Extraordinary wisdom to help you understand yourself, lead your life, and deal with other people.

As human beings, we have instincts for both good and evil, conscious and unconscious. To rectify ourselvesto live spiritually and properlyinvolves getting a handle on these impulses. "from the Introduction

In this special book of practical wisdom, Dr. Abraham J. Twerski draws from his extensive professional experience as a psychiatrist and spiritual counselor, a life-long student of Jewish wisdom texts, and his personal experience as a son of a wise Chassidic rabbi to give us practical lessons for life that we can put to day-to-day use in dealing with ourselves and others.

In a presentation as warm and witty as it is profound, Dr. Twerski combines lively anecdotes, personal musings, and insights and wisdom from sources ranging from Freud to the great Talmudic and Torah scholars throughout the ages. And with deep compassion and refreshing candor, he shows how these wisdom teachings can guide us in all moments of our lives, whatever our faith tradition.

Celebrate the Mystery, Compassion Wonder and Beauty of Animals

Take a spiritual journey through this beautiful collection of blessings, prayers and meditations about the creatures, wild and tame, that inhabit our world. These moving contributions about all types of animals playful dogs and beloved cats, giant whales and powerful elephants, tiny insects and delicate birds are drawn from many faith traditions, including Native American, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist.

A special section also provides animal blessing ceremonies you can use to memorialize the loss of a companion animal, offer prayers for an animal suffering illness or injury or simply recognize the spiritual connection we create when we fully appreciate another member of God's creation.

Contributors include: Basho Elizabeth Barrett Browning Feng Chih James Dickey Meister Eckhart St. Francis of Assisi Joy Harjo Stanley Hauerwas Jane Hirshfield Galway Kinnell D. H. Lawrence John Muir Rumi Albert Schweitzer Rabindranath Tagore Evelyn Underhill Walt Whitman and many more"

This book explores educational and cultural experiences of "part-time unveilers" during their degree programs in public institutions in Turkey. The term "part-time unveiler" is coined to refer to undergraduate female students who cover their hair in their private lives, but who remove the headscarf while at a Turkish university as a result of the higher education headscarf ban policy. The book is based on a qualitative study that involved one-on-one interviews with thirty participants. The book highlights how part-time unveilers understand and negotiate the policy, the challenges and opportunities associated with unveiling and the strategies they use in response to these, and the impact of the headscarf ban on part-time unveilers' sense of identity.

Hardbound. The interrelationship of religion and tourism has barely been touched upon in scholarly research. This book aims to present and analyze this relationship from sociological, economic and anthropological perspectives.The religious tourist and categories of religiously motivated tourism are delineated, and numerous contemporary issues worthy of attention and research are identified. This provides insights into the relationship between tourism and religion: suppression or encouragement of one by the other; potential and actual conflicts; their mutual casualty and impact; the expression of religious feeling or freedom; the touristic determinants of pilgrimages, etc. The author ends with his own observations and conclusions regarding the future of the relationship and its likely direction and development.

A critical and challenging look at reinventing the synagogue, as the centerpiece of a refashioned Jewish community.

America is undergoing a spiritual revolution: only the fourth religious awakening in its history. I plead, therefore, for an equally spiritual synagogue, knowing that any North American Jewish community that hopes to be around in a hundred years must have religion at its center, with the synagogue, the religious institution that best fits North American culture, at its very core. from Chapter 1

Synagogues are under attack, and for good reasons. But they remain the religious backbone of Jewish continuity, especially in America, the sole Western industrial or post-industrial nation where religion and spirituality continue to grow in importance. To fulfill their mandate for the American future, synagogues need to replace old and tired conversation with a new way of talking about their goals, their challenges and their vision for the future.

In this provocative clarion call for synagogue transformation, Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman summarizes a decade of research with Synagogue 2000 a pioneering experiment that reconceptualized synagogue life providing fresh ways for synagogues to think as they undertake the exciting task of global change.

Despite the forces of secularization in Europe, old pilgrimage routes are attracting huge numbers of people and given new meanings in the process. In pilgrimage, religious or spiritual meanings are interwoven with social, cultural and politico-strategic concerns. This book explores three such concerns under intense debate in Europe: gender and sexual emancipation, (trans)national identities in the context of migration, and European unification and religious identifications in a changing religious landscape. The interdisciplinary contributions to this book explore a range of such controversies and issues including: Africans renewing family ties at Lourdes, Swedish women at midlife or young English men testing their strength on the Camino to Santiago de Compostela, New Age pilgrims and sexuality, Saints' festivals in Spain and Brittany, conservative Catholics challenging Europe's liberal policies on abortion, Polish migrants and French Algerians reconfiguring their transnational identity by transporting their familiar Madonna to their new home, new sacred spaces created such as the shrine of Our Lady of Santa Cruz, traditional Christian saints such as Mary Magdalene given new meanings as new age goddess, and foundation legends of shrines revived by new visionaries. Pilgrimage sites function as nodes in intersecting networks of religious discourses, geographical routes and political preoccupations, which become stages for playing out the boundaries between home and abroad, Muslims and Christians, pilgrimage and tourism, Europe and the world. This book shows how the old routes of Europe are offering inspirational opportunities for making new journeys.

First published in 1967, this book gives some of the fruits of the author's study of Tikopia ways of thought as the result of three field expeditions. Most Polynesians became Christians more than a century ago but Tikopia had a substantial pagan population until quite recent years. This book of essays describes rites and beliefs of a people who still maintained their traditional institutions remote from civilization. Studies of totemism, of magic and of beliefs in the fate of the soul in the afterworld, not only throw new light on Polynesian attitudes but also contribute some novel ideas to the interpretation of standard theoretical problems in social anthropology. Studies of rumour, suicide, and a new essay on spirit mediumship, also provide links between social anthropology and psychology. A general review based on the author's visit in 1966 describes the modern position after the adoption of Christianity.

The face of the divine feminine can be found everywhere in Mexico. One of the most striking features of Mexican religious life is the prevalence of images of the Virgin Mother of God. This is partly because the divine feminine played such a prominent role in pre-Hispanic Mexican religion. Goddess images were central to the devotional life of the Aztecs, especially peasants and those living in villages outside the central city of Tenochtitlan (present day Mexico City). In these rural communities fertility and fecundity, more than war rituals and sacrificial tribute, were the main focus of cultic activity. Both Aztec goddesses and the Christian Madonnas who replaced them were associated, and sometimes identified, with nature and the environment: the earth, water, trees and other sources of creativity and vitality. This book uncovers the myths and images of 22 Aztec Goddesses and 28 Christian Madonnas of Mexico. Their rich and symbolic meaning is revealed by placing them in the context of the religious worldviews in which they appear and by situating them within the devotional life of the faithful for whom they function as powerful mediators of divine grace and terror.

This book by renowned scholar and recognised authority on Islam, Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, is a discourse on the legal position of celebrating the Mawlid al-Nabi (birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)) within Islam. Most notably, the author has comprehensively compiled evidences from the authentic source texts and classical authorities to prove not only the permissibility of celebrating the Mawlid al-Nabi within the bounds of the Shari'a (Islamic Law) but also that it is divinely ordained and was a Sunna (practice) of the Prophet himself. The author presents unique and compelling arguments showing why celebrating Mawlid al-Nabi is not only an act of righteousness, but a need of our time. Tackling the various criticisms of this act head on, he specifically addresses the issue of why the first generation of Muslims did not celebrate the Mawlid, and clarifies that labelling the Mawlid as an bid'ah (innovation) betrays a fundamental and serious flaw in the understand of the Islamic concept of bid'ah.

First published in 1967, this book gives some of the fruits of the author's study of Tikopia ways of thought as the result of three field expeditions. Most Polynesians became Christians more than a century ago but Tikopia had a substantial pagan population until quite recent years. This book of essays describes rites and beliefs of a people who still maintained their traditional institutions remote from civilization. Studies of totemism, of magic and of beliefs in the fate of the soul in the afterworld, not only throw new light on Polynesian attitudes but also contribute some novel ideas to the interpretation of standard theoretical problems in social anthropology. Studies of rumour, suicide, and a new essay on spirit mediumship, also provide links between social anthropology and psychology. A general review based on the author's visit in 1966 describes the modern position after the adoption of Christianity.

FEW BRITISH EXPLORERS IN ARABIA have produced books whose importance as travelogues is trans-cended by their literary quality. One such is The Holy Cities of Arabia, published to critical acclaim in 1928, with its author hailed as a worthy successor to Burckhardt, Burton and Doughty. Unrivalled among works by Western travellers to Islam's holy cities, this account of a pilgrimage to Makkah in 1925-26 is made all the more remark-able by its author's timing. In 1925 `Abd al-`Aziz Ibn Saud brought to an end centuries of rule over the Hijaz by the Hashimite sharifs and their Ottoman overlords. Rutter, living as a learned Muslim Arab in a Makkan household, had a ringside seat as Riyadh imposed its writ on Islam's holy cities. As striking as his account of life in Makkah before modernization are his interviews with Ibn Saud, and his journeys to al-Ta'if and to the City of the Prophet, al-Madinah. The Holy Cities of Arabia proved to be its author's only full-length work. After a brief career as a Middle East traveller, Rutter lapsed into obscurity. This new edition aims to revive a neglected masterpiece and to establish Rutter's reputation. Little was known about him until now and the introduction tells the story of his life for the first time, assessing his talents as a travel writer and analysing his significance as a British convert.

..".a successfully ambitious effort, richly informative and insightful in its coverage of the site's religious life and most sophisticated in its use and advancing of theoretical perspectives...Profound insights...abound in this complex and rewarding piece of scholarship..a must read for scholars of south Asian religions." -The Australian Journal of Anthropology

The Sri Lankan ethnic conflict that has occurred largely between Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus is marked by a degree of religious tolerance that sees both communities worshiping together. This study describes one important site of such worship, the ancient Hindu temple complex of Munnesvaram. Standing adjacent to one of Sri Lanka's historical western ports, the fortunes of the Munnesvaram temples have waxed and waned through the years of turbulence, violence and social change that have been the country's lot since the advent of European colonialism in the Indian Ocean. Bastin recounts the story of these temples and analyses how the Hindu temple is reproduced as a center of worship amidst conflict and competition.

Rohan Bastin is Head of the School of Anthropology, Archaeology & Sociology at James Cook University.

Discover how to make virtually any moment in your day a significant part of a meaningful Jewish life.

As we have discovered, and as our sages have long known, there is no experience in the life of a Jew that cannot be marked in Jewish ways . The book you hold in your hands is the result of the kinds of rituals we have sculpted together over the years. It is not a prayer book or even a compendium of obligatory Jewish rituals. Rather, it is a source for all to use creatively. from the Introduction

Decades of experience by CLAL The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership in connecting spirituality with daily life come together in this one comprehensive handbook. In these pages, you have access to teachings that can help to sanctify almost any moment in your day.

Offering a meditation, a blessing, a profound Jewish teaching, and a ritual for more than one hundred diverse everyday events and holidays, this guide includes sacred practices for:
Lighting Shabbat candlesBlessing your parentsRunning a marathonVisiting the sickBuilding a sukkahSeeing natural wondersMoving into a new homeSaying goodbye to a beloved petMaking a shiva callTraveling ... and much more

Drawing from both traditional and contemporary sources, The Book of Jewish Sacred Practices will show you how to make more holy any moment in your daily life."