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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Aspects of religions (non-Christian) > Worship > General
'The monk who taught the world mindfulness' Time This is the
definitive book on mindfulness from the beloved Zen master and
Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh. With his signature
clarity and warmth, he shares practical exercises and anecdotes to
help us arrive at greater self-understanding and peacefulness,
whether we are beginners or advanced students. Beautifully written,
The Miracle of Mindfulness is the essential guide to welcoming
presence in your life and truly living in the moment from the
father of mindfulness. 'One of the most influential spiritual
leaders of our times' Oprah
The Kanwar is India's largest annual religious pilgrimage. Millions
of participants gather sacred water from the Ganga and carry it
across hundreds of miles to dispense as offerings in Siva shrines.
These devotees-called bhola, gullible or fools, and seen as
miscreants by many Indians-are mostly young, destitute men, who
have been left behind in the globalizing economy. But for these
young men, the ordeal of the pilgrimage is no foolish pursuit, but
a means to master their anxieties and attest their good faith in
unfavorable social conditions. Vikash Singh walked with the
pilgrims of the Kanwar procession, and with this book, he
highlights how the procession offers a social space where
participants can prove their talents, resolve, and moral worth.
Working across social theory, phenomenology, Indian metaphysics,
and psychoanalysis, Singh shows that the pilgrimage provides a
place in which participants can simultaneously recreate and prepare
for the poor, informal economy and inevitable social uncertainties.
In identifying with Siva, who is both Master of the World and yet a
pathetic drunkard, participants demonstrate their own sovereignty
and desirability despite their stigmatized status. Uprising of the
Fools shows how religion today is not a retreat into tradition, but
an alternative forum for recognition and resistance within a
rampant global neoliberalism.
An Introduction to Swaminarayan Hinduism, third edition, offers a
comprehensive study of a contemporary form of Hinduism. Begun as a
revival and reform movement in India 200 years ago, it has now
become one of the fastest growing and most prominent forms of
Hinduism. The Swaminarayan Hindu transnational network of temples
and institutions is expanding in India, East Africa, the UK, USA,
Australasia, and in other African and Asian cities. The devotion,
rituals, and discipline taught by its founder, Sahajanand Swami
(1781-1830) and elaborated by current leaders in major festivals,
diverse media, and over the Internet, help preserve ethnic and
religious identity in many modern cultural and political contexts.
Swaminarayan Hinduism, here described through its history,
divisions, leaders, theology and practices, provides valuable case
studies of contemporary Hinduism, religion, migrants, and
transnationalism. This new edition includes up-to-date information
about growth, geographic expansion, leadership transitions, and
impact of Swaminarayan institutions in India and abroad.
Who and what are marriage and sex for? Whose practices and which
ways of talking to god can count as religion? Lucinda Ramberg
considers these questions based on two years of ethnographic
research on an ongoing South Indian practice of dedication in which
girls, and sometimes boys, are married to a goddess. Called
"devadasis," or "jogatis," those dedicated become female and male
women who conduct the rites of the goddess outside the walls of her
main temple and transact in sex outside the bounds of conjugal
matrimony. Marriage to the goddess, as well as the rites that the
dedication ceremony authorizes "jogatis" to perform, have long been
seen as illegitimate and criminalized. Kinship with the goddess is
productive for the families who dedicate their children, Ramberg
argues, and yet it cannot conform to modern conceptions of gender,
family, or religion. This nonconformity, she suggests, speaks to
the limitations of modern categories, as well as to the
possibilities of relations--between and among humans and
deities--that exceed such categories.
Buddha Heruka is a manifestation of all the Buddhas' enlightened
compassion, and by relying upon him we can swiftly attain a pure
selfless joy and bring true happiness to others. Geshe Kelsang
first explains with great clarity and precision how we can practise
the sublime meditations of Heruka body mandala, and thereby
gradually transform our ordinary world and experiences, bringing us
closer to Buddhahood. He then provides definitive instructions on
the completion stage practices that lead to the supreme bliss of
full enlightenment in this one lifetime. This is a treasury of
practical instructions for those seriously interested in following
the Tantric path.
Cuba's patron saint, the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, also called
Cachita, is a potent symbol of Cuban national identity. Jalane D.
Schmidt shows how groups as diverse as Indians and African slaves,
Spanish colonial officials, Cuban independence soldiers, Catholic
authorities and laypeople, intellectuals, journalists and artists,
practitioners of spiritism and Santeria, activists, politicians,
and revolutionaries each have constructed and disputed the meanings
of the Virgin. Schmidt examines the occasions from 1936 to 2012
when the Virgin's beloved, original brown-skinned effigy was
removed from her national shrine in the majority black- and
mixed-race mountaintop village of El Cobre and brought into Cuba's
cities. There, devotees venerated and followed Cachita's image
through urban streets, amassing at large-scale public ceremonies in
her honor that promoted competing claims about Cuban religion,
race, and political ideology. Schmidt compares these religious
rituals to other contemporaneous Cuban street events, including
carnival, protests, and revolutionary rallies, where organizers
stage performances of contested definitions of Cubanness. Schmidt
provides a comprehensive treatment of Cuban religions, history, and
culture, interpreted through the prism of Cachita.
Bring Jewish values to life with an engaging blend of mitzvot
middot and timeless Jewish wisdom.
This book highlights the history of Islamic popular devotional art
and visual culture in 20th-century India, weaving the personal
narrative of the author's journey through his understanding of the
faith. It begins with an introductory exploration of how the basic
and universal image of Mecca and Medina may have been imported into
Indian popular print culture and what variants it resulted in here.
Besides providing a historical context of the pre-print culture of
popular Muslim visuality, the book also explores the impact the
1947 Partition of India may have made on the calendar art in South
Asia. A significant portion of the book focuses on the contemporary
prints of different localised images found in India and what role
these play in the users' lives, especially in the augmentation of
their popular faith and cultural practices. The volume also
compares the images published in India with some of those available
in Pakistan to reflect different socio-political trajectories.
Finally, it discusses why such a vibrant visual culture continues
to thrive among South Asian Muslims despite the questions raised by
the orthodoxy on its legitimacy in Islam, and why images and
popular visual cultures are inevitable for popular piety despite
the orthodox Muslims' increasing dissociation from them. This work
is one of the first books on Indian Muslim poster art, with rare
images and simple narratives, anecdotes about rituals, ceremonies
and cultural traditions running parallel to research findings. This
second edition contains a new Afterword that discusses challenges
to religious plurality arising on account of changing political
landscapes, economic liberalisation, technology and new media, and
socio-religious developments. It will appeal to the lay reader as
well as the specialist and will be especially useful to researchers
and scholars in popular culture, media and cultural studies, visual
art and performance studies, and sociology and social anthropology.
Although there is an obvious association between pilgrimage and
place, relatively little research has centred directly on the role
of architecture. Architecture and Pilgrimage, 1000-1500: Southern
Europe and Beyond synthesizes the work of a distinguished
international group of scholars. It takes a broad view of
architecture, to include cities, routes, ritual topographies and
human interaction with the natural environment, as well as specific
buildings and shrines, and considers how these were perceived,
represented and remembered. The essays explore both the ways in
which the physical embodiment of pilgrimage cultures is shared, and
what we can learn from the differences. The chosen period reflects
the flowering of medieval and early modern pilgrimage. The
perspective is that of the pilgrim journeying within - or embarking
from - Southern Europe, with a particular emphasis on Italy. The
book pursues the connections between pilgrimage and architecture
through the investigation of such issues as theology, liturgy,
patronage, miracles and healing, relics, and individual and
communal memory. Moreover, it explores how pilgrimage may be
regarded on various levels, from a physical journey towards a holy
site to a more symbolic and internalized idea of pilgrimage of the
soul.
Burning the Dead traces the evolution of cremation in India and the
South Asian diaspora across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Through interconnected histories of movement, space, identity, and
affect, it examines how the so-called traditional practice of Hindu
cremation on an open-air funeral pyre was culturally transformed
and materially refashioned under British rule, following intense
Western hostility, colonial sanitary acceptance, and Indian
adaptation. David Arnold examines the critical reception of Hindu
cremation abroad, particularly in Britain, where India formed a
primary reference point for the cremation debates of the late
nineteenth century, and explores the struggle for official
recognition of cremation among Hindu and Sikh communities around
the globe. Above all, Arnold foregrounds the growing public
presence and assertive political use made of Hindu cremation, its
increasing social inclusivity, and its close identification with
Hindu reform movements and modern Indian nationhood.
Who and what are marriage and sex for? Whose practices and which
ways of talking to god can count as religion? Lucinda Ramberg
considers these questions based on two years of ethnographic
research on an ongoing South Indian practice of dedication in which
girls, and sometimes boys, are married to a goddess. Called
"devadasis," or "jogatis," those dedicated become female and male
women who conduct the rites of the goddess outside the walls of her
main temple and transact in sex outside the bounds of conjugal
matrimony. Marriage to the goddess, as well as the rites that the
dedication ceremony authorizes "jogatis" to perform, have long been
seen as illegitimate and criminalized. Kinship with the goddess is
productive for the families who dedicate their children, Ramberg
argues, and yet it cannot conform to modern conceptions of gender,
family, or religion. This nonconformity, she suggests, speaks to
the limitations of modern categories, as well as to the
possibilities of relations--between and among humans and
deities--that exceed such categories.
Abby Chava Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in
Brooklyn, profoundly isolated in a culture that lives according to
the laws and practices of an eighteenth-century Eastern European
enclave, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life.
Stein was born as the first son in a rabbinical dynastic family,
poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews.
But Stein felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. Without
access to TV or the internet and never taught English, she
suppressed her desire for a new body while looking for answers
wherever she could find them, from forbidden religious texts to
smuggled secular examinations of faith. Finally, she orchestrated a
personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood into mainstream
femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her
family and her way of life.
Ritual has emerged as a major focus of academic interest. As a
concept, the idea of ritual integrates the study of behavior both
within and beyond the domain of religion. Ritual can be both
secular and religious in character. There is renewed interest in
questions such as: Why do rituals exist at all? What has been, and
continues to be, their place in society? How do they change over
time? Such questions exist against a backdrop of assumptions about
development, modernization, and disenchantment of the world.Written
with the specific needs of students of religious studies in mind,
"Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion" surveys the field of ritual
studies, looking at it both historically within anthropology and in
terms of its contemporary relevance to world events.
Jaina Studies is a relatively new and rapidly expanding field of
inquiry for scholars of Indian religion and philosophy. In Jainism,
"yoga" carries many meanings, and this book explores the
definitions, nuances, and applications of the term in relation to
Jainism from early times to the present. Yoga in Jainism begins by
discussing how the use of the term yoga in the earliest Jaina texts
described the mechanics of mundane action or karma. From the time
of the later Upanisads, the word Yoga became associated in all
Indian religions with spiritual practices of ethical restraint,
prayer, and meditation. In the medieval period, Jaina authors such
as Haribhadra, Subhacandra, and Hemacandra used the term Yoga in
reference to Jaina spiritual practice. In the modern period, a
Jaina form of Yoga emerged, known as Preksa Dhyana. This practice
includes the physical postures and breathing exercises well known
through the globalization of Yoga. By exploring how Yoga is
understood and practiced within Jainism, this book makes an
important contribution to the fields of Yoga Studies, Religious
Studies, Philosophy, and South Asian Studies.
Although research on contemporary pilgrimage has expanded
considerably since the early 1990s, the conversation has largely
been dominated by Anglophone researchers in anthropology,
ethnology, sociology, and religious studies from the United
Kingdom, the United States, France and Northern Europe. This volume
challenges the hegemony of Anglophone scholarship by considering
what can be learned from different national, linguistic, religious
and disciplinary traditions, with the aim of fostering a global
exchange of ideas. The chapters outline contributions made to the
study of pilgrimage from a variety of international and
methodological contexts and discuss what the 'metropolis' can learn
from these diverse perspectives. While the Anglophone study of
pilgrimage has largely been centred on and located within
anthropological contexts, in many other linguistic and academic
traditions, areas such as folk studies, ethnology and economics
have been highly influential. Contributors show that in many
traditions the study of 'folk' beliefs and practices (often
marginalized within the Anglophone world) has been regarded as an
important and central area which contributes widely to the
understanding of religion in general, and pilgrimage, specifically.
As several chapters in this book indicate, 'folk' based studies
have played an important role in developing different
methodological orientations in Poland, Germany, Japan, Hungary,
Italy, Ireland and England. With a highly international focus, this
interdisciplinary volume aims to introduce new approaches to the
study of pilgrimage and to transcend the boundary between center
and periphery in this emerging discipline.
Whilst Contemporary Worship Music arose out of a desire to relate
the music of the church to the music of everyday life, this
function can quickly be called into question by the diversity of
musical lives present in contemporary society. Mark Porter examines
the relationship between individuals' musical lives away from a
Contemporary Worship Music environment and their diverse
experiences of music within it, presenting important insights into
the complex and sometimes contradictory relationships between
congregants' musical lives within and outside of religious worship.
Through detailed ethnographic investigation Porter challenges
common evangelical ideals of musical neutrality, suggesting the
importance of considering musical tastes and preferences through an
ethical lens. He employs cosmopolitanism as an interpretative
framework for understanding the dynamics of diverse musical
communities, positioning it as a stronger alternative to common
assimilationist and multiculturalist models.
Exploring the distinctive nature and role of local pilgrimage
traditions among Muslims and Catholics, Muslim and Catholic
Pilgrimage Practices draws particularly on south central Java,
Indonesia. In this area, the hybrid local Muslim pilgrimage culture
is shaped by traditional Islam, the Javano-Islamic sultanates, and
the Javanese culture with its strong Hindu-Buddhist heritage. This
region is also home to a vibrant Catholic community whose identity
formation has occurred in a way that involves complex engagements
with Islam as well as Javanese culture. In this respect, local
pilgrimage tradition presents itself as a rich milieu in which
these complex engagements have been taking place between Islam,
Catholicism, and Javanese culture. Employing a comparative
theological and phenomenological analysis, this book reveals the
deeper religio-cultural and theological import of pilgrimage
practice in the identity formation and interaction among Muslims
and Catholics in south central Java. In a wider context, it also
sheds light on the larger dynamics of the complex encounter between
Islam, Christianity and local cultures.
"Connecting to Our Ancestral Past" is a pragmatic, spiritual
journey that introduces a variety of specific rituals and
conversations in connection with Constellations work, an
experiential process that explores one's history and powerful
events of the past in order to understand and resolve problems of
the present. Constellations facilitator and author Francesca Mason
Boring presents this therapeutic method in the context of cultures
like the Shoshone, of which she is a member, that have seen the
world through a prism of interrelationships for millennia. In
Constellations work there is an organic quality that requires a
discipline of non-judgment, one that is embraced in traditional
native circles, where the whole truth of a person's life, roots,
and trans-generational trauma or challenge is understood and
included.
Mason Boring provides a transformational walk through the
universal indigenous field-- that place of healing and knowledge
used by Native healers and teachers for centuries--by describing
stories and rituals designed to help people with their particular
struggles. These rituals, such as "Facing the Good Men"--designed
to help women who have suffered abuse in relationships with
men--reject Western notions of over-the-counter medication.
Instead, they stress a comfortable environment whereby the
"client," with the help of a facilitator, interacts with people
chosen to represent concepts, things, and other people. In Western
culture the word "medicine" is thought of as a concrete object, but
Mason Boring explains that indigenous cultures favor a process of
healing as opposed to an itemized substance. She re-opens doors
that have been closed due to the exclusion of indigenous technology
in the development of many Western healing traditions and
introduces new concepts to the lexicon of Western psychology.
A range of voices from around the world--leaders in the fields of
systems constellations, theoretical physics, and tribal
traditions--contribute to this exploration of aboriginal
perspectives that will benefit facilitators of Constellations work,
therapists, and human beings who are trying to walk with open eyes
and hearts.
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