Download or read book Kali s Child written by Jeffrey J. Kripal and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998-10 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholar Jeffrey J. Kripal explores the life and teachings of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a 19th-century Bengali saint who played a major role in the creation of modern Hinduism. The work is now marked by both critical acclaim and cross-cultural controversy. In a substantial new Preface to this second edition, Kripal answers his critics and addresses the controversy.
Download or read book Interpretating Ramakrishna written by Tyagananda Pravrajika Swami and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thibetan medicine is about 2500 years old. And some of its elements are even older, about 5000 years or more. The author had a cancer treatment with serious and chronic side effects, and turned to alternative medicine for help.
Download or read book Approaching Ramakrishna written by Prabuddha Bharata Compilation and published by Advaita Ashrama (A publication branch of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math). This book was released on with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sri Ramakrishna is an ocean in whose heart the universe is nestled like an island. Awed by the expanse of infinite depth around, we in the universe constantly try to perceive this personality in our own way. Our perception is unique every time as is the knowledge we obtain thereby. Approaching Ramakrishna becomes our prayer to the supreme reality. Published by Advaita Ashrama, a publication house of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math, India in commemoration of the 175th Birth Anniversary of Sri Ramakrishna.
Download or read book Uniqueness of the Ramakrishna Incarnation and Other Essays written by Bhuteshananda Swami and published by Advaita Ashrama (A publication branch of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math). This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the long tenure of his spiritual ministry, Swami Bhuteshananda, the 12th President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, delivered discourses at various places both in India and abroad in response to the earnest requests of spiritual seekers. Published by Advaita Ashrama, a publication house of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math, this book is a compilation of forty-one of these discourses classified under the following major headings: - Sri Ramakrishna - Vedanta and Spiritual Life - Religion - Miscellaneous - Reminiscences
Download or read book Ramakrishna Miscellany A Comparative Study written by Narasingha P. Sil and published by Ústav orientalistiky SAV. This book was released on 2017-12-31 with total page 5 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahaṁsa’s (1836-86) reputation as a Tāntrika in view of his being a priest of the Kālī temple at the village of Dakshineshvar in the northern suburb of Calcutta, this study posits that his piety had deep roots in Bengal Vaiṣṇavism (cult of Viṣṇu) at large and in the devotional tradition of his family. His family deity Lord Raghuvῑra (Lord Rāma) was considered as an incarnation of the Vedic-Purāṇic God Viṣṇu and thus a Vaiṣṇava deity by extension. This counter thesis on the saint’s religious identity is supported by an analysis of his emphasis on bhakti [devotion] for and biśvās [faith] in God. My analysis is predicated on a comparison of Rāmakṛṣṇa with two religious reformers of the sixteenth century: the Bengali saint Śrīcaitanya (1486-1533), founder of bhakti movement in Bengal and the German monk Martin Luther (1483-1546), the intellectual child of the twin movements of Humanism and Devotio Moderna, and the progenitor of the so-called Protestant movement that foregrounded fiducia [faith] as the highway to divine grace. Rāmakṛṣṇa’s imitation of Caitanyite Vaiṣṇavism, and thus his reliance on devotion and faith appear almost similar to Luther’s reliance on a merciful and yet a just God through fides [turst or biśvās]. Such a cross-cultural comparative study has not been attempted by any other scholar. Rāmakṛṣṇa’s Vaiṣṇava orientation also helps us understand his sexuality. The currently influential construction of a homoerotic Tāntrika Rāmakṛṣṇa is countered by exploring the fundamental convergence between the Hindu concept of prema and the Christian concept of agape or caritas—both standing for love for, as well as love of, God. Admittedly, there are marked differences among the three religious personalities, particularly between Rāmakṛṣṇa and Luther. Both are radically different personalities in respect of their cultural background, social outlook, and theological consciousness, especially in their understanding of human-divine relationship. Luther’s Judeo-Christian conception of God as an absolutely sovereign and yet a merciful deity is markedly different from Rāmakṛṣṇa’s Vaiṣṇavic image of God as a loving and playful companion of the devotee. Yet their spiritual experiences in their quest for the divine show a similar reliance on faith and devotion. I also discuss the interface between sexual and spiritual consciousness in Rāmakṛṣṅa’s life and teachings, especially because of his Tāntrika identity in the West. The understanding of Tantra as an esoteric cult indulging in clandestine carnal orgies has dovetailed into the saint’s imagined “unconscious” homoerotic desires and behaviors. This comparative exercise thus seeks to achieve the author’s dual objective of foregrounding Rāmakṛṣṇa’s innate Vaiṣṇavic consciousness that is close to Luther’s Protestant faith and to deconstruct the former’s homoerotic profile by interpreting his sexuality in the context of his culture and creed. Needless to mention, I use vernacular sources on Rāmakṣṇa throughout with my own translation. This has the unique advantage of getting at the facts as recorded by the actors personally or perceived and experienced by the contemporaries and eyewitnesses directly.
Download or read book Goddess Kali God Thoughts Sri Sri Ramakrishna and A Few Slices of Sri Sri Ramakrishna s Soul Introducing SoulOlogy written by Dr. Siddhartha Ganguli and published by Allied Publishers. This book was released on 2024-05-11 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hinduism is a polytheistic religion. For the Hindus, Goddess Kali is the only austere, down-to-earth deity who believes in absolute simplicity and openness. She does not hide her body; she is naked with her private parts covered by a garland of severed hands of demons slain by her. Her mind is overt as she sticks out her tongue representing her thirst for the blood of evil people whom she is determined to overpower and also her feeling of shame. Her soul yearns for pure and authentic love. She is unlike other Hindu goddesses who are opulently dressed and majestically ornamented. Kali’s child, God incarnate Sri Sri Ramakrishna, like his mother goddess is casual not only about his dress but also about his worshipping habits. This book looks at Ramakrishna, his method of devotion, his yearning for the goddess, and his value system and entire philosophy. It analyses the Hindu Saint’s soul and its slices that he had shared and still continues to share, even today—long after he left this planet, with those who understand him thoroughly and are meant to propagate his message. The author’s method of analysis and treatment of the subject are unique as no other Kali or Ramakrishna scholar had used for their probes earlier.
Download or read book Christopher and His Kind written by Christopher Isherwood and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An indispensable memoir by one of the most prominent writers of his generation Originally published in 1976, Christopher and His Kind covers the most memorable ten years in the writer's life—from 1928, when Christopher Isherwood left England to spend a week in Berlin and decided to stay there indefinitely, to 1939, when he arrived in America. His friends and colleagues during this time included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and E. M. Forster, as well as colorful figures he met in Germany and later fictionalized in his two Berlin novels—and who appeared again, fictionalized to an even greater degree, in I Am a Camera and Cabaret. What most impressed the first readers of this memoir, however, was the candor with which he describes his life in gay Berlin of the 1930s and his struggles to save his companion, a German man named Heinz, from the Nazis. An engrossing and dramatic story and a fascinating glimpse into a little-known world, Christopher and His Kind remains one of Isherwood's greatest achievements.
Download or read book Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality written by Ayon Maharaj and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sri Ramakrishna is widely known as a nineteenth-century Indian mystic who affirmed the harmony of all religions on the basis of his richly varied spiritual experiences and eclectic religious practices, both Hindu and non-Hindu. In Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality, Ayon Maharaj argues that Sri Ramakrishna was also a sophisticated philosopher of great contemporary relevance. Through a careful study of Sri Ramakrishna's recorded oral teachings in the original Bengali, Maharaj reconstructs his philosophical positions and analyzes them from a cross-cultural perspective. Sri Ramakrishna's spiritual journey culminated in the exalted state of "vijñana," his term for the "intimate knowledge" of God as the Infinite Reality that is both personal and impersonal, with and without form, immanent in the universe and beyond it. This expansive spiritual standpoint of vijñana, Maharaj contends, opens up a new paradigm for addressing central issues in cross-cultural philosophy of religion, including divine infinitude, religious pluralism, mystical experience, and the problem of evil. Sri Ramakrishna's vijñana-based religious pluralism--when grasped in all its subtlety--proves to have major philosophical advantages over dominant Western models. Moreover, his mystical testimony and teachings not only cut across long-standing debates about the nature of mystical experience but also bolster recent defenses of its epistemic value. Maharaj further demonstrates that Sri Ramakrishna's unique response to the problem of evil resonates strongly with Western "soul-making" theodicies and contemporary theories of skeptical theism. A pioneering interdisciplinary study of one of India's most important philosopher-mystics, Maharaj's book is essential reading for scholars and students in philosophy of religion, theology, religious studies, and Hindu studies.
Download or read book Sri Ramakrishna Life and Teachings written by Swami Tapasyananda and published by Sri Ramakrishna Math. This book was released on 2021-09-04 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a short life and select teachings of modern Indian prophet Sri Ramakrishna whose life is a story of religion in practice that enables us to see God face to face. His life was one of constant communion with the divine. The author has presented in an original and striking way a biographical narrative of Sri Ramakrishna, interspersing it with detailed analysis of his deep spiritual states. The book, therefore, serves as an excellent interpretation of the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, for both devotees and scholars.
Download or read book Eurasian Philosophy and Quantum Metaphysics written by Juan Valdez and published by Dorrance Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 918 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eurasian Philosophy and Quantum Metaphysics (Theology Reconsidered) By: Juan Valdez The science of our modern age is able to neither address nor solve our current global problems. Author Juan Valdez believes we should study humanity’s ancient wisdom and philosophy texts to develop a new intellectual paradigm that can respond and support our current needs. Eurasian Philosophy and Quantum Metaphysics (Theology Reconsidered) is an in-depth study of the origins and meanings of ancient philosophies before they were fractured into mythology and religions and attacked by modern science. Beginning with creation mythology in Eurasia through the development of philosophical thought, to the Scientific Revolution to our own modern Quantum Era, the progression – and abandonment – of ancient wisdom is carefully studied. Valdez reviews and analyzes the ancient texts themselves to understand what they truly say and not what later historians have said about them. The Indo-Aryan Vedas, the Torah, Rene Descartes’ Discourse on the Method and Principles of Philosophy, Neils Bohr’s Atomic Theory, and more, are all respectfully and critically assessed. As enlightened as we may consider ourselves, Valdez calls attention to how limited modern thought has become. By reviewing past wisdom, we can not only rediscover the roots of modern thought but place Wisdom itself at the top of intellectual pursuits. Eurasian Philosophy and Quantum Metaphysics (Theology Reconsidered) is a rich and nuanced study on how humanity has thought of itself.
Download or read book Indian and Western Philosophical Concepts in Religion written by Pankaj Jain and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-12-19 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophical concepts are influential in the theories and methods to study the world religions. Even though the disciplines of anthropology and religious studies now encompass communities and cultures across the world, the theories and methods used to study world religions and cultures continue to be rooted in Western philosophies. For instance, one of the most widely used textbooks used in introductory courses on religious studies, introduces major theoreticians such as Edward Burnett Tylor, James Frazer, Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Mircea Eliade, William James, E. E. Evans-Pritchard, and Clifford Geertz. Their theories are based on Western philosophy. In contrast, in Indic philosophical systems, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism, one of the common views on reality is that the world both within one self and outside is a flow with nothing permanent, both the observer and the observed undergoing constant transformation. This volume is based on such innovative ideas coming from different Indic philosophies and how they can enrich the theory and methods in religious studies.
Download or read book A Portrait of Sri Ramakrishna written by Akshaẏakumāra Sena and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 896 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ramakrishna, 1836-1886, Hindu religious leader from Bengal.
Download or read book Modern Indian Interpreters of the Bhagavad Gita written by Robert N. Minor and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1986-09-30 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 the thinkers and identify common themes which are part of modern emphases.
Download or read book Hindu Mission Christian Mission written by Reid B. Locklin and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2024-05-01 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For some four hundred years, Hindus and Christians have been engaged in a public controversy about conversion and missionary proselytization, especially in India and the Hindu diaspora. Hindu Mission, Christian Mission reframes this controversy by shifting attention from "conversion" to a wider, interreligious study of "mission" as a category of thought and practice. Comparative theologian Reid B. Locklin traces the emergence of the nondualist Hindu teaching of Advaita Vedānta as a missionary tradition, from the eighth century to the present day, and draws this tradition into dialogue with contemporary proposals in Christian missiology. As a descriptive study of the Chinmaya Mission, the Ramakrishna Mission, and other leading Advaita mission movements, Hindu Mission, Christian Mission contributes to a growing body of scholarship on transnational Hinduism. As a speculative work of Christian comparative theology, it develops key themes from this engagement for a new, interreligious theology of mission and conversion for the twenty-first century and beyond.
Download or read book Encountering Kali written by Rachel Fell McDermott and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishe. This book was released on 2005 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encountering Kali explores one of the most ramarkable divinities the world has seen. The Hindu goddess Kali is simultaneously understood as a blood thirsty warrior a deity of ritual possession a tantric sexual partner and an all loving compassionate mothe. Popular and scholarly interest in her has been on the rise in the west in recent years. Responding to this phenomenon McDermott and Kripal`s volume focuses on the complexities involved in interpreting Kali in both her indigenous south Asian settings and her more recent Western incarnation. Through the shifting lenses of scriptural history temple architecture political reflection and the goddess`s recent guises on the Internet the contributors pose questions that illuminate our understanding of Kali while addressing the problems and promises inherent in every act of cross cultural interpretation.
Download or read book American Veda written by Philip Goldberg and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating look at India’s remarkable impact on Western culture, this eye-opening popular history shows how the ancient philosophy of Vedanta and the mind-body methods of Yoga have profoundly affected the worldview of millions of Americans and radically altered the religious landscape. What exploded in the 1960s, following the Beatles trip to India for an extended stay with their new guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, actually began more than two hundred years earlier, when the United States started importing knowledge--as well as tangy spices and colorful fabrics--from Asia. The first translations of Hindu texts found their way into the libraries of John Adams and Ralph Waldo Emerson. From there the ideas spread to Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and succeeding generations of receptive Americans, who absorbed India’s “science of consciousness” and wove it into the fabric of their lives. Charismatic teachers like Swami Vivekananda and Paramahansa Yogananda came west in waves, prompting leading intellectuals, artists, and scientists such as Aldous Huxley, Joseph Campbell, Allen Ginsberg, J. D. Salinger, John Coltrane, Dean Ornish, and Richard Alpert, aka Ram Dass, to adapt and disseminate what they learned from them. The impact has been enormous, enlarging our current understanding of the mind and body and dramatically changing how we view ourselves and our place in the cosmos. Goldberg paints a compelling picture of this remarkable East-to-West transmission, showing how it accelerated through the decades and eventually moved from the counterculture into our laboratories, libraries, and living rooms. Now physicians and therapists routinely recommend meditation, words like karma and mantra are part of our everyday vocabulary, and Yoga studios are as ubiquitous as Starbuckses. The insights of India’s sages permeate so much of what we think, believe, and do that they have redefined the meaning of life for millions of Americans—and continue to do so every day. Rich in detail and expansive in scope, American Veda shows how we have come to accept and live by the central teaching of Vedic wisdom: “Truth is one, the wise call it by many names.”
Download or read book Teaching Mysticism written by William B. Parsons and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-12-16 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The term ''mysticism'' has never been consistently defined or employed, either in religious traditions or in academic discourse. The essays in this volume offer ways of defining what mysticism is, as well as methods for grappling with its complexity in a classroom. This volume addresses the diverse literature surrounding mysticism in four interrelated parts. The first part includes essays on the tradition and context of mysticism, devoted to drawing out and examining the mystical element in many religious traditions. The second part engages traditions and religio-cultural strands in which ''mysticism'' is linked to other terms, such as shamanism, esotericism, and Gnosticism. The volume's third part focuses on methodological strategies for defining ''mysticism,'' with respect to varying social spaces. The final essays show how contemporary social issues and movements have impacted the meaning, study, and pedagogy of mysticism. Teaching Mysticism presents pedagogical reflections on how best to communicate mysticism from a variety of institutional spaces. It surveys the broad range of meanings of mysticism, its utilization in the traditions, the theories and methods that have been used to understand it, and provides critical insight into the resulting controversies.
