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Books > Philosophy > Non-Western philosophy > Oriental & Indian philosophy
The Psychology of the Yogas explores the dissonance between the
promises of the yogic quest and psychological states of crisis.
Western practitioners of yoga and meditation who have embarked upon
years-long spiritual quests and who have practiced under the
guidance of a guru tell of profound and ongoing experiences of
love, compassion and clarity: the peaks of spiritual fulfillment.
However, after returning to the West, they reported difficulties
and crises in different areas of their lives. Why did these
practitioners, who had apparently touched the heights of
fulfillment, still suffer from these crises? The author explores
the psychological theory of yoga and its concrete yogic
psychological methods such as 'cultivating of the opposite'
(pratipaksa bhavana), transforming it to 'imagining the opposite',
a practice aimed at healing negative habitual tendencies. These
methods are extracted from an in-depth study of the Yoga of
Patanjali and the Tibetan-Buddhist Ati-Yoga of Longchenpa - the
Dzogchen. The works of Patanjali (3rd century) and Longchenpa,
(14th century) provide a profound psychological framework for
understanding the human psyche. These methods are effective but at
times difficult to implement. However, as demonstrated through a
case study Western psychology can effectively undo habitual
tendencies in a manner which may complement yoga practice,
enhancing the integration of one's spirituality and psychology.
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Short Works
(Paperback)
Shankara Adi Shankara; Translated by Arthur Farndell; Edited by Kevala Goup
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R683
R572
Discovery Miles 5 720
Save R111 (16%)
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The Zhuangzi is a deliciously protean text: it is concerned not
only with personal realization, but also (albeit incidentally) with
social and political order. In many ways the Zhuangzi established a
unique literary and philosophical genre of its own, and while
clearly the work of many hands, it is one of the finest pieces
ofliterature in the classical Chinese corpus. It employs every
trope and literary device available to set off rhetorically charged
flashes of insight into the most unrestrained way to live one's
life, free from oppressive, conventional judgments and values. The
essays presented here constitute an attempt by a distinguished
community of international scholars to provide a variety of
exegeses of one of the Zhuangzi's most frequently rehearsed
anecdotes, often referred to as "the Happy Fish debate." The
editors have brought together essays from the broadest possible
compass of scholarship, offering interpretations that range from
formal logic to alternative epistemologies to transcendental
mysticism. Many were commissioned by the editors and appear for the
first time. Some of them have been available in other
languages-Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish-and were translated
especially for this anthology. And several older essays were chosen
for the quality and variety of their arguments, formulated over
years of engagement by their authors. All, however, demonstrate
that the Zhuangzi as a text and as a philosophy is never one thing;
indeed, it has always been and continues to be, many different
things to many different people.
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