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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Non-Western philosophy > Oriental & Indian philosophy
The Holy Science is a book of theology written by Swami Sri Yukteswar
Giri in 1894. The text provides a close comparison of parts of the
Christian Bible to the Hindu Upanishads, meant "to show as clearly as
possible that there is an essential unity in all religions...and that
there is but one Goal admitted by all scriptures."
Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri was born Priya Nath Karar in 1855 to a wealthy
family. As a young man, he was a brilliant student of math and science,
astrology and astronomy. He joined a Christian missionary school where
he studied the Bible and later spent two years in medical school.
After completing his formal education, Priya Nath married and had a
daughter. But he continued his intellectual and spiritual pursuits,
depending on the income from his property to support himself and his
family.
After the death of his wife, he entered the monastic Swami order and
became Sri Yuktesvar Giri, before becoming a disciple of famed guru
Lahiri Mahasaya, known for his revitalization of Kriya Yoga. Then in
1894, Sri Yuktesvar Giri met Mahavatar Babaji, an ageless wise man who
is said to have lived for untold hundreds of years. At this meeting,
Mahavatar Babaji gave Sri Yuktesvar the title of Swami, and asked him
to write this book comparing Hindu scriptures and the Christian Bible.
Swami Sri Yuktesvar obeyed.
He also founded two ashrams, including one in his ancestral home. He
lived simply as a swami and yogi, devoted to disciplining his body and
mind, and thus to liberating his soul. Among his disciples was
Paramahansa Yogananda, credited with bringing yoga and meditation to
millions of Westerners.
The Holy Science consists of four chapters. The first is titled "The
Gospel," and is intended to "establish the fundamental truth of
creation." Next is "The Goal," which discusses the three things all
creatures are seeking: "Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss."
Chapter three, "The Procedure," is the most practical of the sections.
It describes the natural way to live for purity and health of body and
mind. The final chapter is called "The Revelation," and discusses the
end of the path for those who are near the "three ideals of life."
Swami Sri Yukteswar also displays his impressive knowledge and
understanding of astrology by proposing his theory of the Yuga Cycle.
Each yuga is an age of the world that tracks the movement of the sun,
Earth, and planets. Each age represents a different state of humanity.
There are four yugas:
- Satya Yuga is the highest and most enlightened age of truth and
perfection.
- Treta Yuga is the age of thought and is more spiritually advanced
than Dwapara Yuga and Kali Yuga.
- Dwapara Yuga is an energetic age, although not a wise one. During
this yuga, people are often self-serving and greedy. The age is marked
by war and disease.
- Kali Yuga is the age of darkness, ignorance, and materialism. This is
the least evolved age.
Today, The Holy Science is highly respected among those seeking to
understand the relationships between world religions and cultures.
While some still believe that we are in Kali Yuga, many others believe
that Swami Sri Yukteswar was accurate, and that his calculations
correct previous errors that artificially inflated the length of the
Yuga Cycle.
The Zhou Changes, better known in the West as I Ching, is one of
the masterpieces of world literature. This book, the climax of more
than forty years of research in Chinese archaeology, explores the
text's origins in the oracle-bone and milfoil divinations of Bronze
Age China and how it transformed over the course of the Zhou
dynasty into the first of the Chinese classics. The book provides
an in-depth survey of the theory and practice of divination to
demonstrate how the hexagram and line statements of the text were
produced and how they were understood at the time.
Michael Slote is one of the most prominent philosophers working in
the discipline today. By creating a two-way dialogue between
philosophers specializing in Chinese philosophy and a central
thinker from the Anglo-American tradition, this volume brings
cross-cultural philosophy to life. From his early contributions in
ethics, metaethics, philosophy of mind, moral psychology and
epistemology to his recent investigations into the relationship
between Western philosophy and Chinese philosophy, an international
team of scholars of Chinese philosophy cover Slote’s
sentimentalism, his understanding of Chinese concepts Yin and Yang
and explores the role Early Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism can
play in his work. Each chapter extends Slote’s ideas by
considering them from a Chinese philosophical perspective and Slote
is given the opportunity to respond to each of the contributors’
interpretation of his work. Applied to Classical works such as the
Zhuangzi and the Yijing, his ground-breaking thoughts on morality,
care ethics and empathy are taken in new, exciting directions.
Buddhist Philosophy of Consciousness brings Buddhist voices to the
study of consciousness. This book explores a variety of different
Buddhist approaches to consciousness that developed out of the
Buddhist theory of non-self. Topics taken up in these
investigations include: how we are able to cognize our own
cognitions; whether all conscious states involve conceptualization;
whether distinct forms of cognition can operate simultaneously in a
single mental stream; whether non-existent entities can serve as
intentional objects; and does consciousness have an intrinsic
nature, or can it only be characterized functionally? These
questions have all featured in recent debates in consciousness
studies. The answers that Buddhist philosophers developed to such
questions are worth examining just because they may represent novel
approaches to questions about consciousness.
This introduction to Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962), the critical
successor of the "father of contemporary Japanese philosophy"
Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945), focuses on Tanabe's central
philosophical ideas and perspective on self, world, knowledge, and
the purpose of philosophizing. Addressing Tanabe's life-long study
of the history of Anglo-European philosophy, Takeshi Morisato
explores his notable philosophical ideas including the logic of
species, metanoetics, and philosophy of death. He sets out Tanabe's
belief that the Anglo-European framework of thinking is incapable
of giving sufficient answers to the philosophical questions
concerning the self and the world together and discusses the
central ideas he developed while working in both Judeo-Christian
and Mahayana Buddhist traditions. Featuring comprehensive further
reading lists, discussion questions, and teaching notes, this is an
ideal introductory guide to Tanabe Hajime for anyone interested in
Japanese and World philosophies, as well as the early development
of the Kyoto School.
Bringing together a number of case studies, this book shows how
from early on Chinese philosophical discourses unfolded through
innovation and the subversion of dominant forms of thinking.
Narrowing in on the commonplace Chinese motto that "the three
teachings" of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism "are joined into
one", as if there had never been any substantial differences
between or within these schools of thought, a team of esteemed
contributors challenge established views. They explain how the
Daoist tradition provided a variety of alternatives to prevailing
Confucian master narratives, reveal why the long history of
Confucianism is itself full of ambiguities, disputes, and competing
ideas and discuss how in Buddhist theory and practice, the
subversion of unquestioned beliefs and attitudes has been a prime
methodological and therapeutic device. By drawing attention to
unorthodox voices and subversion as a method, this exciting
collection reveals that for too long the traditional division into
"three teachings" has failed to do justice to the diversity and
subtlety found in the numerous discourses constituting the history
of Chinese philosophy. Critique, Subversion and Chinese Philosophy
finally makes such innovative disruptions visible.
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