselves very well. It is thus difficult to differentiate between a fly-by-night Baba and a truly evolved Guru. Each one of us is susceptible to exhibiting docile “cult-follower” behavior in the right/wrong circumstances. People believe that “it can never happen to them” because they want to believe they are stronger and better than the millions who have fallen victim to alleged cult mind control. Mind control is alive and well and in many varied forms across many countries. A so-called cult will generally target the most educated, active, and capable people it can find. Such beliefs as “others could be made to do that but not me” and “others could be swayed by speeches but not me” are dangerous. The ease with which this happens is important for both scientific understanding and real-world problems ranging from friends and family in cults to extremist movements. The research by Stanford University, reproduced here, very well proves the same. But there is a great deal we can do to stay safe, sane, and whole and to help the people we care about. Spiritual search is indeed the inborn divine right of every human being. Knowledge and education are the birthrights of every human being. Do whatever we want; spirituality is our inner force, which has a constant pull. This pull becomes very strong at times. So strong that man has no choice. But he will have to make the right decision. Finally, it is God alone who is the true Guru, acting through the agency of souls that are awake in Him and who appear as spiritual advisors, sometimes spiritual masters, for our spiritual ascension—call it spiritual help—once we are ready. This book can be referred to as a spiritual journey book, advising on how do you go on a spiritual journey and safeguarding against cults and extreme beliefs. God help you.
Download or read book 100 Deviations The Life and Teachings of His Holiness Sivarama Swami written by ISKCON Revival Movement, and published by ISKCON Revival Movement. This book was released on 2023-01-05 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book continues our series detailing the teachings of those claiming to be successor diksa, or initiating, gurus to Srila Prabhupada, the original guru of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or Hare Krishna movement). This series provides the viewpoints of those claiming to be Srila Prabhupada’s successors, via their own words. In this way, though ISKCON’s members may argue that “we do not accept the ISKCON Revival Movement and its ritvik philosophy”, they cannot argue that they refuse to accept the words emanating from the “lotus mouths” of persons whom they accept as being as good as God. Though this book is titled 100 Deviations: The Life and Teachings of His Holiness Sivarama Swami, readers should note that it is not that we are alleging that the Swami is deviating. Rather, it is the statements and actions of Sivarama Swami documented in this book, which prove that the Swami is himself admitting he is deviating. Therefore, anyone upset or disturbed at the contents of this book must take up the matter with the source of the contents of this book, which is Sivarama Swami himself. Since this book is Sivarama Swami presenting his own life and teachings in his own words, it can thus be considered as an “autobiography” of this ISKCON guru. “How much respect is meant to be offered to Vaisnavas [...] we should be very careful in terms of our interpersonal dealings amongst Vaisnavas, particularly when we speak, because in Kali-yuga, especially in our sort of communication age, everyone is free to speak and say anything about anyone else. So, number one - we should not criticize others.” - HH Sivarama Swami “It is a matter of how to deal with, restrict, constrain JPS (Jayapataka Swami) in a way that does not break him, his disciples and also protects the Society from him [...] From the evidence I would say that he is a sick person, obsessed, and that obsession makes lying or duplicitous behaviour fully reconcilable with service to Prabhupada and Krishna Consciousness.” - HH Sivarama Swami
Download or read book American Girls written by Nancy Jo Sales and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-02-23 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller Instagram. Whisper. YouTube. Kik. Ask.fm. Tinder. The dominant force in the lives of girls coming of age in America today is social media. What it is doing to an entire generation of young women is the subject of award-winning Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales’s riveting and explosive American Girls. With extraordinary intimacy and precision, Sales captures what it feels like to be a girl in America today. From Montclair to Manhattan and Los Angeles, from Florida and Arizona to Texas and Kentucky, Sales crisscrossed the country, speaking to more than two hundred girls, ages thirteen to nineteen, and documenting a massive change in the way girls are growing up, a phenomenon that transcends race, geography, and household income. American Girls provides a disturbing portrait of the end of childhood as we know it and of the inexorable and ubiquitous experience of a new kind of adolescence—one dominated by new social and sexual norms, where a girl’s first crushes and experiences of longing and romance occur in an accelerated electronic environment; where issues of identity and self-esteem are magnified and transformed by social platforms that provide instantaneous judgment. What does it mean to be a girl in America in 2016? It means coming of age online in a hypersexualized culture that has normalized extreme behavior, from pornography to the casual exchange of nude photographs; a culture rife with a virulent new strain of sexism and a sometimes self-undermining notion of feminist empowerment; a culture in which teenagers are spending so much time on technology and social media that they are not developing basic communication skills. From beauty gurus to slut-shaming to a disconcerting trend of exhibitionism, Nancy Jo Sales provides a shocking window into the troubling world of today’s teenage girls. Provocative and urgent, American Girls is destined to ignite a much-needed conversation about how we can help our daughters and sons negotiate unprecedented new challenges.
Download or read book Archaeo Astronometria written by Dean Clarke and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2008-10-23 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There have been many books on the origin of astronomy some good and some very poorly address the issues of ancient mans interests in the stars. The ancient Sumer and Egyptian notions of music mostly confirms how ancient this notion is in their chorded progressions of tone. This notion is more an Upper Paleolithic celestial idea. In a sense man during this time man was beginning to have a concept of north, south, east and west in spatial terms. It involves the curvature of the ribs of Nut the Egyptian Sky Goddess as a ribbed vaulted sky, and sometimes in a horizon sense of a bowing arch of a stars path, or the curve of a bone in the stars moving path. The half way point of this fall for say our Nut, Adam and Eve would thus be about 27,000 BC which falls in a significant period Ice Age re-emergence and a deserts expanding in equator regions. These are only a small part of what had to addressed in origins of night sky studies. The point being this piece as fake or not is that the components of the animals, man, plants and mans artifacts were very early on displayed. We might ask in such a condition what was their night sky? If we look at all of these constellations they fall below the Celestial Equator in the South Pole region mostly. It would seem that all these birds to them being placed in the night sky like the stars and as they watched what directions the birds along with stars as to where they went in order to ascertain their relations to dusk or dawn night sky. What caused the South Africa plight of 80,000 BC? The Antarctica had been growing ice forms from 170,000 BC to 80,000 BC towards the north, and then around 70,000 BC there seemed to be a melting trend back south. In an astronomy sense we can thank him for larger game entering in the pantheon of the constellations, or the leaf, otter, and some constellations lost to time like the mammoths. What does this have to do with constellations, taboos, or the advent of Cro-Magnon man well in the depictions of constellation images? Slowly from east to west the stars move, but then it did not take man not long after 70,000 BC to note that some planets or stars seemed to move retrograde in the night sky? This book address what ideas did they show or have before or after these earth changes. As ideas such as: "Maybe, it was a lasso constellation for some animals capture as a God of Capture." And, "Somewhere around the time of 50,000 BC in the region of northern England to the region above the Black Sea there occurred a melting phase between the ice ages and cultures began to spread". The evidence of this is found by different locations in Europe and Central Europe of the use of rock shadows, stars noted by hands in movement, and certain hand symbols by star images or dots as stars not just stab marks. Ironic again that Man beside Woman on the pole treetop does not have strong reminders of the Adam-Eve Tree and the Serpent as maybe Draco? The symbol anciently always shows the snake at the foot of the tree or ascended the tree at the apex of the trunk which if astronomy wise would mean an ascended constellation to the Zenith or the Pole! Draco thus deposed Adam and Eve from their own constellation garden and domain by it ascending as an ancient Pole Axis Mundi? Thus the smoke screen really is a tied between this local area of France and Late Paleolithic Mans ideas of that region in the night sky of a certain year or month period of hunting. Although we have jumped forward in the time of ancient astronomy beginnings in a way really in this sense we have not. To the real beginnings of little known ancient astronomy.
Download or read book Coping with Evil written by Bruce McCausland and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 2006-08 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I have much more to tell you, but you cannot grasp it now. But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into the whole truth: for He will not speak on His own authority but will tell what is told Him, and will announce to you the things that are to come." --John 16:12,13 (Williams translation) Coping with Evil addresses one of the most important topics for all humanity--evil. The menace of evil seems stronger today than ever before. Can evil be defeated? Do we have the courage even to look at its root causes? Drawing on the spiritual investigations of Rudolf Steiner, Sri Aurobindo, and others and from his own inner work, Bruce McCausland takes us on a fascinating journey into the hidden recesses of this very timely subject, helping us understand and cope with today's events and our daily lives. What is evil? What is its source or sources? How should we view evil and those who perpetrate it? Using what he calls a holoscopic approach, McCausland stresses the importance of how we look at a problem. Traditional means no longer suffice and have proven inadequate to the task. By its very nature, evil is illusive and fraught with emotion. These obstacles must be overcome if we are to succeed in examining this manifold menace in a meaningful, productive manner. But whatever we do, we cannot ignore it. The greatest evil, it has been noted, is indifference toward evil. McCausland discusses the sources of evil in the form of spirit beings--"spiritual adversaries"--called Lucifer and Ahriman. He explains how these two beings interact with each other and with humanity as the two extremes of evil, with goodness in the center. In the end, we discover ways to deal with evil, both as individuals and as a society. In today's climate of fear and its exploitation on every side, the question of evil has become an urgent matter of human survival. Those who watch or read the news can use this guidebook to understand the forces at work behind daily events. It guides the reader through the confusion caused by evil and toward inner freedom.
Download or read book Gurus and Media written by Jacob Copeman and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2023-09-25 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gurus and Media is the first book dedicated to media and mediation in domains of public guruship and devotion. Illuminating the mediatisation of guruship and the guru-isation of media, it bridges the gap between scholarship on gurus and the disciplines of media and visual culture studies. It investigates guru iconographies in and across various time periods and also the distinctive ways in which diverse gurus engage with and inhabit different forms of media: statuary, games, print publications, photographs, portraiture, films, machines, social media, bodies, words, graffiti, dolls, sound, verse, tombs and more. The book’s interdisciplinary chapters advance, both conceptually and ethnographically, our understanding of the function of media in the dramatic production of guruship, and reflect on the corporate branding of gurus and on mediated guruship as a series of aesthetic traps for the captivation of devotees and others. They show how different media can further enliven the complex plurality of guruship, for instance in instantiating notions of ‘absent-present’ guruship and demonstrating the mutual mediation of gurus, caste and Hindutva. Throughout, the book foregrounds contested visions of the guru in the development of devotional publics and pluriform guruship across time and space. Thinking through the guru’s many media entanglements in a single place, the book contributes new insights to the study of South Asian religions and to the study of mediation more broadly. Praise for Gurus and Media 'Sight, sound, image, narrative, representation and performance in the complex world of gurus are richly illuminated and deeply theorised in this outstanding volume. The immensely important, but hitherto under-explored, visual and aural dimensions of guru-ship across several religious traditions have received path-breaking and wide-ranging treatment by best-known experts on the subject.' Nandini Gooptu, University of Oxford ‘Gurus and Media casts subtle light on a phenomenon that too often shines so brightly that it is hard to see. This collection is a tremendously rich resource for anyone trying to make sense of that ambiguous zone where authority appears at once as seduction and as salvation, as comfort and as terror.’ William Mazzarella, University of Chicago 'This remarkable collection uses the figure of the mass-mediated guru to throw light on how modern Hindu mobilization generates a highly diverse set of religious charismatics in India. Because of the diversity of the contributors to this volume, the book is also a moveable feast of cases, methods and cultural styles in a major cultural region.' Arjun Appadurai, Emeritus Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University
Download or read book Management Fads and Buzzwords written by David Collins and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text argues that the fads and buzzwords of management deflect critical inquiry and limit useful action because they present a "ready made" view of the world, which rejects the benefits of theoretical analysis and reflection. The book attempts to "unpack" the "guru industry" and the fads and buzzwords of management to provide a c̀ritical-practical' analysis, designed to allow readers to locate, to understand and to critique management fashion.
Download or read book Mantras written by Radha (Swami Sivananda) and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 1993 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FOR SALE IN SOUTH ASIA ONLY
Download or read book Bad Gurus written by Jay O'Connell and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-08-16 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Jay O'Connell has something to say and he says it with passion and fire." -Warren Lapine, Hugo Award winning editor and publisher of Fantastic Stories, Weird Tales, and other publications Prepare yourself for the happy ending that tears your guts out. Costas had a terrible secret. His work helping the Old Man on the first floor had turned into something both wonderful and horrific. The Old Man was insane and now Costas hoped he was, too. Otherwise, the fate of the Earth lay in his hands... Mostly, Garrison wanted to be living another life. One in which he was happily married, meaningfully employed... and thinner. Much, much thinner. A late night infomercial turned his dream into a reality, and then, a nightmare... Morgan hated the term 'con man.' He thought himself more of a... rogue psychotherapist. He helped clients make the most important decisions of their lives, and wasn't the least bothered if they wound up dead. There were far worse things than dying. Morgan knew this from personal experience. Helen had been the girlfriend from hell-beautiful, irresponsible, irresistible and imperious. Now she was standing on Evan's doorstep with a child-ostensibly his. Helen was fleeing a cult on route to Oceania, the Libertarian Free State... and did Evan want to come along for the ride? Stanley, the last human employee at the Lower South Bronx TeachNet facility, was a glorified security guard and janitor tending the automated learning systems. He knew that Joel, the poverty-stricken kid acing his corporate qualifying exams at terminal 1050 would be worth a hundred of him-if he survived the recruiting process... Chris hired Peebles, the pot-bellied, hairy private detective and zen master as a dating coach. "Insight is painful," Peebles told him, and so Chris endured his abuse, only to discover that getting everything he'd ever wanted came at an unforeseen cost... These stories are filled with people you know living fifteen minutes in the future. Hero and Antihero, losers and the lost, dreamers and fools and people stuck in ruts, in for a rude awakening. People that want things. People that need things. People on the brink. Jay O'Connell re-emerged on the short genre fiction scene in 2013 with a sudden outpouring of short stories and novellas in the SF pro press which transmuted his mis-spent years in east-coast tech-bubble start-up culture into something weird and wonderful. This is his story, one of those mid-life transformations that gives hope the future might grant an unlikely redemption, if only we keep our head in the game.
Download or read book Connect With The Divine Vol 1 written by Sri Narayani Peedam and published by Sri Narayani Peedam . This book was released on 2014-12-13 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a first in the series of a compilation of spiritual discourses rendered by Sri Sakthi Amma, from Sripuram, Sri Narayani Peedam, Thirumalaikodi, Vellore District, Tamilnadu, India. This book contains short stories with moral values. Many topics that are essential to lead a good life of joy and contentment is covered in this book. It is also a bible for a spiritual seeker.
Download or read book Spiritual Science written by Steve Taylor and published by Watkins Media Limited. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mindfulness expert whose work has been hailed by Eckhart Tolle as “an important contribution to the shift in consciousness” offers a new vision of reality—one that is compatible with modern science and ancient spirituality. “With elegance and lucidity, Steve Taylor explains why spiritual science is the only hope for humanity.” —Deepak Chopra It is often assumed that there are two ways of interpreting the world: a rational scientific way, or an irrational religious way. Mindfulness expert, Steve Taylor, shows that there is a third possibility—a spiritual, or “panspiritist”, view of reality that transcends both conventional science and religion, recognizes spirit or consciousness as fundamental, and answers many of the riddles that neither can explain. Here, Taylor puts forward the evidence for a spiritual view of reality and examines the development and consequences of the materialist model. Drawing on the insights of philosophers, physicists, mystics, as well as spiritual traditions and indigenous cultures, he also systematically shows how a ‘panspiritist’ view can explain many puzzling aspects of science and the world such as: • human consciousness • altruism • near-death experiences • telepathy and pre-cognition • quantum physics • the placebo effect • neuroplasticity A compelling argument for a new vision of reality, Spiritual Science offers a bright vision of the world as sacred and interconnected, and of human life as meaningful and purposeful.
Download or read book Sex Lies and Two Hindu Gurus written by Karen Jonson and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-09-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When she joined a spiritual organization in an attempt to regain control of her life, Karen Jonson had no clue that she would one day become a Hindu nun living in the US ashram of two men she called her gurus. She certainly never guessed that both of them would turn out to be conmen and that she would expose their dark secrets to the world. But that is exactly what happened. Her mission led her in several directions - including approaching an investigative reporter and an FBI agent, organizing a group of ex-devotees to support the gurus' victims, sharing insider information with prosecuting attorneys, and using social media to expose the organization.Sex, Lies and Two Hindu Gurus chronicles a world that is spoken of only in hushed whispers. It exposes the twisted goings-on inside the dubious spiritual cult she was part of and gives readers a rare insight into a dangerous con game. The perversions the gurus indulged in, how they preyed upon the vulnerabilities of their followers, swindled them and ruined their lives, and why no one has stopped the fake gurus from sexually violating underage girls - every detail comes under scrutiny. It is a thriller comparable to any piece of fiction. It is also a crime drama, and a cautionary tale for people seeking to connect with the divine.
