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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Non-Christian religions > Religions of Indic & Oriental origin > Hinduism
A collection of more than 50 talks on the vast range of inspiring
and universal truths that have captivated millions in Paramahansa
Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi. Readers will find these talks
alive with the unique blend of all-embracing wisdom, encouragement,
and love for humanity that have made the author one of our era's
most revered and trusted guides to the spiritual life.
Studies in Hinduism consists of articles published posthumously, to
which has been added Ren Gunon's separate study, Eastern
Metaphysics, the text of a lecture delivered at the Sorbonne. In
this work Gunon completes his presentation of Hindu metaphysics,
which he considered the most primordial and comprehensive body of
spiritual teaching possessed by the human race, one capable of
throwing light upon and illuminating the essence of every other
Tradition. Of special interest are three chapters on various
aspects of tantra-a doctrine profoundly misunderstood in the
contemporary West-which Hindu authorities consider the spirituality
most appropriate to the Kali Yuga, as well as a chapter on the
sanatana dharma, the Hindu concept closest to the ancient and
medieval Christian idea of the philosophia perennis, which led St
Augustine to declare that Christianity has always existed, but only
came to be so called after the coming of Christ. Included are
extensive reviews of books on Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramana Maharshi,
Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo Ghose, Rabindranath Tagore, Mircea
Eliade, Paul Brunton, and others, as well as 40 pages of reviews of
books and articles by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. Leading Indian
thinkers have called Gunon the most authentic expositor of Hindu
metaphysics in any Western language.
The Upanishads represent for the Hindu approximately what the New Testament represents for the Christian. The earliest of these spiritual treatises, which vary greatly in length, were put down in Sanskrit between 800 and 400 BC. This selection from twelve Upanishads, with its illuminating introduction by Juan Mascaró, whose translation of the Bhagavad Gita is also in the Penguin Classics, reveals the paradoxical variety and unity, the great questions and simple answers, the spiritual wisdom and romantic imagination of these ‘Himalayas of the Soul’.
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The Vedas
(Paperback)
Paul Tice; Translated by T. B. Griffith
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R397
R331
Discovery Miles 3 310
Save R66 (17%)
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This book is a detailed overview of The Vedas, the holy book of the
Hindus. The most important Hymns are quoted in full; extracts are
also included from the Brahmanas, the part of the Rig Veda that
that guides the Brahmans, the highest class of priests, in Vedic
ceremonies. This is one of the oldest and most important of the
world's holy books. It is primarily composed of hymns, poems,
incantations and rituals from ancient India. Not only is this the
"bible" of the Hindu religion, it also offers a unique snapshot of
normal, everyday life in India as it occurred over four thousand
years ago.
The marriage of Bhagavad Gita's profound wisdom and India's premier
artists culminates in The Gita Deck: Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita.
Sixty-eight jewel-like verses of spiritual understanding adorn
beautiful art cards depicting India's rich spiritual heritage. Each
card showcases a verse from the Gita under headings including
Individuality, True Leaders, Winds of Desire, Maintaining Balance,
Determination, Eternal Soul, and Fall from Grace. The cards are
unique and inspirational-a contemporary gateway for accessing the
guidance and wisdom of the Gita. A portable, easily referenced box
set.
The present book Sarada-Tilaka of Laksmana Desikendra is one of the
important texts on Tantric subjects. It is divided into 25
Chapters. Chapter 1 is Prakrti and deals with the origin of
creation: the 23 chapters which follow demonstrate Prakrti-Vikrti;
the last chapter 25 is beyond Prakrti and Vikrti. But Sarada-Tilaka
is a tantric treatise which deals primarily with the Tantric
worship of gods and goddesses.
A verse-by-verse examination of the guide to self-transformation
presented in the Bhagavad Gita
- Reveals the scientific approach to personal development and
spiritual enlightenment laid out in Krishna's advice to Arjuna
- Shows how the Gita prepares you to work with a guru, advocating
authenticity and skepticism rather than blind devotion and
obedience
- Explores Krishna's advice on which societal limitations to reject
to overcome your fears and reconnect with the suppressed parts of
your inner being
Drawing on his more than 40 years of in-depth study of Indian
Philosophy under the tutelage of his guru, Nitya Chaitanya Yati,
author Scott Teitsworth explores the scientific approach to
self-transformation and spiritual enlightenment encoded in
Krishna's advice to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. Providing a
verse-by-verse examination of the first two chapters, he reveals
the Gita's lessons to prepare the seeker to meet and successfully
work with a guru--whether an outside teacher or the intuitive
knowledge that arises from overcoming the psyche's learned
limitations.
The author shows that the Gita does not advocate blind devotion to
a guru or god but rather personal development, victory over your
fears, and liberation of the psyche. He demonstrates how Krishna's
advice provides tools to guide us out of our fear-based experiences
to reconnect with the suppressed parts of our inner being. He
explains how Arjuna's doubts and confusions represent the plight of
every person--we are born free but gradually become bogged down by
the demands of our society, continuously dependent on outside
authority for answers and disconnected from our true inner nature.
He reveals how Krishna's advice offers guidance for dealing with
life's conflicts, which societal limitations to reject, and how to
see through the polarizing notion of good versus evil to form a
balanced state of mind superior to both.
Restoring the fearless vision of the ancient rishis, who, like
today's scientists, prized skepticism as an important technique for
accessing truth, Teitsworth reveals the Gita as a guide to an
authentic guru-disciple relationship as well as to constructing a
life of significance, freedom, and true sovereign adulthood.
Beginning with the foundational visions of the Vedas, Dr Fowler
examines each traditions vision of reality in a systematic way that
focuses on how it understands the self, the highest reality,
causality, knowledge, and liberation. Because the six major Hindu
philosophical traditions Mimamsa, Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisesika,
and Vedanta complement each other in important ways as well as
compete with each other in some ways, this systematic comparison of
the fundamental topics of each tradition enables us to see the
beautiful tapestry of the Hindu way of life that these traditions
have created. This book offers the reader who wishes to understand
the philosophical basis of Hinduism a clear and comprehensive
introduction. It also provides a solid foundation for the reader
who wishes to go on to advanced and detailed studies of any of the
Hindu philosophical traditions. From the Foreword by John M.
Koller, author of The Indian Way and Asian Philosophies
Since the beginning of humanity, fables and stories have been the
means of imparting instruction and amusement to man. The stories
were designed to illustrate and exemplify precept for human
conduct. After centuries, these stories eventually found themselves
in print. They are divided into four groups: Sanskrit or Hindoo,
Arabic or Persian, Western or European, and American. Of these,
Sanskrit or Hindoo groups of stories are the oldest and probably
served as the basis of Arabic or Persian fables, which again serve
as the source for many European storytellers.
In South India there is a society where priests and lay people
claim supernatural powers. Where a sophisticated medical system
underlies a quest for physical longevity and psychic immortality
and where arcane and sexual rituals take place that are far removed
from the Brahmanic tradition of the rest of India. That society is
the Tamil Siddhas. Here expert Kamil Zvelebil offers a vivid
picture of these people: religious beliefs, magical rites,
alchemical practices, complex system of medicine, and inspired
tradition of poetry. Topics covered include: On Siddhas medicine;
The ideological basis of Siddhas quest of immortality; Basic tenets
of Siddhas medicine; Diseases and their cure; Yoga in Siddhas
tradition; Daily regime; Siddhas alchemy; Rejuvenation, longevity,
and 'immortality'; Doctrines and traditions of the Siddhas; Tantrik
Siddhas and Siddhas attitudes to sex; Siddhas poetry and other
texts.
The English translation of Yoga Sutra adopts a unique approach, it
retains many Sanskrit technical terms to present their indeqaute
endering in English and avoid elaborate commentaries.
The Bhagavad Gita, or 'Song of the Spirit', is the best known book
of India's national epic The Mahabharata. Based on a dialogue
between Bhagavan Krishna and Prince Arjuna on the eve of a great
battle, it is held to be the essence of Hindu spirituality, sacred
literature and yoga, as well as exploring the great universal
themes of courage, honour, death, love, virtue and fulfilment. Of
interest to the large number of contemporary spiritual seekers - of
any faith and none - who want to read the world's most important
sacred texts, and to learn from their wisdom. Also useful for
scholars of Vedic literature and students.
A detailed guide to the breath-focused meditation practice of Kriya
yoga for spiritual growth, inner stillness, and self-realization *
Explains the basic techniques of the practice, detailing proper
posture, breathwork exercises (pranayama), bandhas, third-eye
gazing, and the use of mantra * Presents advanced, yet simple,
techniques that accelerate a contemplative practice by
micro-modulations related to posture, respiration, visualization,
and sound * Includes wisdom from the author's teacher Ganesh Baba
on the importance of the spine in Kriya yoga and the Cycle of
Synthesis, a model of the human experience Kriya yoga is an ancient
meditation technique that focuses on breathing and the spine to
unlock deep states of awareness, self-realization, and spiritual
growth. Kriya can provide a fast path to awakening, yet its
practice has been shrouded in secrecy, passed only from master to
initiate for millennia. Introduced into Kriya 40 years ago, Keith
Lowenstein, M.D., offers an accessible yet detailed guide to Kriya
yoga. He explains the basic techniques of the practice step by
step, detailing proper posture, breathwork exercises (pranayama),
visualization practices, and mantra. He reveals how Kriya is a
scientific art--if practiced consistently, it will allow you to
quickly enter deep states of meditation and ultimately experience
inner stillness. He also explores how the practice of Kriya leads
to healing and the development of compassion and the freeing joy of
the union of Nature and Spirit.
In 2002, after an altercation between Muslim vendors and Hindu
travelers at a railway station in the Indian state of Gujarat,
fifty-nine Hindu pilgrims were burned to death. The ruling
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party blamed Gujarat's entire Muslim
minority for the tragedy and incited fellow Hindus to exact
revenge. The resulting violence left more than one thousand people
dead--most of them Muslims--and tens of thousands more displaced
from their homes. Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi witnessed the bloodshed
up close. In "Pogrom in Gujarat," he provides a riveting
ethnographic account of collective violence in which the doctrine
of ahimsa--or nonviolence--and the closely associated practices of
vegetarianism became implicated by legitimating what they formally
disavow.
Ghassem-Fachandi looks at how newspapers, movies, and other
media helped to fuel the pogrom. He shows how the vegetarian
sensibilities of Hindus and the language of sacrifice were
manipulated to provoke disgust against Muslims and mobilize the
aspiring middle classes across caste and class differences in the
name of Hindu nationalism. Drawing on his intimate knowledge of
Gujarat's culture and politics and the close ties he shared with
some of the pogrom's sympathizers, Ghassem-Fachandi offers a
strikingly original interpretation of the different ways in which
Hindu proponents of ahimsa became complicit in the very violence
they claimed to renounce.
This book revisits the early systemic formation of meditation
practices called 'yoga' in South Asia by employing metaphor theory.
Karen O'Brien-Kop also develops an alternative way of analysing the
reception history of yoga that aims to decentre the Eurocentric and
imperialist enterprises of the nineteenth-century to reframe the
cultural period of the 1st - 5th centuries CE using categorical
markers from South Asian intellectual history. Buddhist traditions
were just as concerned as Hindu traditions with meditative
disciplines of yoga. By exploring the intertextuality of the
Patanjalayogasastra with texts such as Vasubandhu's
Abhidharmakosabhasya and Asanga's Yogacarabhumisastra, this book
highlights and clarifies many ideologically Buddhist concepts and
practices in Patanjala yoga. Karen O'Brien-Kop demonstrates that
'classical yoga' was co-constructed systemically by both Hindu and
Buddhist thinkers who were drawing on the same conceptual metaphors
of the period. This analysis demystifies early yoga-meditation as a
timeless 'classical' practice and locates it in a specific material
context of agrarian and urban economies.
The book provides a careful study of both Indian concepts and
practices of renunciation and of the Western "Counter Culture" of
the sixties which formed an integral part of the background of
these seekers. The teaching of Satyananda and Rajneesh on
renunciation are analysed in depth. Finally, the major part of the
book is devoted to a description of the lives and experiences of
the renunciates themselves.
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