A Renunciate Order for the New Age


Book Description

The Nayaswami Order is a new movement in renunciation launched in late 2009 by Nayaswami Kriyananda, a direct disciple for over 60 years of the great yoga Master, Paramhansa Yogananda. He describes a new model based on positive aspects of renunciation - rather than the traditional world-negating approach. It is intended for people from all walks of life, married or single, who are committed to finding God, and is open to people of every religious affiliation.




Kailas Histories


Book Description

Tibet’s Mount Kailas is one of the world’s great pilgrimage centres, renowned as an ancient sacred site that embodies a universal sacrality. But Kailas Histories: Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred Geography demonstrates that this understanding is a recent construction by British colonial, Hindu modernist, and New Age interests. Using multiple sources, including fieldwork, Alex McKay describes how the early Indic vision of a heavenly mountain named Kailas became identified with actual mountains. He emphasises renunciate agency in demonstrating how local beliefs were subsumed as Kailas developed within Hindu, Buddhist, and Bön traditions, how five mountains in the Indian Himalayan are also named Kailas, and how Kailas sacred geography constructions and a sacred Ganges source region were related.




Coming of Age in America


Book Description

"Much hand-wringing has occurred over the so-called failure of young people to grow up today. This volume persuasively shows the range of forces that shape the protracted transition to adulthood. An excellent and enjoyable read." --Deborah Carr, Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University, and editor of the Encyclopedia of the Life Course and Human Development. "The essays in this volume are written with great verve and intelligence, grounded in extensive fieldwork and careful data analysis." --Frank Furstenberg, Professor of Sociology in the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania




American Dervish


Book Description

From the author of Homeland Elegies and Pulitzer Prize winner Disgraced, a stirring and explosive novel about an American Muslim family in Wisconsin struggling with faith and belonging in the pre-9/11 world. Hayat Shah is a young American in love for the first time. His normal life of school, baseball, and video games had previously been distinguished only by his Pakistani heritage and by the frequent chill between his parents, who fight over things he is too young to understand. Then Mina arrives, and everything changes. American Dervish is a brilliantly written, nuanced, and emotionally forceful look inside the interplay of religion and modern life.




Conversations with Yogananda


Book Description

This is an unparalleled, first hand account of the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, who has hundreds of thousands of followers and admirers in North America alone.




Women Awakened : Stories Of Contemporary Spirituality In India


Book Description

Eight lives that demonstrate the many facets of feminine spirituality For centuries, women have walked the inner path to spiritual realization despite thorns placed in their way by patriarchy, discrimination and unequal opportunities. Where they couldn't get past the confines of gender roles, women found ways to lead spiritually rich lives under the skin of their worldly selves. When they did manage to step outside spaces designated for them by patriarchy, and found fulfilment as wanderers and mystics, their insights and experiences remained largely anonymous. This anonymity persists. At a time when women gurus are becoming far more visible than ever before, there is nevertheless little understanding of a feminine spirituality. Through the lives of eight women - Anandmayi Ma, Nirmala Devi, Nani Ma, Sadhvi Bhagwati, Mata Amritanandamayi, Pravrajika Vivekaprana, Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo and Ven. Khandro Rinpoche - Women Awakened explores the idea of feminine spirituality in the contemporary context, and what it actually means to be a spiritual seeker in today's world.




Sadhu, Beware!


Book Description

This book offers insight, inspiration and practical advice for the greatest adventure in the world: the inner journey.




Running Toward Mystery


Book Description

A revered Buddhist monk tells the bracing and beautiful story of a singular life compelled to contemplation, sharing lessons about the power of mentorship and an open mind “A necessary and captivating narrative of spiritual courage and truth seeking far beyond the veil of our contemporary delusions.”—Sting Born in India to a prominent Hindu Brahmin family, the Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi was only six years old when he began having visions of a mysterious mountain peak, and of men with shaved heads wearing robes the color of sunset. “It was as vivid as if I were watching a scene from life,” he writes. And so at the age of ten, he ran away from boarding school to find this place—taking a train to the end of the line and then riding a bus to wherever it went. Strangely enough, he ended up at a Buddhist monastery that was the place in his dreams. His frantic parents and relatives set out to find him and, after two weeks, located him and brought him home. But he continued to have visions and feel a strong pull to a spiritual life in a tradition that he had never heard of as a child. Today, he is a revered monk and teacher as well as President and CEO of The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he works to build bridges among communities and religions. Running Toward Mystery is the Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi’s profound account of his lifelong journey as a seeker. At its heart is a story of striving for enlightenment, the vital importance of mentors in that search, and of the many remarkable teachers he met along the way, among them the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Mother Teresa. “Teachers come and go on their own schedule,” Priyadarshi writes. “I clearly wasn’t in charge of the timetable and it wasn’t my place to specify how a teacher should teach.” And arrive they did, at the right time, in the right way, to impart the lessons that shaped a life of seeking, devotion, and deep human connection across all barriers. Running Toward Mystery is the bracing and beautiful story of a singular life compelled to contemplation, and a riveting narrative of just how exciting that journey can be.




Living with the Himalayan Masters


Book Description

Inspirational stories of Swama Rama's experiences and lessons learned with the great teachers who guided his life including Mahatma Gandhi, Tagore, and more.




Siddhartha


Book Description

Herman Hesse's classic novel has delighted, inspired, and influenced generations of readers, writers, and thinkers. In this story of a wealthy Indian Brahmin who casts off a life of privilege to seek spiritual fulfillment. Hesse synthesizes disparate philosophies--Eastern religions, Jungian archetypes, Western individualism--into a unique vision of life as expressed through one man's search for true meaning.