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Loriliai Biernacki and Philip Clayton offer a collection of groundbreaking new essays on panentheism. Not to be confused with pantheism-the ancient Greek notion that God is everywhere, an animistic force in rocks and trees-panentheism suggests that God is both in the world, immanent, and also beyond the confines of mere matter, transcendent. One of the fundamental premises in this book is that panentheism, despite being unlabeled until the nineteenth century, is not merely a modern Western invention. The contributors examine a number of the world's established and ancient religious traditions-Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, among others-to draw out the panentheistic dimensions of these traditions and the possibilities they suggest. Panentheism is not simply an esoteric, potentially heretical, and habitually mystical vision of the world's great religious pasts; it persists today with a proper name and a lineage. As this volume demonstrates, a new paradigm is emerging in modern panentheism, one eminently suited to a world view that can no longer shake off the realities of our evolving species and our evolving technological world. Panentheism's enticingly heretical vision of the relationship between the divine and matter has historically been denied a serious place in scholarship. As Panentheism across the World's Traditions shows, the dynamism between matter and spirit that panentheism offers has had a profound influence in the modern world.
Tantra is a family of rituals modeled on those of the Vedas and
their attendant texts and lineages. These rituals typically involve
the visualization of a deity, offerings, and the chanting of his or
her mantra. Common variations include visualizing the deity in the
act of sexual union with a consort, visualizing oneself as the
deity, and "transgressive" acts such as token consumption of meat
or alcohol. Most notoriously, non-standard or ritualized sex is
sometimes practiced. This accounts for Tantra's negative reputation
in some quarters and its reception in the West primarily as a
collection of sexual practices.
Tantra is a family of rituals modeled on those of the Vedas and
their attendant texts and lineages. These rituals typically involve
the visualization of a deity, offerings, and the chanting of his or
her mantra. Common variations include visualizing the deity in the
act of sexual union with a consort, visualizing oneself as the
deity, and "transgressive" acts such as token consumption of meat
or alcohol. Most notoriously, non-standard or ritualized sex is
sometimes practiced. This accounts for Tantra's negative reputation
in some quarters and its reception in the West primarily as a
collection of sexual practices.
In the early 11th century, the Kashmiri philosopher Abhinavagupta proposed panentheism-seeing the divine as both immanent in the world and at the same time as transcendent-as a way to reclaim the material world as something real, something solid. His theology understood the world itself, with its manifold inhabitants-from gods to humans to insects down to the merest rock-as part of the unfolding of a single conscious reality, Siva. This conscious singularity-the word "god" here does not quite do it justice-with its capacity to choose and will, pervades all through, top to bottom; as Abhinavagupta writes, "even down to a worm - when they do their own deeds, that which is to be done first stirs in the heart." His panentheism proposed an answer to a familiar conundrum, one we still grapple with today: Consciousness is so unlike matter. How does consciousness actually connect to the materiality of our world? To put this in more familar twenty-first-century terms, how does mind connect to body? These questions drive Loriliai Biernacki's The Matter of Wonder: Abhinavagupta's Panentheism and New Materialism. Biernacki draws on Abhinavagupta's thought-and particularly his yet-untranslated, philosophical magnum opus, the Isvara Pratyabhijna Vivrti Vimarsini-to think through contemporary issues such as the looming prospect of machine AI, ideas about information, and our ecological crises. She argues that Abhinavagupta's panentheism can help us understand our current world and can contribute to a New Materialist re-envisioning of the relationship that humans have with matter.
Not to be confused with pantheismthe ancient Greek notion that God is everywhere, an animistic force in rocks and treesthe concept of panentheism suggests that God is both in the world, immanent, and also beyond the confines of mere matter, transcendent. One of the fundamental premises of this groundbreaking collection of essays is that panentheism, despite being unlabeled until the nineteenth century, is not merely a modern Western invention. The contributors examine a number of the worlds established and ancient religious traditionsChristianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and othersto draw out the panentheistic dimensions of these traditions and the possibilities they suggest. Panentheism is not only an esoteric, potentially heretical, and deeply mystical vision of the worlds great religious pasts; it is also a key feature of contemporary global spirituality. As this volume demonstrates, the metaphors and practices associated with modern panentheism speak powerfully to the realities of our evolving species and our evolving technological world. Panentheisms enticingly heretical vision of the relationship between the divine and matter has historically been denied a serious place in scholarship. As Panentheism across the Worlds Traditions shows, the dynamism between matter and spirit that panentheism offers has had a profound influence in the modern world.
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