Philosophy and Religion

'Every age has its visionaries. Bede Griffiths, the gentle Benedictine monk who traveled to India to seek the other half of his soul was one such spiritual giant. Like Mother Teresa and Thich Nhat Hanh, Father Bede's spirituality transcends sectarian labels. His Shantivanam ("Forest of Peace") monastery in India is Christian in faith but Hindu in lifestyle. The essays and stories in the moving tri

Creating a sensation when it was first published in 1877, the first major work by the young Russian noblewoman who would found the Theosophical Society devoted 1200 pages to the mysteries of ancient and modern science and theology. This new edition abridged by Theosophical scholar Michael Gomes breathes fresh life into this classic of Western esoteric thinking. Stripped of its lengthy quotations f

Wilber traces humanity's cultural and spiritual evolution. New Foreword by the author.

There really was a St. Nicholas — you may be surprised to hear. He was a fourth-century bishop in Asia Minor. Europeans have long observed December 6 as St. Nicholas Day, but the tradition never took hold in America. This charming volume presents little-known legends and tales from Russia, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Germany, Holland, France, Italy, and Armenia----to name a few of the countries repres

Gnosticism developed alongside Judeo-Christianity over two thousand years ago, but with an important difference: It emphasizes, not faith, but direct perception of God--Gnosticism being derived from the Greek word gnosis, meaning "knowledge." Given the controversial premise that one can know God directly, the history of Gnosticism is an unfolding drama of passion, political intrigue, martyrdom, an

"Neither as Christians or Jews, nor simply as intellectually responsible individuals," says Hixon, "have members of Western civilization been sensitively educated or even accurately informed about Islam." As tensions between America and the Middle East grow, we should promote cross-cultural understanding, not violence. This new edition, with a new foreword and commentary by Neil Douglas-Klotz, all

From Egyptian mythology to Jewish mysticism, Rome and Greece to the druids and the gnostics, Tim Wallace-Murphy exposes a fascinating lineage of hidden mysteries and secret societies, continuing through the Templars, Rosicrucians, and Freemasons to our modern visionaries. This hidden stream of spirituality and that of sacred knowledge are inseparably entwined to form the single most important cont

Does God exist? Can spirituality be integrated with science? Is happiness possible? Do miracles really happen? Not only does The Visionary Window answer "yes" to all of these questions, but it skillfully combines the fields of philosophy, cosmology, religion, and psychology to form a new way of thinking about science and spirituality. Stepping beyond the classic work of prominent seventies physici

"Robin Robertson has a knack for grasping the pure quill in our crazy-making daily whirl. Indra's Net is magical, because readers will learn more about themselves than about Indra, alchemy or chaos theory." —Daryl Sharp, Jungian analyst, Publisher, Inner City Books "Robin Robertson has one of those minds that range over disparate models of reality, see their affinities, intuit their implications,

Gold Winner of the 2012 Benjamin Franklin Award and the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Award! This is a definitive book on the Sufi "way of blame" that addresses the cultural life of Sufism in its entirety. Originating in ninth-century Persia, the "way of blame" (Arab. malamatiyya) is a little-known tradition within larger Sufism that focused on the psychology of egoism and engaged in self-cri

In the West, Islam has replaced Communism as the new bugbear, while Sufism, Islam’s mystical dimension, is often dismissed as the delusions of an irrational and backward people. Ken Lizzio corrects such misperceptions in this firsthand account of the year he spent in 1991 living with the head of the Naqshbandis, Afghanistan’s largest Sufi order. He presents the order in all its dimensions—social,

A collection of sayings, anecdotes, and words of wisdom—Paramahansa Yogananda’s candid and loving responses to those who came to him for counsel. These brief vignettes offer the reader an opportunity to share in these personal conversations and experiences with him. Shining from every page are his compassionate understanding of humanity and his deep love for God.

A mudra is a symbolic gesture or action that gives physical expression to an inner state. This book of poetry and songs of devotion, written by Chögyam Trungpa between 1959 and 1971, is spontaneous and celebratory. This volume also includes the ten traditional Zen oxherding pictures accompanied by a unique commentary that offers an unmistakably Tibetan flavor. Fans of this renowned teacher wi

A renowned Zen teacher and contemporary of Shunryu Suzuki explores the many pillars of Zen spirituality, explaining how we can bring these practices into our daily lives For twenty-five hundred years Buddhism has taught that everyone is Buddha—already enlightened, lacking nothing. But still there is the question of how we can experience that truth in our lives. In this book, Dainin Katag

In this book, two great Tibetan Buddhist masters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries challenge us to critically examine our materialistic preoccupations and think carefully about how we want to spend the rest of our lives. At the same time, they provide practical guidance in following the Buddhist path, starting from the most basic motivation and culminating in the direct experience of reali

A leading Jungian psychologist reveals the relationship between alchemy and analytical psychology, delving into the visionary work of a sixteenth-century alchemist   Although alchemy is popularly regarded as the science that sought to transmute base physical matter, many of the medieval alchemists were more interested in developing a discipline that would lead to the psychological and spiri

This book (previously published as I Am Wind, You Are Fire ) celebrates the extraordinary career of Persia's great mystical poet, Rumi (1207–1273), through the story of his life, along with an enlightening examination of his ecstatic verse. Rumi lived the quiet life of a religious teacher in Anatolia until the age of thirty-seven, when he came under the influence of a whirling dervish, Shams

This groundbreaking work examines the role of women in the Western healing traditions. Drawing on the disciplines of history, anthropology, botany, archaeology, and the behavioral sciences, Jeanne Achterberg discusses the ancient cultures in which women worked as independent and honored healers; the persecution of women healers in the witch hunts of the Middle Ages; the development of midwifery an