Originally published in France in 1969 and in America in 1972 and again in 1995, To Live Within is a thoughtful, beautifully written record of Lizelle Reymond’s five years spent in a hermitage in Northern India. Reymond studied with guide and mentor Shri Anirvan, a master of the ancient Samkhya tradition. As presented to Reymond, Samkhya is a source teaching previously unknown in the West and universally relevant regardless of one’s tradition or cultural background. Anirvan’s teachings of this discipline centered (...) on the concentrated purity of silence that nourishes the Self, allowing his pupil to achieve an unfettered understanding of her life and achieve an inner awakening. In five parts, the book covers Reymond’s life in the Himalayan hermitage; lessons for a spiritual life; facing reality; rambling thoughts; and mystic poetry of the Bauls. This new edition contains two additional chapters drawn from Reymond's lifelong correspondence with Shri Anirvan after the retreat. (shrink)

From a rebellious young woman with a dangerous heroin habit to a globe-trotting fashion model to “First Lady of Yoga” (The New York Times), Colleen Saidman Yee tells the remarkable story of how she found herself through the healing power of yoga—and then inspired others to do the same. I’ve learned how to extract the beauty of an ordinary day. I’ve learned that the best high exists in the joy—or the sadness—of the present moment. Yoga allows me to surf the (...) ripples and sit with the mud, while catching glimpses of the clarity of my home at the bottom of the lake: my true self. The very first time Saidman Yee took a yoga class, she left feeling inexplicably different—something inside had shifted. She felt alive—so alive that yoga became the center of her life, helping her come to terms with her insecurities and find her true identity and voice. From learning to cope with a frightening seizure disorder to navigating marriages and divorces to becoming a mother, finding the right life partner, and grieving a beloved parent, Saidman Yee has been through it all—and has found that yoga holds the answers to life’s greatest challenges. Approachable, sympathetic, funny, and candid, Saidman Yee shares personal anecdotes along with her compassionate insights and practical instructions for applying yoga to everyday issues and anxieties. Specific yoga sequences accompany each chapter and address everything from hormonal mood swings to detoxing, depression, stress, and increased confidence and energy. Step-by-step instructions and photographs demonstrate her signature flow of poses so you can follow them effortlessly. Yoga for Life offers techniques to bring awareness to every part of your physical and spiritual being, allowing you to feel truly alive and to embody the peace of the present moment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 31-46 [Access article in PDF] Remedying Globalization and Consumerism: Joining the Inner and Outer Journeys in "Perfect Balance" Judith Simmer-Brown Naropa University One hundred forty years ago, Abraham Lincoln wrote in a prophetic voice: I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.... Corporations have been enthroned and an era (...) of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. 1As the global economy has grown and the economic gap between the poor nations and the rich nations has become enormous, we are realizing Lincoln's nightmare.Globalization has effects more devastating than Lincoln could have imagined. What do we mean by globalization? The president of Nabisco once defined it as "a world of homogeneous consumption." 2 It is a world in which everyone, no matter what latitude or longitude, eats the same food, wears the same clothing, and derives pleasure from the same entertainment. It is the world of McDonald's, Holiday Inn, James Bond movies, Nike shoes, and Coca-Cola. Noam Chomsky, in a lecture at Boston College, described globalization as the "new face of capitalism." 3 It is a network of power centered in corporate interests and financial institutions that controls the flow of capital in order to promote the financial interests of those in power to the detriment of all others. The strategies of globalization have to do with centralizing all power in financial interest, reducing all value to money, and subsuming governments to the interests of the corporations. According to Chomsky, the strategies employed by the transnational network are designed to consolidate this control:Buy the executive branch of the states involved;Own the legislative branch through lobbyists, campaign contributions, and term extensions, or whatever else may work; [End Page 31]Set the conditions in which policy is determined, asserting the power of global capital;Control the doctrine and information systems, especially to invent new needs in order to bolster a culture of fashionable consumption. 4The players in this transnational network reside in the wealthy countries of the world, especially the governments of the G8, and most especially the United States. The global dominance of the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization is funded by U.S. dollars funneled to them by the network. Yet this capital is not really exchange of cash; instead, it is speculation. Chomsky commented: In the last twenty-five years, there has been a huge explosion of financial institutions and financial capital, most of it speculative, with little actual capital in the economy. The flow of capital is $1.5 trillion per day, very little of it productive. Ninety-five percent of it is destructive and speculative. The return time on investments is very rapid; eighty percent has a return time of a week, and often it is less than a day. This daily flow of capital in international markets is twice the total foreign exchange of all states together. This concentrated power is interlinked, determining states' decisions. 5States are no longer autonomous agents; transnational economic interests have taken precedence over national sovereignty, regional power, and military concerns.The impact on developing countries and rural economies is devastating. The global monoculture is eradicating cultural diversity, replacing locally adapted forms of production with industrial systems divorced from natural cycles. Agriculture has become centrally managed and chemically dependent, delivering a narrower range of transportable foods to the international market. This, of course, robs the vitality of local communities and moves a greater proportion of villagers into urban life, creating megalopolises. Because everyone becomes dependent upon the same resources, "globalization creates efficiency for corporations, but it also creates artificial scarcity for consumers, thus heightening competitive pressures.... Globalization means the undermining of the livelihoods and cultural identities of the majority of the world's peoples." 6... (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to explore the in-depth understanding of participants' journeys from helplessness to resilience and post-traumatic growth during COVID-19. The participants’ experiences are taken into consideration and examined in depth. To do so, we employ a phenomenological methodology which is concerned particularly with individual experiences and is exploratory. 90 participants (17 males, 72 females, and the other 1, aged 18-52) were invited to participate in the survey with two self-report questions. The participants’ levels of education include: (...) graduate (n=66), postgraduate (n=18), college (n=1), and others (n=3) were willingly shared their experiences focusing on two self-report questions on personal diaries and 1) Naming an incident during the COVID-19 pandemic that has impacted you? 2) What is your greatest support to overcome adversity during the pandemic? We found four key themes: (1) feelings of helplessness, including confusion, meaninglessness, and disconnection; (2)Theme 2: Finding Inner Strength and Personal Resources (e.g., awareness of self-efficacy ); (3) Theme 3: Having Family and Community Support (e,g., appreciation of others, ability for adaptation); and (4) Theme 4: Belief in the Divine Presence (e.g., attunement to priorities). These findings offer valuable implications for the field of Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture. (shrink)

How do our personalities and mental processes, our " states of consciousness" , derive from a gray mass of tissue with the consistency of a soft-boiled egg? How can mere molecules constitute an idea or emotion? Some of the most important questions we can ask are about our own consciousness. Our personalities, our individuality, indeed our whole reason for living, lie in the brain and in the elusive phenomenon of consciousness it generates. Thinkers in many disciplines have long struggled with (...) such questions, often in ways that have seemed incompatible, if not downright contradictory. Philosophers have meditated on the subjective experience of consciousness, with little attention to the physical realm, while scientists have sought to establish a causal relation between brain function and mind, often ignoring the qualitative aspects of experience. In Journey to the Centers of the Mind, neuroscientist Susan Greenfield offers an intriguing, unifying theory of consciousness that encompasses both phenomenological mental events and physical aspects of brain function. Using information gathered from clues in animal behavior, human brain damage, computer science, neurobiology, and philosophy, Greenfield offers a " concentric theory" of consciousness, and shows how certain events in the brain correspond to our qualitative experience of the world. Demonstrating the ways in which we can interpret the experience of consciousness in terms of interactions among neurons, she explores how much we can learn by continuing to find the links between our physical and mental inner worlds. (shrink)

His is a journey marked by the questioning of experience itself, until what is reached is sovereign laughter, non-knowledge, and a Presence in no way distinct from Absence, where "The mind moves in a strange world where anguish and ecstasy ...

What if you could, like a diamond forged through heat and pressure, transform every painful, scary, and stressful experience in your life into one that is meaningful, courageous, and inspiring? What if you were provided with the tools that allow you to tap and manifest the true power that exists within you--the power to shine? Are you ready to discover your path to peace? In this fascinating book, Dr. Darren Weissman shares ancient spiritual wisdom fused with a modern-day understanding of (...) the mind's relationship to biology and behavior that has implications not only for your health, but for the well-being of the entire planet. You'll learn how to use The LifeLine Technique Ô --a philosophy and technology for awakening your infinite potential for healing and wholeness--and share the experiences of scores of people whose lives have been forever changed as a result. Conscious visionaries pronounced more than 40 years ago that the road to peace is paved with the power of love. Dr. Weissman's book provides the steps you can use to learn to walk that path, and it will help you understand why it is your moral imperative to choose love over fear. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Bodyheartminding” (xin 心): Reconceiving the Inner Self and the Outer World in the Language of Holographic Focus and FieldRoger T. Amesin body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics, Richard Shusterman expands upon a professional oeuvre in which his exploration of the phenomenon of “body consciousness” has effected nothing less than a somatic turn in the contemporary Western philosophical narrative.1 But his contribution does not end there. Over (...) the past two decades, the reach and influence of his “somaesthetics” has been extended to the gates of China. Indeed, it has become a theme engaged by scholars of China’s indigenous philosophical traditions, thus providing an opportunity for a further edifying conversation between the Chinese and Western philosophical traditions.2 And it is this conversation, as it has been inspired by Shusterman’s work, that I propose to join in this short essay.In Body Consciousness, Shusterman tells the story of how John Dewey advances the pragmatic project of not only understanding the body better, but indeed of applying the Alexander Technique as his way of using his own body properly.3 Just as Dewey has been a prominent resource for Shusterman in his development of somaesthetics, for Dewey in turn, it was William James’s Principles of Psychology that was a self-confessed inspiration for the development of his own evolving interpretation of pragmatism.4 Indeed, one way of reading Dewey’s philosophical career and his thirty-seven-volume opus is that it is a sustained effort to take the radical “stream-of-consciousness” insights developed in James’s Principles to their logical, systematic conclusion. In pursuing this project, while appreciative, Dewey is at times impatient with James’s dualistic lapses in which he continues to separate individuals from community, mind from body, emotions from intellect, agents from actions, and theory from practice. Dewey takes these unfortunate reversions to old ways of thinking as serving only to confound James’s holistic doctrines of pure experience and radical empiricism. Given Dewey’s own postulate of [End Page 100] immediate and continuous empiricism, one way of tracking his journey from having been inspired by James’s biological naturalism to achieving his own philosophical coherence is to register his unrelenting aversion to dualism in any form.But Dewey himself was not always consistent in this respect. Shusterman gives an account of the early neo-Hegelian Dewey who, affirming the familiar transcendent conception of soul we associate with idealism, unsurprisingly embraces a clear soul and body dualism. And in spite of the philosophically mature Dewey’s best efforts to think “process,” he has no choice but to use both a language and a grammar freighted with substance ontology that resists his more holistic insights. On occasion, even while trying to remain consistent in his thinking, Dewey seems to fall victim to terminology that if not dualistic is at best ambiguous. Dewey’s struggle against this problem of equivocation is particularly apparent in some of the language he appeals to in attempting to put the Humpty Dumpty of mind and body together again. In his effort to register the irreducible continuity and inseparability of the nonanalytic abstractions we differentiate as body and mind—the ontological givenness or “hadness” of “bodyminding”—Dewey still at times invokes terms such as “combination,” “integration,” “unity,” and so on, that take as their suppressed premise “two things becoming one.” By way of contrast, in the correlative vocabulary of Chinese process cosmology, expressions such as yinyang 陰陽, the natural/cultural and the human (tianren 天人), and knowing and doing (zhixing 知行), primacy is given to vital relationality and the continuity it entails. It is not putting two things together that is referenced with these binomials, but the deepening of the horizon of constitutive, internal relationships that transforms the two aspects of the same phenomenon qualitatively into harmonics (he 和) for yinyang, sagacity (sheng 聖) for tianren, and acting wisely (zhi 智) for zhixing. In each instance, the two aspects themselves are simply conceptual abstractions from a complex relational process. The proper and effective measure (du 度) sought in this Confucian cosmology is not quantitatively more or less of two distinct things—taking mind and body as our example—but rather a qualitative and transformative change that... (shrink)

Hermann Hesse's works often explore deep philosophical themes and the human quest for self-understanding and enlightenment. His writing draws heavily from Eastern philosophy, Jungian psychology, and Western existentialism, creating a rich tapestry of ideas that challenge and inspire readers. Hermann Hesse's philosophical exploration in his works offers profound insights into the human condition, emphasizing the importance of personal experience, the integration of dualities, and the interconnectedness of all life. His writings encourage readers to embark on their own journeys of self-discovery, (...) recognizing that enlightenment is a continuous, evolving process. Here, we'll examine some of the key philosophical elements present in his most famous works. -/- The Search for Self-Identity At the heart of Siddhartha is the quest for self-identity. Siddhartha's journey represents the human struggle to understand one's true self and purpose in life. This theme resonates with existentialist philosophy, which emphasizes the individual's responsibility to create meaning in an inherently meaningless world. Siddhartha's refusal to accept predefined paths and doctrines underscores the existentialist belief in the necessity of personal experience and authenticity in the search for self-identity. -/- 1. Siddhartha: The Quest for Authenticity In Siddhartha, the protagonist's journey is a vivid representation of the search for self-identity. From the outset, Siddhartha is dissatisfied with the conventional teachings and practices of his Brahmin upbringing. His quest for authenticity drives him to leave his home and explore various paths, including asceticism, sensual indulgence, and finally, a contemplative life by the river. Siddhartha's journey reflects existentialist themes, particularly the idea that true self-identity cannot be handed down through tradition or external teachings. Instead, it must be discovered through personal experience and introspection. This aligns with the existentialist notion that individuals must create their own essence through their actions and choices, rather than conforming to predefined roles or expectations. -/- 2. Steppenwolf: The Duality of the Self In Steppenwolf, Hesse delves into the complexities of self-identity through the character of Harry Haller. Harry is torn between his human side, which longs for connection and meaning, and his "wolf" side, which is driven by instinct and isolation. This inner conflict illustrates the duality inherent in human nature and the struggle to reconcile these opposing aspects. Hesse's exploration of Harry's psyche resonates with the Jungian concept of the individuation process, where the integration of the conscious and unconscious parts of the self leads to wholeness. Harry's journey is a quest for self-identity that involves confronting and accepting the darker, shadowy parts of his personality. This process of self-discovery is both painful and liberating, underscoring the idea that true self-identity emerges from embracing all facets of one's being. -/- 3. Demian: The Role of the Unconscious Demian is another key work in which Hesse explores the search for self-identity, focusing on the protagonist Emil Sinclair's journey toward self-realization. Guided by the enigmatic Max Demian, Sinclair learns to listen to his inner voice and question societal norms. The novel emphasizes the importance of the unconscious mind in the search for self-identity, drawing on Jungian psychology. Sinclair's experiences highlight the tension between conforming to societal expectations and following one's inner truth. His journey reflects the existentialist idea that individuals must break free from external constraints to discover their true selves. Hesse suggests that the path to self-identity involves a deep engagement with the unconscious mind and an acceptance of one's inner conflicts and desires. -/- ………………………………….. The Concept of Impermanence -/- One of the central philosophical concepts in Siddhartha is impermanence, a fundamental tenet of Buddhist philosophy. The novel illustrates the transient nature of all things, emphasizing that nothing in life is permanent or unchanging. Siddhartha's experiences with love, wealth, and asceticism teach him that attachment to transient phenomena leads to suffering. This aligns with the Buddhist teaching of Anicca, which posits that recognizing and accepting impermanence is essential for achieving enlightenment. -/- Siddhartha: The Transient Nature of Life In Siddhartha, Hesse’s exploration of impermanence is central to the protagonist’s spiritual journey. Siddhartha’s experiences reflect the Buddhist teaching of Anicca, which posits that all things are in a constant state of flux and that clinging to anything impermanent leads to suffering. -/- Throughout the novel, Siddhartha undergoes various transformations—from a Brahmin’s son to an ascetic, a lover, a merchant, and finally, a ferryman. Each phase of his life teaches him about the transient nature of existence. His realization that neither extreme asceticism nor indulgence provides lasting fulfillment underscores the futility of seeking permanence in an impermanent world. -/- The river, a recurring symbol in the novel, epitomizes the flow of life and the constant change inherent in all things. Siddhartha’s enlightenment comes when he embraces the river’s wisdom, understanding that true peace lies in accepting the impermanence of all experiences. -/- Steppenwolf: The Ephemeral Nature of Identity Steppenwolf delves into the theme of impermanence through the internal conflict of its protagonist, Harry Haller. Harry’s struggle with his dual nature—the civilized man and the untamed wolf—reflects the fluidity and transient nature of identity. Hesse portrays identity not as a fixed entity but as a dynamic interplay of opposing forces. -/- The novel’s surreal episodes, particularly in the Magic Theater, emphasize the impermanent nature of reality and the self. Harry’s experiences in the theater reveal the illusory and ever-changing aspects of his perceptions and identity. Hesse suggests that true self-understanding requires embracing the impermanence and multiplicity of one’s nature. -/- The Glass Bead Game: The Impermanence of Human Endeavors -/- In The Glass Bead Game, Hesse explores the impermanence of human knowledge and cultural achievements. The game itself, a complex intellectual synthesis of arts and sciences, represents the pinnacle of human endeavor. However, the novel’s setting in a distant future where the game’s origins and significance have been largely forgotten underscores the transient nature of all human creations. -/- The protagonist, Joseph Knecht, ultimately realizes that the pursuit of intellectual perfection through the game is insufficient for a meaningful life. His decision to leave the Order and experience the impermanent, unpredictable world outside reflects his acceptance of life’s impermanence. Knecht’s journey illustrates that true wisdom involves embracing the fleeting nature of human existence and engaging fully with the present moment. -/- Hesse’s exploration of impermanence invites readers to reflect on their own lives and the ways in which the recognition of life’s fleeting nature can lead to greater wisdom and fulfillment. By embracing the impermanence of all things, Hesse suggests, individuals can attain a deeper appreciation of the present moment and the interconnectedness of all experiences. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to reveal with an overall approach, how the psycho-social background, starting from woman image in first periods and reach modern day, is embraced by outstanding theorists of modern psychology, and also how these collected works are reflected in their definitions of woman. If it is considered that woman has been discussed with reflections against and not from primary sources throughout history, it can be seen that the most essential roots of woman narrations can be (...) found in oral culture and the parts of written texts are made over symbol, metaphor, proposition and story. However myths (stories) that take place in oral and partly written culture about primitive man, are sacred tales, they will also present data regarding human image. Therefore with a limited effort of human being to understand the infinite, it can be understood what human being think, feel and how they interpret rather than gods/goddesses ontology. From this point of view, this article that consists of two parts, first of all will mention especially about perception of Goddess in those reflected to image of God, maintaining its efficiency in conscious or unconscious as a system of symbols intrinsic to human nature and cultural code background and then the woman image will be roughly discussed with a descriptive style over the world of mythology, psychology and faith. In the second part, it will be examined in detail how all the written and oral information about understanding woman by modern anthropologists are interpreted with the perspective of modern psychology specific to theorists such as Freud, Jung and Fromm. Eventually, it will be emphasized that past and future are integrated with information, experience and feelings with an active relationship; perception and approach of woman have stayed up to date in time continually; mythology, psychology and religion are important factors within this matter.Summary: Human being has also used historical, temporal and spatial attributions for God. Infinite human being has expressed their thoughts about the finite God by analogy. Despite the dominance of male gender in the images of God in these analogies which are the products of human experience, female Gods that is to say Goddesses are not few. The matter of how the image of goddess come to the fore in a distinctly male-dominant society is a noteworthy matter. The narration of Earth Mother over female symbol in myths in which the harmony is constantly secured within the inner and exterior world and mention about living in harmony with the universe is an important data in order to understand female characteristics attributed to God. Human being has also used historical, temporal and spatial attributions for God. Infinite human being has expressed their thoughts about the finite God by analogy.The woman subject is influenced by transferred life experience within the historical process, and it is an undeniable fact that ancient “woman perception” has reflections to the present day. Within the history of humanity, striking definitions about woman can be seen in sacred statements in symbol language. Therefore, it is proper to examine primarily the image of sacred and then examine female meaning that is charged on that image. The aim of this study can be summed up with two themes: a) try to understand the general framework of reflections of the present image of woman, style of narration and comprehension in psychological, sociological, and religious terms by getting help from myths which mention about ancient image of God, although there is centuries old difference between those stories and us, b) reveal the image of woman in Freud, Jung, and Fromm’s approach which establishes a bond between mythology that is a system of symbols special to human nature and human psychology and discuss this subject by using psychology of religion.When reviewed ancient Far East and Middle East myths and also Ancient Greek mythology, it can be seen that gods are not cloistered supernatural beings who do not have abstract personalities and also do not lead a wholly metaphysic life. The crucial issue here is; the reality that Gods and Goddesses are shown as a model to both man and woman. Psychologists who examine religion in terms of psychology state that first outcomes about the image of God come up not with behavior but with emotion. The attributions of gender, related to the emotion in question are cited during the transfer of those emotions as well. Therefore; philosophers, culture and religion historians, theologians, anthropologists, archaeologists, psychologists, and sociologists have contributed to this transfer when they discuss the cult of God or Goddess throughout the history. It is interesting that the usage of the term of God maintains while the usage of the term of Goddess decreases. Civilization historians claim that the appearance of divine religions particularly quickens the course of transition from goddess to god. According to them, during this period in which there is a transfer from polytheist image of God to monotheist image of God, the quantitative change in the perception of God comes with a qualitative change. According to Fromm, during this power gathering period, there has been a transfer from mother and feminine (woman) centered religion to father and masculine (man) centered religious experience/ God image. According to him, in the second stage of humanity development, “the children of Earth Mother turn into the children of divine father”, there is a transition from unconditional love of mother to authoritarian sympathy of father, from an image of supplemental and surrounding Goddess to authoritarian image of God who makes requests by his nature, lays down principles and laws, and supports the power and search for a successor to deliver the power.The perception of women who led to Prophet Adam deviated from the truth and expelled from heaven is spread around especially the regions of one-God religions. This has strengthened the idea that divine religions have a negative view towards women. Including Islam, the reason of all divine religions’ encountering with claims that they have a negative approach against woman stem from applying to that religions’ human resources rather than essential religious sources which are existing or lost earliest forms.Oedipus complex is an important thesis of Freud which explains the development of religion and morals; establish the base of his psychology, and in fact, important in terms of his making connection with difference of kinds and flow or non-flow of request and needs while explaining human behaviors. According to Freud who points to sexuality and aggression which are the most powerful two instinct in the biology of male or female; the first three or five years of a newly born human- this is the period in which the basic part of personality is formed- the definition of self is extremely influenced by his/her gender (in both biological and sociocultural terms). Freud who put forward father-son conflict in the struggle to survive between Zeus and his sons in Moses and Monotheism (1998c) and Totem and Taboo (1998a), makes an explanation about the origin of religion and humanity over two male characters. Jung pays attention to goddess image as much as the image of god and do not approach this situation only as a polytheism or sociocultural explanation or childish appearances of a primitive mind. He accepts goddesses as a reflection of archetypes in human. Male has a feminine side, female has a masculine side, and a unity occurs when both complete each other. According to Fromm, a taxonomy referring to woman and man is primarily a sociology-based approach rather than a biology-based one. Fromm (1995) thinks that the whole depiction shows individuals’ own desire and needs, that is to say, their psychology rather than a theology. Transition from mother (woman) centered religion to father (man) centered religious experience and God image is essentially one of the most important breaking/inversion points of human being, not humanity. As a result, it can be said that it is an important point to clearly understand the story of mankind to examine that intense freshness at hand and centeredness of quantitative and qualitative changes of divine or God image of ancient societies come down after psychological, sociological, religious, economic, political, and cultural changes. (shrink)

The article discusses two historical events taken from texts from the Holy Scripture – the Old and the New Testaments, and a spiritual view on human soul, as found in the Holy tradition of the Orthodox church: they support the thesis that, according to the method of allegorical interpretation, the three evidences point to three inner stages through which human soul passes in its transition to a holistic spiritual development: from the act of the Holy Baptism to the entry (...) into the Kingdom of God. (shrink)

Many religions use figurative language to convey their teachings on the spiritual journey. Identifying their similarities and differences might deepen the recognition of each core faith and create mutual appreciation. This article compared Serat Jatimurti, a Javanese indigenous spirituality text with the Exodus Homily of Origen, a text from antiquity. This article is a qualitative study to compare their teachings on the stages of the spiritual journey and the obstacles. The finding showed that both Serat Jatimurti and the (...) Exodus Homily of Origen teach that there are several stages of the spiritual journey. It also found out that the main obstacle of the spiritual journey lies in the human inner tendency to rely on self-centred perception that prevents them from recognizing reality and the will of God for them. Both texts differ significantly in their views concerning the human capability to start a spiritual journey.Contribution: This study offers clues on the path to having mutual understanding between people who embrace different spiritual journey concepts and their obstacles. It also gives the voice of indigenous spirituality proper appreciation. Such an understanding might serve as a starting point for a deeper appreciation of each other and to development of further dialogues while deepening one’s recognition of the core of their faith. (shrink)

One is a science, the other an art; one useful, the other seemingly decorative, but mathematics and music share common origins in cult and mystery and have been linked throughout history. Emblems of Mind is Edward Rothstein’s classic exploration of their profound similarities, a journey into their “inner life.” Along the way, Rothstein explains how mathematics makes sense of space, how music tells a story, how theories are constructed, how melody is shaped. He invokes the poetry of Wordsworth, (...) the anthropology of Le;vi-Strauss, the imagery of Plato, and the philosophy of Kant. Math and music, Rothstein shows, apply comparable methods as they create their abstractions, display similar concerns with ratio and proportion, and depend on metaphors and analogies to create their meanings. Ultimately, Rothstein argues, they reveal the ways in which we come to understand the world. They are images of the mind at work and play; indeed, they are emblems of Mind itself. Jacques Barzun called this book “splendid.” Martin Gardner said it was “beautifully written, marvelous and entertaining.” It will provoke all serious readers to think in new ways about the grand patterns in art and life. “Lovely, wistful. . . . Rothstein is a wonderful guide to the architecture of musical space, its tensions and relations, its resonances and proportions. . . . His account of what is going on in the music is unfailingly felicitous.”— New Yorker “Provocative and exciting. . . . Rothstein writes this book as a foreign correspondent, sending dispatches from a remote and mysterious locale as a guide for the intellectually adventurous. The remarkable fact about his work is not that it is profound, as much of the writing is, but that it is so accessible.”— Christian Science Monitor. (shrink)

Psychoanalytic practice and theory do not map together in any seamless ways. Nevertheless, the creative tension between the two is essential in the production of psychoanalytic knowledge. In this paper, I recount Emma’s psychoanalytic journey using a series of five vignettes from her four-year psychotherapy. When I met Emma, she had been unable to walk for six months. The reasons for her affliction were, at this time, mysterious. During her therapy, a transformative process took place reflecting a movement from (...) symptom to the symbolization of an inner receptive space. The insights that emerged from this psychic journey challenge the conceptualization of a simple linear progression from the pre-Oedipal to the Oedipal moment which is seen to structure subjectivity. I argue that the representation of a receptive inner space is a necessary precondition for thought – and this is especially so for women’s development of mind. This argument calls into question the centrality given to the Oedipus complex and the associated paternal function in the structuring of subjectivity in some psychoanalytic models of mind. I suggest these models sit too closely to patriarchal fantasies which underestimate the complex processes involved in entering the symbolic realm. (shrink)

Suzan Colon, yoga teacher and former senior editor at O, The Oprah Magazine, digs deep into the spiritual philosophy behind yoga and distills thirty essential components to enrich your practice and revolutionize your life from the inside out. We live in an increasingly stressful world, and we know about the hazardous effects stress can have on our health. But meditating and mindfulness can sometimes seem elusive, unattainable, and impossible to fit into our busy days. Even the word “yoga” usually makes (...) many people think of complicated, twisty poses—but that’s not everything. In its complete sense, yoga is a collection of life lessons for wellness and well-being and a spiritual technology from ancient times that is now more relevant, and necessary, than ever. In Yoga Mind, Suzan Colon shares thirty essential components to increase self- awareness and inner balance to use throughout your day—in traffic, on the train, at your job, and home. She outlines how we can use yoga to cultivate resilience in challenging times, reduce stress, and enrich our relationships with family, work, and ourselves. This guide contains a 30-day program designed to create subtle yet powerful shifts in awareness and attitude that lead to real, lasting change. Whether you’re a hardcore yogi or a beginner to the practice, Yoga Mind can help you unite your body, mind, and heart to become your best self and cultivate lasting happiness in your life. (shrink)

Explore the Resistance to Death, and Awaken More Fully to Life Death is simply one more aspect of being a human being, but in our culture, we've made it a taboo. As a result, most of us walk through life with conscious or unconscious fears that prevent us from experiencing true contentment. Embracing the End of Life invites you to lean into your beliefs and questions about death and dying, helping you release tense or fearful energy and awaken to a (...) more vital life now. Preparing mentally, emotionally, and spiritually for this inevitable transition provides improved clarity and strength. This book shares the idea of death as a journey of three steps—resistance, letting go, and transcendence. With dozens of exercises, practices, and meditations, author Patt Lind-Kyle helps you experience your truest, most expansive self. Exploring multiple aspects of life and death—with everything from chakras and the Enneagram to living wills and health care directives—this book is meant to help you unwind the challenge of death and discover the truth of your own path to inner freedom. Praise: "The fear of dying keeps countless people from living fully—as well as keeping countless others trapped in endless suffering. Embracing the End of Life will help all of us prepare joyously for the inevitable."—Christiane Northrup, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Goddesses Never Age Winner of a 2018 Gold IPPY Award. (shrink)

This paper aims to think or rethink the concept of home as the contemporary avatar of the age-old question of self-identity. In dialogue with Shlomo Biderman, a comparative philosopher without borders who feels at home both in Jewish and Indian sources, the author assembles a philosophical jigsaw-puzzle made of different materials from different thinking traditions in attempt to reveal a new picture of home (and self) compatible with the changing world of immigration, relocation, dislocation and displacement, a world of emigrants, (...) refugees and exiles, in which we live. The puzzle pieces include Plato’s cave, Isaiah Berlin’s “inner citadel”, Shmuel Yosef Agnon’s “Ad Hena”, Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”, Salman Rushdie’s “Imaginary Homelands”, Midrash Bereshit Rabbah, the Bhagavadgītā and Śaṅkara, Paul de Man on translation and Zarina Hashmi’s artwork “Home is a Foreign Place”. The discussion culminates in reflection on translation and the foreignness embedded even in one’s own mother tongue which only the translator (or Rushdie’s “translated man”) can see and feel. If foreignness and alienation are recognized as the common human denominator, and one can sober up from the fantasy of restoring an Edenic past (and language), primordial and complete, then perhaps from within the shards of language, of humanity, a different type of home can be envisioned, based on solidarity and compassion. (shrink)

Daniel is 35, successful, a high level professional and an accomplished academic - yet he is also a virgin, who fears that he will spend the rest of his life alone. More importantly, Daniel has existed in an emotional bubble all of his life, and has had no intimate friendships. In other words, he is not fully alive, and seeks psychotherapy because he is haunted by not understanding what is wrong with him. He is attractive to women, yet as soon (...) as a woman tries to get close to him, he runs away. Lacking an inner foundation, he fears that women will annihilate him, like his overbearing mother who abused him as a child. Quite simply, this book is an unprecedented achievement, taking the reader into actual psychoanalytic sessions and sharing with the reader Michael Shoshani Rosenbaum’s dialogues with Daniel, vividly illustrating his pain and struggle to transcend his existential plight. Furthermore, as the author of two sections of the book, Daniel himself provides a rare, insightful view from the other side of the couch, illuminating the challenge and change experienced within the other half of the therapeutic relationship. It is a compelling psychological adventure, fusing together the intimacy of the therapy with an account of the revolutionary changes that have occurred in the practice of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis over the last decades. Daniel is like no one else, and yet he is everyone, making this book a must for every person searching for self-knowledge, allowing the reader to identify with Daniel and his struggle to become human. (shrink)

The following exploration of the fundamentals of the Religious Society of Friends called Quakers will focus upon a lesser known tradition of the Quakers, namely that of the "Free Friends of Philadelphia" and their modern progeny, the Free Quakers of Indiana These Free Quakers, as they are called, are those who chose to exercise their free right to follow their conscience in all things, a tradition reaching back to the 18 th century in Philadelphia when a contingent of Friends chose (...) to support the war against Britain. A great deal is known about the programmed and unprogrammed traditions of the Religious Society of Friends, the former electing to have recorded ministers and formalized worship and the latter opting for no clergy and a preference for the mystical tradition of silent worship. Much less is known about the Free Quakers of Revolutionary Pennsylvania and the subsequent modern day Friends, their ideological progeny. In this brief essay, we intend to correct this common oversight in Quaker history. (shrink)

David Gandelman has helped thousands of students look within to find their own answers to life's big questions: Who am I? What am I here to do? How can I find happiness? Over the course of this journey, he began to notice that the overwhelming number of powerful life questions and conundrums his students encountered fell into seven categories, which he eventually realized were actually seven potent energies that existed within each individual soul. When any one... of these energies (...) is out of balance, our lives can become chaotic and unfulfilled. Now... Gandelman offers a detailed guide to each of these critical energies, as well as exercises and meditation practices that can help you evaluate your energetic strengths and weaknesses and work toward spiritual and energetic balance." -- Amazon. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MetanoiaRichard G. T. Gipps, ClinPsyD, PhD (bio)A “honeysuckle on a broken fence”: Scrutton’s (2024) theologically potent image offers us a dignified vision of how a living faith and the experience of mental illness might intersect. Mental and physical illness, deprivation and bereavement sometimes provide a propitious structure on which faith’s bright strands may grow. Scrutton posits no simply causal relationship between faith and mental illness, and steers us helpfully (...) away from the narcissistic overvaluation of inner experience too often met with in (1) mysterium tremendum (meeting-God-blew-my-mind), and (3) mental openness (divine-light-pours-through-the-cracks), formulations. She helps us to avoid settling, too, for the clever-sounding but ultimately too-easy idea of (2) ‘mental illness’ and ‘religious experience’ as different descriptions under which identical experiences may sometimes be brought. For one thing, and to animadvert now in my own vein: can we really—as William James aspires to, say, when he takes it for granted that the “more personal branch [of] feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to... the divine” can be neatly hived off from the “institutional branch of religion... worship... theology... ceremony... ” and so on—even individuate the relevant experiential phenomena independently of their meaning-conferring contexts? For another, it seems to me that too often in the literature of (1) (2) and (3) do we meet with a fatal confusion that can be expressed in terms of a conflation of two meanings of “ego,” as when a) the dropping of the kinds of boundaries which it makes sense to talk of putting up (i.e., our ego’s defensive, prideful, shame-driven shirking of intimacy) is muddled together with b) the crumbling of such individuating ego boundaries as constitute us. Such a confusion gets readily promulgated by vague and tacitly polysemic talk not only of ‘ego’ but also of ‘non-duality,’ ’transpersonal,’ and ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ ‘levels’ of ‘self’ and ‘consciousness’ (e.g., see Kasprow & Scotton 1999). Sometimes driving this, one can’t help suspect, is the narcissistic gain of conflating the dismal dissolution of ego boundaries in illness (Conrad, 1958) with the epiphanic transcendence of a grasping and fearful ego. Spiritual pride and spiritual bypass (i.e. fleeing the relational tasks of adult development into a self-preoccupied ‘spiritualised’ inner journey) (Welwood, 2000) then abound, not only for the sufferer but also for the lowly therapist who now receives their shamanic guide/hierophant upgrade. By contrast with all of this, Scrutton’s (4) honeysuckle on a broken fence model stands out in its theological dignity and psychological sobriety.Even so I found myself, on reading Scrutton’s piece, wondering whether a more romantic conception of a growing faith’s possible relation [End Page 257] to psychological disturbance might yet be available and sometimes even find application. What particularly came to my mind was that notion of metanoia as offered us by the existential tradition in both theology and psychopathology.Mark’s gospel begins with John the Baptist heralding Christ’s arrival and preaching the “baptism of repentance [metanoia; μετανοίας] for the remission of sins” (Mark 1:4). Jesus’s first public words then proclaim the same message: “the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye [μετανοεῖτε], and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). ‘Repentance’ is today often understood as a sorrowful acknowledgement of one’s wrongdoings, but it has long been acknowledged that, if that be the meaning we give the term, it is an inapt translation of ‘metanoia’ (Walden, 1896). For what the gospel instead calls for is rather a wholesale turning about, or conversion, from ‘ego-dominance to surrender’ (Barron, 2021), i.e. from (a) defensive and illusory attempts to handle our vulnerability and dependency through self-reliance and self-affirmation to (b) an aliveness to grace (i.e. seeing our lives and their bounties under the aspect of the freely given gift) and a trusting surrender to the dominion of that God of love in which we anyway inexorably ‘live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28). The ‘I’ in Paul’s “It is no longer I who... (shrink)

Today, Yoga has acquired global recognition and an exalted status as an ancient health-building system. It is true that Yoga is powerful and contains the solutions for all the global problems. Yoga as a complete medical science and philosophy of life and accepts its scientific reasoning and basis. Yoga is not just a physical exercise but a holistic medical science; it is a philosophy of life, a spiritual knowledge. It is a profound philosophical thought process, but it is also about (...) having a simple, easy and balanced life-style. It is the path to gain eternal wisdom, ultimate truth and to unite the inner soul with the supreme soul through self-realization. It is a tradition in which sages have attained immeasurable bliss, indescribable happiness and inexplicable peace by entering the supreme consciousness which is present beyond mind. It is the science that inhibits the agitations of the mind and takes it to its highest level. Yoga is the spiritual journey from ignorance to knowledge, mortality to immortality, obvious to hidden and peace to ultimate tranquillity. It is the inner journey from thoughtfulness to emptiness, subjective to objective concentration, determinate to indeterminate samadhi and extrovertedness to introvertedness and being firm in judgement. This book is an humble attempt in this direction. We are determined to obtain more scientific evidence and build a science perspective not only for Yoga and Ayurveda but for the entire Vedic knowledge and wisdom. We shall lead the world in finding solutions for complex problems besetting humanity through the fusion of science and spiritualism. This book is the outcome of meticulous work put in by us in order to present various scientific standards used to test and validate this ancient system of Yoga, demographic study and personal experiences of several hundred people along with sufficient supporting proofs and documents. This is our first attempt to present Yoga backed by currently available scientific evidence, the goal is far more ambitious and the task of scientific documentation and research is an ongoing process. We will continue with the research and shall present new facts as they become available. (shrink)

_Experience the world of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and the tremendous challenges he faced and overcame with the help of Stoic philosophy_ This novel biography brings Marcus Aurelius (121–180 CE) to life for a new generation of readers by exploring the emperor’s fascinating psychological journey. Donald J. Robertson examines Marcus’s relationships with key figures in his life, such as his mother, Domitia Lucilla, and the emperor Hadrian, as well as his Stoic tutors. He draws extensively on Marcus’s own _Meditations_ (...) and correspondence, and he examines the emperor’s actions as detailed in the _Augustan History_ and other ancient texts. Marcus Aurelius struggled to reconcile his philosophy and moral values with the political pressures he faced as emperor at the height of Roman power. Robertson examines Marcus’s attitude toward slavery and the moral dilemma posed by capturing enemies in warfare; his attitude toward women; the role of Stoicism in shaping his response to the threat of civil war; the treatment of Christians under his rule; and the naming of his notorious son Commodus as his successor. Throughout, the _Meditations _is used to shed light on the mind of the emperor—his character, values, and motives—as Robertson skillfully weaves together Marcus’s inner journey as a philosopher with the outer events of his life as a Roman emperor. (shrink)

Pinhas Sadeh was considered as an unorthodox writer as regards his environment, the “State Culture” in Israel. In the first part of this paper I present the biography of the author and his most representative work, Life as a parable, published in 1958, as well as his romantic and frankist roots and his leaning towards Christianity according to the Gospel. In the second part a mythical analysis of this work is made according to the inner journey of hero, (...) through which the main character is looking for his life meaning. In this second part I present my methodology, based on works of the Eranos Society (Mircea Eliade, C.G. Jung, Gilbert Durand). Afterwards, I analyse the mithems that I have found in Life as a parable. Finally, I make a mythical comparison between this novel and Siddharta, of Hermann Hesse. (shrink)

Pinhas Sadeh was considered as an unorthodox writer as regards his environment, the “State Culture” in Israel. In the first part of this paper I present the biography of the author and his most representative work, Life as a parable, published in 1958, as well as his romantic and frankist roots and his leaning towards Christianity according to the Gospel. In the second part a mythical analysis of this work is made according to the inner journey of hero, (...) through which the main character is looking for his life meaning. In this second part I present my methodology, based on works of the Eranos Society (Mircea Eliade, C.G. Jung, Gilbert Durand). Afterwards, I analyse the mithems that I have found in Life as a parable. Finally, I make a mythical comparison between this novel and Siddharta, of Hermann Hesse. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Prufrock's Question and Roquentin's AnswerWilliam IrwinThere could not be two more different literary figures than the right-wing, religious T. S. Eliot and the left-wing, atheistic Jean-Paul Sartre. Yet there are striking connections between their first major publications, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1917) and Nausea (1938). Eliot was aware of and critical of Sartre, especially in the commentary on No Exit in The Cocktail Party, and, no (...) doubt, Sartre became aware of Eliot.1 But as far as can be gleaned, Sartre did not read Eliot's Prufrock, prior to the publication of Nausea, despite his connection to Adrienne Monnier, the French translator of the poem. Indeed Simone de Beauvoir documents the couple's reading habits in some detail in The Prime of Life, including their admiration for Hemingway and Faulkner during that time, but there is no mention of Eliot or Prufrock.2Both the poem and the novel present us with subjective, mood-laden impressions of the internal melancholic lives of their protagonists. Like Prufrock, Roquentin admits "My passion was dead."3Nausea is presented as a diary intended to be read by no one, and Prufrock is presented as a self-confession that no one is to hear. As Guido da Montefeltro in the poem's epigram is willing to speak to Dante because he believes Dante will never return to share what he has heard with the living, so Prufrock is solipsistically introspecting. The "you" of "Let us go then, you and I" is likely Prufrock addressing himself. But if it is addressed to another person, it can only be a reader who is as hopeless as he is, with no chance of return or redemption—only such a reader would really understand what is said. The final line of the poem "Till human voices wake us, and we drown" takes us back to the "patient etherized upon a table." Like Roquentin, Prufrock has taken himself and the reader [End Page 184] by proxy on an inner journey, a dream-like state in which the real and surreal come together.In the opening stanza of the poem, Prufrock describes his internal cityscape as including "Streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent / To lead you to an overwhelming question... / Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'" The question is mentioned twice more, but it is never articulated. Obviously it is an issue of great existential import concerning the meaning of life. Though Prufrock does not verbalize it, the question must be essentially Roquentin's question to himself: "Can you justify your existence then? Just a little?" (p. 177).As we shall see, even though Sartre's philosophy as developed in Nausea and crystallized in Being and Nothingness comes later and likely with no knowledge of Prufrock, the philosophy can still shed light on the poem—and in a way that in turn elucidates the philosophy.4IMeaning for Sartre is found in existence itself, emerging through the coloring and conceptualization of consciousness.5 While this does not necessarily imply the stereotypical existential view that life is bleak, meaningless, and possibly not worth living, this does nevertheless seem to be the conclusion that Roquentin draws early in Nausea. Consider this dark concern: "My existence began to worry me seriously. Was I not a simple spectre?" (p. 86). Early in the novel Roquentin concludes "Nothing happens while you live. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that's all. There are no beginnings. Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable, monotonous addition" (p. 39). This life as Roquentin describes it sounds eerily like the humdrum pointless existence of Prufrock, who has measured out his life with coffee spoons and spit out the butt-ends of his days and ways amidst the monotony of women who come and go talking of Michelangelo—a great man he resembles not at all.Later in the novel Roquentin admits "And it was true, I had always realized it; I hadn't the right to exist. I had appeared by chance, I existed like a stone, a plant or a microbe. My life put... (shrink)

The nature of masculinity is a popular subject for contemporary authors, either treated critically from a sociological standpoint, or analysed from a psychological and spiritual perspective. In _Remaking Men_, David Tacey argues that we must strive to bridge the gap between these separate traditions - masculinity should neither be hijacked by the spiritual, Jung-influenced men's movement, nor discussed merely as a product of socio-political forces. Examining his own and other men's experience in a critical and lively discourse he evades the (...) simplistic optimism of the 'inner journey' approach and the chronic pessimism of contemporary academic arguments. This is a fascinating and very accessible look at masculinity for those who want to explore self and society with intelligence and soul. (shrink)

Old stories, rather than being a means to shorten the long winter nights or make children's eyelids heavy, were the hidden treasures of peoples’ social and psychological history. They contained, more than anything else, archetypal motifs which were expressed through various symbols. One such old stories was SamakAyyar which appeared in the north-eastern region of the Iranian plateau. The initial narrators of SamakAyyar were most probably the Aryan branch of the Indo-Aryan settlers. The fact that Aryans were neighbouring the Hindu (...) cultures on the one hand, and the common ancestors as well as ideas of the two nations on the other, resulted in the footprints of Buddhist beliefs and Hindu rituals in this story. The influence of these beliefs can clearly be observed in the description of the buildings which appear in the story.Suchbuildings become sacred due to their association with the story plot, i.e. the journey from childhood to maturity. Whether a prison, palace or a castle, the structural image of these buildings, generally and frequently, resemble the Hindu temple. It seems as though such similarity follows the same sense as that in the construction of sacred buildings, especially Hindu temples. The inner journey, moving in circular directions, and the relationship between heaven and earth are instances of this holy meaning. Such concepts are discussed in the analysis of the symbolic meaning of the buildings in the story. (shrink)

Parkinson, Joseph Near death experiences and the wisdom they produce are the stuff of countless novels, but when the story ends in the author's death, where is wisdom to be found? American neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi has left an astonishingly eloquent and lucid account of his own dying and his inner journey to find meaning and even peace in that experience. As inspiring as it is tragic, "When Breath Becomes Air" rightly sits on The New York Times list of (...) best sellers, and is a must-read for anyone working in bioethics or health care. (shrink)

Pinhas Sadeh was considered as an unorthodox writer as regards his environment, the “State Culture” in Israel. In the first part of this paper I present the biography of the author and his most representative work, Life as a parable, published in 1958, as well as his romantic and frankist roots and his leaning towards Christianity according to the Gospel. In the second part a mythical analysis of this work is made according to the inner journey of hero, (...) through which the main character is looking for his life meaning. In this second part I present my methodology, based on works of the Eranos Society (Mircea Eliade, C.G. Jung, Gilbert Durand). Afterwards, I analyse the mithems that I have found in Life as a parable. Finally, I make a mythical comparison between this novel and Siddharta, of Hermann Hesse. (shrink)

Book Reviewed in this article: Traditional Sayings in the Old Testament. By Carole R. Fontaine. Pp. viii, 279, Sheffield, The Almond Press, 1982, £17.95, £8.95. The First Day of the New Creation: The Resurrection and the Christian Faith. By Vesilin Keisch. Pp.206, Crestwood, New York, St Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1982, £6.25. The First Day of the New Creation: The Resurrection and the Christian Faith. By Vesilin Keisch. Pp.206, Crestwood, New York, St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1982, £6.25. The Resurrection of Jesus: (...) A Jewish Perspective. By Pinchas Lapide. Pp.160, London, SPCK, 1983, 4.95. Easter Enigma. By John Wenham. Pp.162, Exeter, Paternoster Press, 1984, £2.95. The Anastasis: the Resurrection of Jesus as an Historical Event. By J. Duncan M. Derrett. Pp.xiv, 166, Shipston‐on‐Stour, P. Drinkwater, 1982, £5.00. The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity. By Christopher Rowland. Pp. xii, 562, London, SPCK, 1982, £22.50. Christianity Rediscovered: An Epistle from the Masai. By Vincent J. Donovan. Pp. viii, 200, London, SCM Press, 1982, £5.50. Basics of a Roman Catholic Theology. By William A. Van Roo, S.J. Pp.387, Rome, Gregorian University Press, 1982, $21.00. Charisms and Charismatic Renewal: a Biblical and Theological Study. By Francis A. Sullivan. Pp.184, Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1982, £5.95. Holiness and Politics. By Peter Hinchliff. Pp.214, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982, £8.95. Rational Theology and the Creativity of God. By Keith Ward. Pp.240, Oxford, Blackwell, 1982, £14.00. The Point of Christology. By S.M. Ogden. Pp.xii, 193, London, SCM Press, 1982, £5.95. Fullness of Humanity: Christ's Humanness and Ours. By T.E. Pollard. Pp.126, Sheffield, The Almond Press, 1982, £9.95, £5.95. Milton's Good God: A Study in Literary Theodicy. By Dennis Richard Danielson. Pp.xi, 292, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £20.00. Biblical Tradition in Blake's Early Prophecies: The Great Code of Art. By Leslie Tannenbaum. Pp.xiii, 373, Princeton University Press, 1982, £17.60. The Inner Journey of the Poet and Other Papers. By Kathleen Raine, edited by Brian Keeble. Pp.xii, 208, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1982, £9.95.iVol. 34: Horayot and Niddah. Translated by Jacob Neusner. Pp.xiii, 243, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1982, £17.50. Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire A.D. 312–460. By Ed. Hunt. Pp. £+ 269, Oxford University Press, 1982, £16.50. Constantine versus Christ: The Triumph of Ideology. By Alistair Kee. Pp.186, London, SCM Press, 1982, £5.95. Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity. By Peter Brown. Pp.347, London, Faber and Faber, 1982, £10.50. Elishe: History of Vardan and the Armenian War. Translation and commentary by Robert W. Thomson. Pp.x, 353, 1 map, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1982, £21.00. Ireland in Early Mediaeval Europe: Studies in Memory of Kathleen Hughes. Edited by Dorothy Whitelock, Rosamond McKitterick and David Dumville. Pp.x, 406, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £39.00. Letters from Ireland 1228–1229 by Stephen of Lexington. Translated with an introduction by B.W. O'Dwyer. Pp.vii, 292, Kalamazoo, Cistercian Publications, 1982, $24.95. The Occupation of Celtic Sites in Ireland by the Canons Regular of St Augustine and the Cistercians. By Geraldine Carville. Pp.ix, 158, Kalamazoo, Cistercian Publications, 1982, $13.95. Chartres: The Masons who built a Legend. By John James. Pp.200, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982, £17.50. Temples, Churches and Mosques: A Guide to the Appreciation of Religious Architecture. By J.G. Davies. Pp.x, 262, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982, £12.50. The Murdered Magicians: The Templars and their Myth. By Peter Partner. Pp.xxi, 209. Oxford University Press, 1982, £12.95. The Italian Crusades: The Papal‐Angevin Alliance and the Crusades Against Christian Lay Powers, 1254–1343. By Norman Housley. Pp.xi, 293, Oxford, Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1982, £17.50. The Westminster Chronicle, 1381–1394. Edited and Translated by L.C. Hector and Barbara F. Harvey. Pp.lxxvii, 563. Oxford, the Clarendon Press, 1982, £42.00. Frömmigkeitstheologie am Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts. By Berndt Hamm. Pp.xv, 378, Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, 1982, 168 DM. Erasmi Opera omnia, IX, 2: Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Apologia respondens ad ea quae Iambus Lopis Stunica taxavrat in prima duntaxat Novi Testamenti aeditione. Edited by Henk Jan de Jonge. Pp.292, Amsterdam, North‐Holland Publishing Company, 1983, 280 guilders. The Christian Polity of John Calvin. By Harro Höpfl. Pp.x, 303, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £27.50. Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God. By John Calvin, translated with an Introduction by J.K.S. Reid. Pp.191, Cambridge, James Clarke & Co., 1982, £5.95. Spanish Protestants and Reformers in the Sixteenth Century: A Bibliography. By A. Gordon Kinder. Pp.108, London, Grant & Cutler, 1983, £6.80. Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church. By Peter Lake. Pp.viii, 357, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £27.50. Resistance and Compromise: The Political Thought of Elizabethan Catholics. By Peter Holmes. Pp.viii, 279, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £22.50. Dutch Puritanism: A History of English and Scottish Churches of the Netherlands in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. By Keith L. Sprunger. Pp.xiii, 485, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1982, 172 guilders. John Toland and the Deist Controversy. By Robert E. Sullivan. Pp.viii, 355, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1982, £19.95. Radical Sects of Revolutionary New England. By Stephen A. Marini. Pp. 213, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1982, £11.55. Religion and Society in North America: An Annotated Bibliography. Edited by Robert deV: Brunkow. Pp.xi, 515, Santa Barbara, ABC‐Clio; Oxford, EBC‐Clio, 1983, £57.75. Charles Lowder and the Ritualist Movement. By Lida Ellsworth. Pp.vi, 234, London, Darton, Longman & Todd, 1982, £17.95. How the Pope became Infallible: Pius IX and the Politics of Persuasion. By August Bernhard Hasler. Pp.xi, 383, New York, Doubleday, 1981, $14.95; London, Sheldon Pres, 1982, £15.00. Hauptsache der Papst ist katholisch. Edited by Bruno Nies. Pp.104, Salzburg, Otto Müller, 1982, öS 140. Religious Change in Contemporary Poland: Secularization and Politics. By Maciej Pomian‐Srednicki. Pp.227, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, £12.50. World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World. Edited by David B. Barrett. Pp.1010, Nairobi, Oxford University Press, 1982, £55.00. Probability and Evidence. By Paul Horwich. Pp.vii, 146, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £15.00. Philosophical Foundations of Probability Theory. By Roy Weatherford. Pp.xi, 282, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982, £15.00. The Origins of Greek Thought. By Jean‐Pierre Vernant. Pp.144, London, Methuen, 1982, £9.95. Portraying Analogy. By J.F. Ross. Pp.xi, 244, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £20.00. The Marriage of East and West. By Bede Griffiths. Pp.224, London, Collins, 1982, £5.95. The Religious Experience: A Socio‐Psychological Perspective. By C.D. Batson & W.L. Ventis Pp.ix, 356, New York, Oxford University Press, 1982, £18.50,£9.95. (shrink)

A radical and original study, The Political Psyche joins together depth psychology with politics in a way that fully reflects the discoveries made in analysis and therapy. In an attempt to show that an inner journey and a desire to fashion something practical out of passionate political convictions are linked projects, author Andrew Samuels brings an acute psychological perspective to political issues such as the distribution of wealth, the market economy, Third World development, environmentalism, and nationalism--expanding and enhancing (...) our conception of "the political". However, keeping true to his aim of creating a two-way dialogue between depth psychology and politics, Samuels also lays bare the hidden politics of the father, the male body, and men's issues in general. The Political Psyche does not collapse politics and psychology together, nor is Samuels unaware of the troubled relationship of depth psychology to the political events of the century. In the book he presents his acclaimed and cathartic work on Jung, anti-semitism and the Nazis to the wider public. The text employs a political analysis to shed a fascinating light on clinical work. Samuels conducted a large-scale international survey of analysts and psychotherapists concerning what they do when their patients/clients bring overtly political material into the clinical setting. The results, including what the respondents reveal about their own political attitudes, destabilize any preconceived notions about the political sensitivity of analysis and psychotherapy. (shrink)

À primeira vista, parece óbvia a mensagem contida no episódio em que o profeta Elias, ao fugir para o deserto, alcança o monte Horeb. Há os que percebem na narrativa uma clara referência a uma jornada interior, empreendida pelo profeta, com vistas à renovação de seu chamado ou mesmo como um retorno às fontes da fé. No entanto, a análise das estratégias de construção da narrativa pode levar ao propósito da mensagem conforme engendrada pelo narrador. O presente artigo consiste em (...) uma leitura de 1 Reis 19,1-21. O objetivo é questionar o texto a partir do instrumental oferecido pelo método da análise narrativa, com vistas a explicitar as estratégias escolhidas pelo narrador e seus efeitos sobre o leitor implícito, procurando não perder de vista as particularidades da narrativa bíblica. Além disto, pretende-se identificar o caminho que está proposto ao leitor atual, destacando a catequese envolvida na perícope. O medo na vida do fiel pode conduzi-lo para fora do lugar da obediência. No entanto, a intervenção divina acena a possibilidade de correção da rota assumida por pensamentos distorcidos acerca de si, de sua missão e de Deus. Palavras-chave: Profeta Elias. Narrativa bíblica. Análise narrativa.At first glance, the message contained the episode in which the prophet Elijah flees to the desert and reaches the Mount Horeb seems to be obvious. There are some who face the narrative as a clear reference to an inner journey undertaken by the Prophet in order to renew his call or return to the sources of faith. However, the analysis of narrative strategies can lead to the message purpose as designed by its narrator. This article presents a reading of 1 Ki 19,1-21. It aims to question the text by using the tools offered by narrative analysis method in order to highlight chosen strategies and their impact on implied reader, considering the particularities of biblical narrative. The goal is also to identify the path or catechesis proposed to the current reader. The presence of fear in the believer’s life can lead him astray from obedience place. Divine intervention, however, indicates the possibility of getting back on track believer’s distorted thoughts about himself, his mission and God. Keywords: Prophet Elijah. Biblical narrative. Narrative analysis. (shrink)

Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population globally, and one of the Islamic beliefs among people of this nation is tarekat, which is sometimes considered as a heretic. Therefore, this article aims to analyse the meaning of diction tarekat according to the Qur’an and its implications for the Buginese community, one of the oldest ethnicities in Indonesia. This is a conceptual and empirical research with the purposive sampling method used to determine the informants from several tarekat leaders and congregations. Data were (...) collected through documentation, observation and interviews and analysed using Miles and Huberman’s qualitative analysis technique. This process consists of data reduction, display and drawing conclusions. The study results showed that, firstly, the word tarekat in the Qur’an indicates the meaning of inner journey and the methods and ways of thinking, acting and behaving. Secondly, to the Buginese community, it implies a spiritual path to a higher level of appreciation towards their God. Thirdly, the meaning of the diction tarekat in the Qur’an has implications for its understanding, which can be seen in the practice of dhikr, spiritual behaviour and the way of life of those implementing these heretics. Contribution: This article enriched the religious belief among Muslims, which scholars rarely uncover. Adherents of Islam in Indonesia have a social and political responsibility regarding religious tolerance within and outside other religions. This proves that Muslims contribute to world peace in Middle-East and South-Eastern Asia. (shrink)

In this engaging and highly readable book, Jungian analyst Michael Gellert takes the reader on a guided tour of God’s “inner journey,” as manifest in the principal texts of the three Abrahamic trad...

Spiritual Theology's journey through these last decades shows an itinerary of development, the fruit of which is an ever more solid identity. This book seeks to present a perspective in that itinerary and in tune with the signs of our times: on one hand, militant secularism and, on the other, a widespread, concrete resurgence of experiences of transcendence. In this sense, the author is presenting a path of study organized around five concepts: presence, mystery, transcendence, lived experience, and transformation. (...) In effect, the inner transformation worked by the Presence of Mystery leaves a new knowing, in which the relationship with reality is renewed, since it has expanded and dilated beyond sensible perception, opening the subject up to an unlimited and real horizon of transcendence. The awareness of perceiving a 'greater reality' within reality leaves an emotional resonance that teaches a new way of feeling and reacting in the face of sensibly perceived reality. (shrink)

Se postula en este artículo que existe a lo largo de la historia del pensamiento una fascinación por la capacidad creativa, considerándosela una facultad distintiva a través de la cual los individuos y las sociedades pueden expandir sus posibilidades más allá de lo existente, y se desarrolla la hipótesis de tres niveles ascendentes de creatividad que contienen a su vez tres “metodologías” para su desarrollo. Estos niveles son: las técnicas de aprendizaje creativo, el cambio de paradigma y el viaje al (...) interior de uno mismo. (shrink)

The text—drawing inspiration from the tale of the three waves in Plato᾿s Republic—focuses on the final journey of Odysseus, foretold by Homer’s Teiresias in the Odyssey. This journey—undertaken alone with an oar on his shoulder to a land where people know nothing of the sea—represents a stage in the path of moral maturation, essential for achieving a serene old age, concluded with a gentle death among happy people, and a fulfilled life. It symbolizes the path to a confrontation (...) with something beyond ordinary experience. Plato points to the need for a similar journey, as in the Allegory of the Cave, where the most important lessons are learned not from others but through individual effort, by turning away from what we know in everyday life. At the end of his final journey, Odysseus is to face the question of whether the oar he carries, symbolizing the hardships of his journey back from Troy to Ithaca, is in fact a winnowing fan—a farming tool used to separate the grain from the chaff. The final journey is essential to—using Plato’s language—achieving inner harmony, which is the basis of justice, a virtue Odysseus appears not to have fully attained before this journey. (shrink)

Preparing for the journey -- Memory: who am I? -- True being -- The Lucifer effect -- Blame is socially contagious -- The spiritual quest -- The meaning of it all -- Pets and an afterlife -- Crime and punishment -- The dream within the dream -- A rich inner life -- Love thy neighbor -- What if there were no chapter 13? -- Pursuit of happiness -- The drive for power -- Innocent -- Camelot -- Human rights (...) -- E followed by F -- Certainty -- Biases? -- Growing up -- Meaning: it's all a simulation -- The little lie -- Discernment -- The unexamined life -- Conclusion: the exam. (shrink)

A great saint and a remarkable poet, Muni Kshamasagar had such self-awareness and dedication that he analyzed his own spiritual journey in its minutest detail. Born in an affluent Jain family, and growing up to become a technologist, Virendra Kumar (Muni Kshamasagar’s birth name), decided to give up all worldly pleasures and material belongings, and became a renunciate at a relatively young age of only twenty-three! He attained sainthood with the blessings of his guru at the age of twenty-five. (...) Exceptionally well read and a deep thinker, he kept a strict disciplined approach in his own life, yet always expressed extreme care and compassion toward others. His knowledge, approachability, and kindness frequently brought people close to him. His speaking style was very simple and touching, and often left the audiences spellbound. His intellect with its logical approach helped bring science and religion together to make them complementary rather than contradictory. This approach is well reflected in the present book, which is a collection of his discourses. The aim of this book is to make people realize that their own actions (karmas) are the root cause of their suffering or happiness. To attain inner peace and have a blissful present and tomorrow, they need to act correctly, and if they want to know how to do this, this book is for them. (shrink)

In this 2017 conversation, Gianni Vattimo discusses with Paolo Diego Bubbio the core themes of his own philosophical journey. Vattimo first comments on the legacy of his mentor Luigi Pareyson and on the differences between Pareyson’s conception of the relation between truth and interpretation and his own. Vattimo and Bubbio then elaborate on the return to Hegel and the possibility of a “hermeneuticized” Hegelianism. The participants also discuss Vattimo’s view of religion and the role that the Christian notion of (...) caritas plays in his “weak hermeneutics.” Finally, Vattimo comments on his recent political writings and on his view of a “hermeneutic communism,” arguing that revolution is possible only as a collective inner transformation. Vattimo concludes by mentioning his recent essays, collected under the title Being and Its Surroundings, in which he presents the radical thesis of Heidegger’s philosophy as a new form of theology. (shrink)

The hereafter, one of the main pillars of Islam, has been discussed by both theologians and Ṣūfīs from various angles and interpreted in many different ways. Although there is consensus on the main subjects, there are a lot of controversies in details. One of the Ṣūfīs who authored on diverse problems over the hereafter is ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla al-Simnānī (d. 736/1336). He was a Kubrawī shaykh during the Īlkhānid era. He inclined towards the Ṣūfī path after serving the Buddhist ruler Arghun (...) (r. 1284-1291) for ten years, thanks to a spiritual experience he had. He met with Nūr al-dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Isfarāyīnī (d. 717/1317), a Kubrawī shaykh based in Baghdad, and became a disciple of him, granted ijāza (a certificate of authority) from him. Upon his shaykh’s order, he turned back to his hometown and spent his life until his death, in his Ṣūfī lodge raising disciples and writing works. He had contributed greatly both to his own order and to the literature of Ṣūfism with his disciples and written works. As regards to the hereafter, his opinions on the reality of this world and its position against the next, death, the doomsday and its kinds, the existence of the paradise and the hell today and their present location are remarkable. In this article, his views over those problems are discussed in the context of his understanding of mystical training.Summary: ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla al-Simnānī (d. 736/1336) lived between the second half of the seventh century (h.) and the first half of the eighth century, in today’s Iran, during reign of the Īlkhānid’s. Thanks to the connection of his family to the Īlkhānid court, his father and uncle’s administrative positions at the court and his will and efforts, he started to serve Arghun (r. 1284-1291) around the age of fifteen and gained his personal intimacy. After serving him for ten years, he experienced a spiritual transformation and inclined towards a mystical life. He left Arghun for his hometown Simnān, on the pretext of his disease that courtier doctors could not treated, but under the condition that he would turn back after he recovered from the disease. He got better just after a while but did not return. He arrived Simnān at the beginning of a holy month of Ramadan, took off his formal clothes and began to mystical training himself based on Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī’s Qūt al-qulūb. After a while, he met with one of the disciples of Nūr al-dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Isfarāyīnī (d. 717/1317) and wondered about him. Then left Simnān for Baghdad with the intention of visiting him. However, Arghun was informed about this and prevented him from going to Baghdad, withholding him for some time. After a while, Simnānī escaped from Arghun and returned to Simnān and wrote a letter to al-Isfarāyīnī on this incident. In response, al-Isfarāyīnī said that he does not need to visit Baghdad, al-Isfarāyīnī would be with him spiritually and ordered him to start his training. Simnānī kept his connection alive with his shaykh during this period via letters and spiritual meetings but he could not meet with him face to face. Afterwards, he could meet him twice and granted ijāza from him.After that, upon his shaykh’s order, he turned back to Simnān and engaged with disciples’ mystical trainings and authoring books. He gained an eminent position in both his order and history of the Ṣūfism, upbringing too many disciples and writing around ninety works. His importance in the Kubraviyya rooted firstly in the fact that the extant sub-branches of the order have him in their silsila (spiritual genealogy). In this regard Simnānī is a key actor within his order. Besides, it is significant that he had great impact on the founders of two branches of the Kubraviyya, i.e. Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī (d. 786/1385) and Muhammad Nurbakhsh (d. 869/1464) that indicating his influence among the order itself. When examined from the angel of the history of the Ṣūfism, the most apparent and distinctive point regarding Simnānī is his criticism against Ibn ʿArabī (d. 637/1240) on the problem of being. Notwithstanding, his supreme contribution to the Ṣūfism is his doctrine of latāif, which particularly influenced Pārsā (d. 822/1240), a leading disciple of the founder of the Naqshbandiyya. Likewise his mystical experiences and thoughts on rijāl al-ghāib had also influenced subsequent Ṣūfīs. His thoughts on the problem of khawātir, which is crucial component of Kubravī path, and detailed information given in his books regarding the lights (anwār) and the truth of nūr as well as his explanations about the situations experienced during the manifestation of God can be listed among his contributions to the history of the Ṣūfism.Simnānī who wrote on various problems of Ṣūfism, dealt with the problem of the Hereafter in the context of his understanding of initiation. For the world cannot be disunited from the Hereafter, as his understanding of the Hereafter is examined, his view of the world is studied as well. With reference to the presupposition that there are three distinct dimensions of the world, Simnānī says that man’s relationship with the world should be differentiated according to following three aspects: the world’s being a plantation for the hereafter, the world’s being a place that should be abandoned and the world does not have a reality. According to him the hereafter is a continuous moment, whereas the worldly life is bound by the past and the future. Since the past and the future do not have a real being, hence the world as well does not have real being. Simnānī embraces the death and the Doomsday in an intertwined fashion in the context of his own understanding of mystical training. Approvingly the consensus of the Ṣūfis, he divides the death into two: necessary and voluntary. And he divides the Doomsday into three: big, middle and small. According to this, the wayfarer who has weakened his soul’s evil attributes via the voluntary death observes the situations of the small doomsday. Thereby the wayfarer who observed everything that is depicted in the Quran that will be experienced after the necessary death, gains time to take necessary precautions before the necessary death, which is irremediable. Another issue that Simnānī raises regarding the Doomsday is the sorts of the Doomsday. Based on the different names of the Doomsday, he says that there are different doomsdays each of which is related with one of the latāif situated among human faculties. Ultimately salvation from those doomsdays is possible with a different good deed. Another point that Simnānī comes up with is the problem of existence of the paradise and the hell today. He thinks that the paradise and the hell both exist today, with reference to his own kashf. He relates this narrating the verses and the traditions, which support his view. Besides, he accepts that there are two paradises and hells, one is inside the human nature and the other is out there. According to Simnānī, entering the outer paradise without observing one’s inner paradise is nonsense. This is possible only through a spiritual journey from one’s external being into his/her internal being. In the end, this can only be accomplished via the voluntary death. (shrink)

ArgumentLinking up with recent studies on the experience of space and place in modern youth literature, this article analyzes how the “journey” as a narrative line and motif transformed Dutch early modern travel books for children from classical teaching instruments into explorative knowledge places. In the popular seventeenth-century Glorious and Fortunate Journey to the Holy Land, young readers were invited to travel within the book, which was presented as a place that covers material pages to observe as well (...) as imagined places to read about. Eighteenth-century travel books, for example written by Joachim Heinrich Campe, shifted from an inner to an empirical mode of travelling. They raised the suggestion that they offered unmediated observations and travel experiences, as if reading about places was equal to seeing places. Since travel literature facilitated active knowledge quisition among youngsters, but also left little room for autonomous innovations or different interpretations, this article reveals the emancipatory as well as restrictive character of such places of learning. By turning reading into a kind of travelling, travel books served as a substitute for travel. (shrink)

The article deals with the images of Lithuania found in Czesław Milosz’s poetry. The novels and essays have only been used to confirm the conclusions drawn from the interpretation of selected poems. Despite the frequently-declared unwillingness of the author of Dolina Issy [The Valley of the Issa] to accept and use any autobiographical elements in literature, the land of his childhood has always been present in all the poet’s works. The explanation of this fascination with nostalgia seems to be unsatisfactory. (...) The author of the article perceives the poetic images of Lithuania created by the uprooted immigrant as a symbol of his inner, not purely geographical, settlement. The subject of the discussion is the ever-changing perception of the Eastem-Borderland, which corresponds to particular stages of the protagonist’s journey through life. The starting point is the experience of eviction. It modifies the originally idealized vision of the „little homeland” and makes the hero’s attempt to reject or „amputate” it. The poems from the volume Światło dzienne [Daylight] surprise the reader by a hostile attitude towards the poet’s youth spent in Lithuania and the perception of these early memories as some destructive forces threatening the artist. It is only after a many-years’ quest that the borderland heritage is appreciated and conquered again. Now, however, it acquires a different, more symbolic form. The cycle Miasto bez imienia [A Town without a Name] and the poem Gdzie wschodzi słońce i kędy zapada [Where the Sun Rises and Sets] are evidence of a gradual transformation. The faithful recreation in the poet’s memory of particular places and people changes into the construction of some outside religious space, built from the traces of the real world. Lithuania changes into a perfect reality, a Super-Land, capable of retaining the past and combining it with the present. It is a prop freeing the poet from the waste land of Urizen. (shrink)