Download or read book Sufi Meditation and Contemplation written by Scott Kugle and published by Suluk Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sufi Meditation and Contemplation offers fresh translations of three classic Sufi texts from Mughal India: The Alms Bowl of Shaykh Kalimullah Shajehanabadi, The Compass of Truth by Dara Shikoh, and the Treatise on the Human Body attributed to Mu'in al-Din Chishti. These texts elucidate meditation practices and the resulting effects. All three come from the Mughal era in India, which witnessed a flowering of Sufism in innovative personalities, diverse mystical orders and bold literary expressions."Meditation is the way to instill the values in the heart, to such a depth that the heart itself is transformed. The heart then is not merely an organ in the body, and is not just on's own personal center; when properly activated through meditation, the heart opens up to reveal the very presence of God with one and with all. To find this state of loving intimacy is the advice of the Qur'an when it says, "So remember me, that I may remember you." And according to Sufi teachings, to meditate and contemplate is the way to draw God down to you and to allow yourself to be lifted up toward God." - from the foreword by Scott Kugle
Download or read book Meditation and Communion with God written by John Jefferson Davis and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2012-08-02 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Jefferson Davis summons the resources of traditional biblical meditation for a culture lost in the cloud. He establishes the trinitarian view of God's real presence in Scripture and then ushers readers through three successive stages of meditation--consummating in a method for deep assimilation of the Christian worldview.
Download or read book The Practice of the Presence of God written by Brother Lawrence and published by BEYOND BOOKS HUB. This book was released on 2024-02-12 with total page 3 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Practice of the Presence of God is a spiritual classic written by Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century Carmelite monk. This small but impactful work is a compilation of letters and conversations attributed to Brother Lawrence, offering profound insights into cultivating a continuous awareness of the presence of God in everyday life.
Download or read book Meditation and the Classroom written by Judith Simmer-Brown and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meditation and the Classroom inventively articulates how educators can use meditation to educate the whole student. Notably, a number of universities have initiated contemplative studies options and others have opened contemplative spaces. This represents an attempt to address the inner life. It is also a sign of a new era, one in which the United States is more spiritually diverse than ever before. Examples from university classrooms and statements by students indicate benefits include increased self-awareness, creativity, and compassion. The religious studies scholars who have contributed to this book often teach about meditation, but here they include reflections on how meditation has affected them and their teaching. Until recently, though, even many religious studies professors would find sharing meditation experiences, let alone teaching meditation techniques, a breach of disciplinary and academic protocols. The value of teaching meditation and teaching about meditation is discussed. Ethical issues such as pluralism, respect, qualifications, power and coercion, and avoiding actual or perceived proselytization are also examined. While methods for religious studies are emphasized, the book provides valuable guidance for all those interested in this endeavor.
Download or read book Contemplative Literature written by Louis Komjathy and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2015-08-31 with total page 850 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthology of primary texts on meditation and contemplative prayer from a wide range of religious traditions. This is the first theoretically informed and historically accurate comparative anthology of primary texts on meditation and contemplative prayer. Written by international experts on the respective texts and corresponding traditions, Contemplative Literature provides introductions to and primary sources on contemplative practice from various religious traditions. The contributors explore classical Daoist apophatic meditation, Quaker silent prayer, Jewish Kabbalah, Southern Buddhist meditation, Sufi contemplation, Eastern Orthodox prayer, Pure Land Buddhist visualization, Hindu classical Yoga, Dominican Catholic prayer, Daoist internal alchemy, and modern therapeutic meditation. Each introduction to a contemplative text discusses its historical context, the associated religious tradition and literature, the method of contemplative practice, and the texts legacy and influence. Volume editor Louis Komjathy opens the work with a thoughtful consideration of interpretive issues in the emerging interdisciplinary field of contemplative studies. Readers will gain not only a nuanced understanding of important works of contemplative literature, but also resources for understanding contemplative practice and contemplative experience from a comparative and cross-cultural perspective. We have not seen anything this bold and this global since Friedrich Heiler wrote his classic study on the typology of prayer over eighty years ago. Komjathy and his essayists have vastly expanded the scope, depth, and sophistication of this project here. In the process, they have struggled with all of the critical questions around religious pluralism, tradition, and religious authority, and have emboldened the comparative project itself. Contemplation and comparison, it turns out, go very well together. Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of Comparing Religions: Coming to Terms Teachers and scholars, undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers interested in contemplative practice will cherish a book like this. Im happy that Louis Komjathy has done this great work. It will undoubtedly be hailed as a milestone. Ruben L. F. Habito, author of Healing Breath: Zen for Christians and Buddhists in a Wounded World
Download or read book Insight Dialogue written by Gregory Kramer and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2007-09-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Insight Dialogue is a way of bringing the tranquility and insight attained in meditation directly into your interactions with other people. It’s a practice that involves interacting with a partner in a retreat setting or on your own, as a way of accessing a profound kind of insight. Then, you take that insight on into the grind of everyday human interactions. Gregory Kramer has been teaching the practice (which he originated) for more than a decade in retreats around the world. It’s something strikingly new in the world of Buddhist practice—yet it’s completely grounded in traditional Buddhist teaching. Kramer begins with a detailed presentation of the central Buddhist teaching of the Four Noble Truths seen through an interpersonal lens. Because dukkha (suffering or unsatisfactoriness) is often most forcefully felt in our relations with others, interpersonal relationships are a wonderfully useful place to practice. He breaks the Noble Truths down into component parts to observe how they manifest particularly in relationship to others, using examples from his own life and practice, as well as from his students’. He then goes on to present the practice as it’s taught in his workshops and retreats. There are a few basic steps to the practice, deceptively simple to describe: (1) pause, (2) relax, (3) open, (4) trust emergence, (5) listen deeply, and (6) speak the truth. The sequence begins following a period of meditation, and includes periods of speaking, listening, and mutual silence. Kramer includes numerous examples of people’s experience with the practice from his retreats, and shows how the insight gained from the techniques can be brought into real life. More than just testimonials for how well the practice "works," the personal stories demonstrate the problems that arise, the different routes the practice can follow, and the sometimes surprising insights that are gained.
Download or read book The Contemplative Rosary with St John Paul II and St Teresa of Avila written by Dan Burke and published by Ewtn Publishing. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Includes the National Catholic Register's new guide to the rosary.
Download or read book Into the Silent Land written by Martin Laird and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-07-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sitting in stillness, the practice of meditation, and the cultivation of awareness are commonly thought to be the preserves of Hindus and Buddhists. Martin Laird shows that the Christian tradition of contemplation has its own refined teachings on using a prayer word to focus the mind, working with the breath to cultivate stillness, and the practice of inner vigilance or awareness. But this book is not a mere historical survey of these teachings. In Into the Silent Land, we see the ancient wisdom of both the Christian East and West brought sharply to bear on the modern-day longing for radical openness to God in the depths of the heart. Laird's book is not like the many presentations for beginners. While useful for those just starting out, this book serves especially as a guide for those who desire to journey yet deeper into the silence of God. The heart of the book focuses on negotiating key moments of struggle on the contemplative path, when the whirlwind of distractions or the brick wall of boredom makes it difficult to continue. Laird shows that these inner struggles, even wounds, that any person of prayer must face, are like riddles, trying to draw out of us our own inner silence. Ultimately Laird shows how the wounds we loathe become vehicles of the healing silence we seek, beyond technique and achievement. Throughout the language is fresh, direct, and focused on real-life examples of people whose lives are incomparably enriched by the practice of contemplation.
Download or read book What Is Contemplation written by Thomas Merton and published by Ravenio Books. This book was released on 1978 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are so many Christians who do not appreciate the magnificent dignity of their vocation to sanctity, to the knowledge, love and service of God. There are so many Christians who do not realize what possibilities God has placed in the life of Christian perfection — what possibilities for joy in the knowledge and love of Him. There are so many Christians who have practically no idea of the immense love of God for them, and of the power of that Love to do them good, to bring them happiness. Why do we think of the gift of contemplation, infused contemplation, mystical prayer, as something essentially strange and esoteric reserved for a small class of almost unnatural beings and prohibited to everyone else? It is perhaps because we have forgotten that contemplation is the work of the Holy Ghost acting on our souls through His gifts of Wisdom and Understanding with special intensity to increase and perfect our love for Him. These gifts are part of the normal equipment of Christian sanctity. They are given to all in Baptism, and if they are given it is presumably because God wants them to be developed. Their development will always remain the free gift of God and it is true that His wise Providence sees fit to develop them less in some saints than in others. But it is also true that God often measures His gifts by our desire to receive them, and by our cooperation with His grace, and the Holy Spirit will not waste any of His gifts on people who have little or no interest in them.
Download or read book The Cloud of Unknowing written by Anonymous and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Opening to God written by David G. Benner and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2010-09-03 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most Christians want to experience spiritual transformation. But many are frustrated by the limited progress of our spiritual self-improvement efforts. We find our praying burdened by a sense of obligation and failure. But prayer is not merely something we do; prayer is what God does in us. Prayer is not just communication with God; it is communion with God. As we open ourselves to him, God does the spiritual work of transformation in us. Spiritual director David Benner invites us to discover openness to God as the essence of prayer, spirituality and the Christian life. Prayer is far more than saying words to God; all of life can be prayer when offered to God in faith and with openness. Using the four movements of lectio divina, Benner explores prayer as attending, pondering, responding and being. Along the way he opens us to a world of possibilities for communion with God: praying with our senses, with imagination, with music and creativity, in contemplation, in service and much more. Learn how prayer can be a way of living your life. Move beyond words to become not merely someone who prays, but someone whose entire life is prayer in union with God.
Download or read book The Jesus Meditations written by Michael Kennedy and published by Crossroad. This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Jesus Meditations" is rooted in the meditation custom known as visualization. The powerful voice of Martin Sheen setting the scene and reading Kennedy's meditations on the companion CD can aid readers in their use of this process.
Download or read book A Course in Christian Mysticism written by Thomas Merton and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Merton's lectures to the young monastics at the Abbey of Gethsemani provide a good look at Merton the scholar. A Course in Christian Mysticism gathers together, for the first time, the best of these talks into a spiritual, historical, and theological survey of Christian mysticism--from St. John's gospel to St. John of the Cross. Sixteen centuries are covered over thirteen lectures. A general introduction sets the scene for when and how the talks were prepared and for the perennial themes one finds in them, making them relevant for spiritual seekers today. This compact volume allows anyone to learn from one of the twentieth century's greatest Catholic spiritual teachers. The study materials at the back of the book, including additional primary source readings and thoughtful questions for reflection and discussion, make this an essential text for any student of Christian mysticism.
Download or read book Morning Contemplation written by Osho and published by NewLeaf. This book was released on 1995 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A day-by-day selection of words and contemplations by Osho, for morning meditation for one month. Osho was a 20th-century mystic who wrote over 600 books and whose ashram in Poona is a centre for rest and meditation.
Download or read book The Way of Perfection written by Teresa of Avila and published by Whitaker House. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A tireless communicator of the gospel…[Teresa of Ávila] opens new horizons for us, she calls us to a great undertaking, to see the world with the eyes of Christ, to seek what He seeks and to love what He loves.” —Pope Francis Although Teresa of Ávila lived five centuries ago, her superbly inspiring classic on the practice of prayer is as fresh and meaningful today as it was when she first wrote it. Teresa’s strong desire throughout is to lead readers into a deeper and prevailing life of prayer. She begins with a treatment of the three essentials of the prayer-filled life—fraternal love, detachment from created things, and authentic humility. Building on that foundation, she then teaches on the cherished practices of prayer and contemplation. Finally, she provides a detailed and moving discourse on the Lord’s Prayer. Experience the fervent devotion of St. Teresa, and allow her to help you explore the rewarding discipline of contemplative prayer.
Download or read book Christian Meditation written by Paul Turner Harris and published by . This book was released on 1996-05 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Valley of Vision written by Arthur Bennett and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
