India has a rich tradition of meditative practices designed to study the phenomenon of consciousness. From the distant past to the present, India has evolved a unique psychological culture with grand unifying themes and universal modes of meditative practice. This book provides a detailed analysis of classical and modern Indian views on consciousness along with their related meditative methods. It offers a critical analysis of three distinct trends of Indian thought, viz., a dualistic mode of understanding and realizing consciousness in Hindu Samkhya, an interactive mode in early Buddhist abhidhamma, and the evolutionary transformational mode in the teachings of the twentieth-century sage Sri Aurobindo. This book explores the unifying features in Indian first person practices with regard to consciousness and the importance of these applied psychological practices and their associated understanding of our conscious inner lives. The most striking feature of the work is that side by side theoretical exposition of consciousness, it includes a number of worksheets which explain how to use meditation to achieve relaxation as well as cognitive 'maps' of the different levels of conscious states and instruction and how one can traverse from one state to another. The final chapter explores Sri Aurobindo who introduced new and decisive Indian spiritual thought and practice to India in the form of Integral Yoga. This innovative book will be of interest to scholars studying Indian philosophy, Indian religion and the emerging field of contemplation studies.

India has a rich tradition of meditative practices designed to study the phenomenon of consciousness. From the distant past to the present, India has evolved a unique psychological culture with grand unifying themes and universal modes of meditative practice. This book provides a detailed analysis of classical and modern Indian views on consciousness along with their related meditative methods. It offers a critical analysis of three distinct trends of Indian thought, viz., a dualistic mode of understanding and realizing consciousness in Hindu Samkhya, an interactive mode in early Buddhist abhidhamma, and the evolutionary transformational mode in the teachings of the twentieth-century sage Sri Aurobindo. This book explores the unifying features in Indian first person practices with regard to consciousness and the importance of these applied psychological practices and their associated understanding of our conscious inner lives. The most striking feature of the work is that side by side theoretical exposition of consciousness, it includes a number of worksheets which explain how to use meditation to achieve relaxation as well as cognitive 'maps' of the different levels of conscious states and instruction and how one can traverse from one state to another. The final chapter explores Sri Aurobindo who introduced new and decisive Indian spiritual thought and practice to India in the form of Integral Yoga. This innovative book will be of interest to scholars studying Indian philosophy, Indian religion and the emerging field of contemplation studies.

Supramolecular materials have a great number of applications due to the reversibility of their non-covalent molecular interactions, such as reversible hydrogen bonding, host-guest interactions and electrostatic interactions. This book provides a comprehensive source of information on the structure and function of organic and metal-organic supramolecular materials. The chapters of this book provide an overview of supramolecular material assembly at various scales, including the formation of 2D polymers and molecular cages. The role of intermolecular interactions in solid and solution state self-assembly is discussed, as is the role of mechanochemistry on molecular and supramolecular architectures. Finally, novel applications of these materials in molecular recognition, catalysis, light harvesting and environmental remediation are covered. Functional Supramolecular Materials will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in academia and industry in the fields of supramolecular chemistry and functional materials science.

For Rahul Banerjee, the road from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur led straight into the land of the Bhils, the indigenous people in Central India. Over the last quarter of a century, Rahul Banerjee has worked among some of the poorest of the poor in the country. This book recounts not only his life among the Bhils, but also his own transformation into an apostate from modernity. The book is the product of an active and restless mind presenting a delightful account of activist and Bhil life in India "from below" while engaging with the broader ideas that are shaping contemporary India.