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With this one compact statement, Jacob Needleman has forced the
discussion of both science and religion in our time into a new,
more mature and discriminating phase. . . . It is a way station
where those who are seriously exploring the transformation of
consciousness will have to stop, take thought, and perhaps re-plot
their course.-Theodore RoszakI want to strongly recommend it to
every reader seriously interested in our present cultural
situation.-Fritjof CapraNeedleman is unique; he is really on to
something. . . . A fine book-Harvey Cox Western science has
operated for centuries on the assumption that we can understand the
universe without understanding ourselves. We are just now seeking
to make the necessary connection between the general laws of nature
to those of our own (inner) nature. But the job won't be done with
massive injections of the new consciousness; we cannot democratize
the sacred by cheapening its demands. My aim in this book therefore
says Needleman, has not been to speak of the convergence of science
and spirituality, but of their separation. As in nature itself,
organic unity is a reciprocal relationship between separate but
interdependent entities. In human life as well, there can be no
real unity except through the awareness of real divisions. One may
then hope to experience the magic power of sustained awareness by
itself to bring the harmony that we have until now fruitlessly
attempted to impose on ourselves and on our endangered
civilization. Jacob Needleman is a professor of philosophy at San
Francisco State University and the author of many books, including
Money and the Meaning of Life, and The American Soul. In addition
to his teaching and writing, he serves as a consultant in the
fields of psychology, education, medical ethics, philanthropy, and
business, and has been featured on Bill Moyers's acclaimed PBS
series A World of Ideas.
CHRISTIAN STUDIES / GNOSTICISM"Among all the astonishing documents
unearthed in 1945 near the desert village of Nag Hammadi, the
Gospel of Thomas has made the greatest impact on our understanding
of Christianity. . . . The words in this text have the power to
touch an unknown part of ourselves that brings with it an
undeniable recognition of truth and hope."Jacob Needleman, author
of "Lost Christianity and The American Soul""In this remarkable
book, scholar-mystic Jean-Yves Leloup invites us to meditate on the
'eternal jewel, ' the revelation of Jesus, and on the reign of God
spread all around us, within and without. May these logia of Jesus
translated from the Gospel of Thomas fall on good soil and yield a
bountiful harvest of peace, justice, and enlightenment."Margaret
Starbird, author of "The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary
Magdalen and the Holy Grail"One of the cache of codices and
manuscripts discovered in Nag Hammadi, the Gospel of Thomas, unlike
the canonical gospels, does not contain a narrative recording
Christ's life and prophecies. Instead, it is a collection of his
teachings in 114 logia, or sayings, that were gathered by Judas
Didymus Thomas, whom some claim was Jesus' closest disciple. No
sooner was this gospel uncovered from the sands of Upper Egypt than
scholars and theologians began to bury it anew in a host of
conflicting interpretations and polemics. While some say it is a
hodgepodge from the canonical gospels, for others it is the source
text from which all the gospel writers drew their material and
inspiration.In this new translation of the Gospel of Thomas,
Jean-Yves Leloup shows that the Jesus recorded by the "infinitely
skeptical and infinitely believing"Thomas has much in common with
gnostics of nondualistic schools. Like them, Jesus preaches the
coming of a new man, the genesis of the man of knowledge. In this
gospel, Jesus describes a journey from limited to unlimited
consciousness. The Jesus of Thomas invites us to drink deeply from
the well of knowledge that lies within, not so that we may become
good Christians, but so that we may attain the self-knowledge that
will make each of us, too, a Christ.JEAN-YVES LELOUP is the founder
of the Institute of Other Civilization Studies and the
International College of Therapists. His other books include the
bestselling "The Gospel of Mary Magdalene" and "The Gospel of
Philip." He lives in France.
Looking at the lives of America's founders-including Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin-scholar and bestselling author Jacob Needleman explores their core of inner beliefs; their religious and spiritual sensibilities; and their individual conception of the purpose of life. The founders, Needleman argues, conceived of an "inner democracy": a continual pursuit of wisdom and self-improvement that would undergird the outer democracy in which we live today. Any understanding of America as a nation of spiritual values will in the years ahead require Needleman's work as a point of reference.
Available for the first time in a handy, easy-to-use size, here is the most accessible and authoritative modern English translation of the ancient Chinese classic. This new Vintage edition includes an introduction and notes by the well-known writer and scholar of philosophy and comparative religion, Jacob Needleman.
This inaugural-and all new-Tarcher Cornerstone Edition presents a
stunningly relevant and reliable translation of the thoughts and
aphorisms of the Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus
Aurelius, properly placing the philosopher-king's writings within
the vein of the world's great religious and ethical traditions. The
late antique world possessed no voice like that of Roman emperor
Marcus Aurelius (121-180 CE). His private meditations on what
constitutes a good life have withstood the centuries and reach us
today with the same penetrating clarity and shining light as the
words of Shakespeare, Emerson, or Thoreau. In this remarkable new
translation, bestselling religious philosopher Jacob Needleman and
classics scholar John P. Piazza have retained the depth of Marcus's
perspective on life. They have carefully selected and faithfully
rendered those passages that clarify Marcus's role as someone who
stood within the great religious and ethical traditions that extend
throughout every culture in human history. The voice that emerges
from their translation is a universal one, equally recognizable to
students of Christ, Buddha, the Vedas, the Talmud, and to anyone
who sincerely searches for a way of meaning in contemporary life.
In his most intimate and revealing work, religious scholar
Needleman cuts a clear path through today's clamorous debates over
the existence of God, bringing an entirely new way of approaching
the question of how to understand a higher power.
In this new book, Jacob Needleman-whose voice and ideas have done
so much to open the West to esoteric and Eastern religious ideas in
the twentieth and twenty-first centuries-intimately considers
humanity's most vital question: What is God?
With rich, vivid examples from his experiences in the classroom
and other walks of life, Needleman draws us closer to the meaning
andnature of this question-and shows how our present confusion
about the purpose of religion and the concept of God reflects a
widespread psychological starvation for a specific quality of
thought and experience. In varied detail, the book describes this
inner experience, and how almost all of us-atheists and believers
alike-actually have been visited by it, but without understanding
what it means and why its intentional cultivation is necessary for
the fullness of our existence.
If we understood the true role of money in our lives, writes philosopher Jacob Needleman, we would not think simply in terms of spending it or saving it. Money exerts a deep emotional influence on who we are and what we tell ourselves we can never have. Our long unwillingness to understand the emotional and spiritual effects of money on us is at the heart of why we have come to know the price of everything, and the value of nothing. Money has everything to do with the pursuit of an idealistic life, while at the same time, it is at the root of our daily frustrations. On a social level, money has a profound impact on the price of progress. Needleman shows how money slowly began to haunt us, from the invention of coins in Biblical times (when money was created to rescue the community good, not for self gain), through its hypnotic appeal in our money-obsessed era. This is a remarkable book that combines myth and psychology, the poetry of the Sufis and the wisdom of King Solomon, along with Jacob Needleman's searching of his own soul and his culture to explain how money can become a unique means of self-knowledge. As part of the Currency paperback line, it includes a "User's Guide" an introduction and discussion guide created for the paperback by the author -- to help readers make practical use of the book's ideas.
"No one has done better in conveying Lao Tsu's simple and laconic
style of writing, so as to produce an English version almost as
suggestive of the many meanings intended. This is a most useful, as
well as beautiful, volume--and what it has to say is exactly what
the world, in its present state, needs to hear." - Alan Watts
RELIGION/ EASTERN STUDIES
The "Tao Te Ching, " the esoteric but infinitely practical book
written most probably in the sixth century B.C. by Lao Tsu, has
been translated more frequently than any work except the Bible.
This translation of the Chinese classic, which was first published
twenty-five years ago, has sold more copies than any of the others.
It offers the essence of each word makes Lao Tsu's teaching
immediate and alive.
The philosophy of Lao Tsu is simple: Accept what is in front of
you without wanting the situation to be other than it is. Study the
natural order of things and work with it rather than against it,
for to try to change what "is" only sets up resistance. Nature
provides for all without discrimination--therefore let us present
the same face to everyone and treat all men as equals, however they
may be have. If we watch carefully, we will see that work proceeds
more quickly and easily if we stop looking for results. In the
clarity of a still and open mind, truth will be reflected. We will
come to appreciate the original meaning of the word "understand,"
which means "to stand under." We serve whatever or whoever stands
before us, without any thought for ourselves. "Te--"which may be
translated as "virtue" or "strength"--lies always in "Tao," or
"natural law." In other words: Simply be.
Third Edition God, the Universe, and Man-their essential unity and
fundamental attributes as seen through the eyes of Jewish esoteric
tradition-is the subject of Leo Schaya's masterly study of the
Kabbalah. Unlike most works on the subject, which focus on the
history of the Kabbalah or the Kabbalah as literature (not to
mention countless 'new age' rants), this penetrating text expounds
the universal teachings of the Kabbalah on the relationships of all
things to their supreme archetypes, the ten Sephiroth, or
principial aspects of God. In addition to the Old Testament and the
Talmud, Schaya draws on one of the classical sources of Jewish
mysticism-the Zohar, or Book of Splendor-fromwhich he extracts an
all-embracing synthesis of the numberless degrees of All-Reality,
to which correspond the multiple states of human being, from
earthly individuality to essential identity with the Absolute. This
work, acclaimed by reviewers and scholars alike, fittingly
concludes with an illuminating chapter on the Name of God, which
saves 'all those who invoke him in truth.' Students of comparative
religion will find an abundance of information here, for striking
parallels both with the Hindu cosmological doctrines and the
metaphysical insights of the Vedantic sages are among the surprises
interlaced in this account of Judaic esoteric wisdom. In this,
Schaya carries on the extraordinary work of three great
20th-century metaphysicians of the philosophia perennis: Rene
Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, and Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. This book will
be extremely useful to anyone who is, in the words of Maimonides,
'perplexed' by the Bible in the sense of having exercised his best
thinking about it and who now stands 'broken' before its apparent
contradictions and its overwhelming emotional authority. The
Kabbalah, or esotericism, is the communication to man of what
Schaya calls principial ideas, ideas that are to thought and
actions what the sun is to its rays. Standing between metaphysical
ideas and the symbolic language of the Zohar and the Old Testament,
he allows each side to penetrate the other. -Jacob Needleman,
author of Lost Christianity, A Sense of the Cosmos, etc. This book
fills an urgent need. To rediscover the deepest meaning of the Old
Testament is something that could haved a most tonic and
enlightening effect on the whole of Christian thought today; no
clearer interpreters are to be found than the masters of the
Kabbalah. -Marco Pallis, author of The Way and the Mountain, A
Buddhist Spectrum, etc. Leo Schaya was born in Switzerland in 1916.
He received a traditional Jewish upbringing, but from an early age
devoted himself to the study of the great metaphysical doctrines of
East and West, particularly those of Neoplatonism, Sufism, and
theAdvaita Vedanta. His works include, in addition to The Universal
Meaning of the Kabbalah (first published in French in 1958 as
L'Homme et l'Absolu selon la Kabbale), La Doctrine Soufique de
l'Unite, La creation en Dieu: a la lumiere du judaisme, du
christianisme et l'islam, and Naissance a l'esprit, as well as
numerous articles.
Philosophy as it is frequently taught in classrooms bears little
relation to the impassioned and immensely practical search for
self-knowledge conducted by not only its ancient avatars but also
by men and woman who seek after truth today. In The Heart of the
Philosophy, Jacob Needleman provides a "user's guide" for those who
would take philosophy seriously enough to understand its
life-transforming qualities.
In the spiritual language of the 20th century few names raise such
varied reactions as that of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff
(1866-1949). Much of what is considered New Age spirituality can be
attributed to Gurdjieff. This book is a tribute not only to the
scope and power of Gurdjieff's ideas, but to the special
"atmosphere" that surrounded his work with pupils.
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