Oriental Enlightenment


Book Description

Style and level of discussion makes this an ideal intro to Western thought and the East: not philosophically dense. Said's classics `Orientalism' only discusses Islam: this covers all Eastern thought. Author has written extensively on Jung and the East, also taught in Singapore. Will appeal to non-specialists due to `history of ideas' approach: broad sweep.




Encounter the Enlightened (eBook)


Book Description

Sadhguru presents a rare glimpse of undiluted truth from discourses given to seekers at the Isha Yoga Center and around the world. A tool of tremendous value in an age imprisoned by materialism and dogma, these dialogues are an essential key to inner exploration of the profound questions of humanity: Who am I? Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? The master speaks with undeniable logic and wisdom that penetrates the deepest realms of our heart and soul




Unfabling the East


Book Description

During the long eighteenth century, Europe's travelers, scholars, and intellectuals looked to Asia in a spirit of puzzlement, irony, and openness. In this panoramic and colorful book, Jürgen Osterhammel tells the story of the European Enlightenment's nuanced encounter with the great civilizations of the East, from the Ottoman Empire and India to China and Japan. Here is the acclaimed book that challenges the notion that Europe's formative engagement with the non-European world was invariably marred by an imperial gaze and presumptions of Western superiority. Osterhammel shows how major figures such as Leibniz, Voltaire, Gibbon, and Hegel took a keen interest in Asian culture and history, and introduces lesser-known scientific travelers, colonial administrators, Jesuit missionaries, and adventurers who returned home from Asia bearing manuscripts in many exotic languages, huge collections of ethnographic data, and stories that sometimes defied belief. Osterhammel brings the sights and sounds of this tumultuous age vividly to life, from the salons of Paris and the lecture halls of Edinburgh to the deserts of Arabia, the steppes of Siberia, and the sumptuous courts of Asian princes. He demonstrates how Europe discovered its own identity anew by measuring itself against its more senior continent, and how it was only toward the end of this period that cruder forms of Eurocentrism--and condescension toward Asia--prevailed.




Encounter with Enlightenment


Book Description

Examines the influence of Shintoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism on Japanese ethics, with implications for our understanding of various social, economic, and environmental problems.




The Awakening of the West


Book Description

The Awakening of the West is an insightful and elegantly written history chronicling the developing relationship between Buddhism and Western culture. As anyone familiar with the work of Stephen Batchelor (best-selling author of Buddhism Without Beliefs) would expect, The Awakening of the West is presented in a fresh and lively way and backed by thorough research. Using the innovative approach of starting with the present and working back in time, Batchelor makes it easy to connect familiar contemporary Buddhist teachers to their historical roots. He breathes life into history by capturing the personalities and times of famous and lesser-known but important Buddhist figures. After absorbing these stories and their context, readers will not only have a greater appreciation of Buddhism as a religion but can gain insights that can help them develop their own discerning wisdom. The Awakening of the West is a unique, engaging and important book for anyone seeking a greater understanding of Buddhism.




Dreaming Me


Book Description

Jan Willis is not Baptist or Buddhist. She is simply both. Dreaming Me is the story of her life, as a child growing up in the Jim Crow South, dealing with racism in an Ivy League college, and becoming involved with the Black Panther Party. But it wasn't until meeting Lama Yeshe, a Tibetan Buddhist monk living in the mountains of Nepal, that she realized who the real Jan Willis was, and how to make the most of the life she was living.




Coming Home


Book Description




Free Spirit


Book Description

Free Spirit speaks as freedom, which is our Consciousness, the sweet essence of our lives. The freedom spoken here is an inner knowing. We cannot realize this liberation by catering to our bodies, emotions or minds. No, this freedom is spiritual; an altitude of perception that only arises when we are lighter than our surroundings. We can realize this lightness of being if we are willing to abide as Awareness and let go of the ego, the one who suffers mind. For this enlightenment to happen, a quiet mind is all we need. Why do anything for this, when only our stillness will suffice. Be silent, be still, be free. Within this book you will find answered and unanswered questions, humor, poetic prose, experimentation with consciousness and passages that illuminate the sense that we are more than our thoughts, emotions, senses, body and energy. Every word is sourced by the power of silent Truth. Without contradicting this source, the writing inspires our active participation in the realization of Spirit, as only our direct experience is of value to this awakening. For those of us who desire to be free, the author takes us by the hand and walks with us through the entire landscape of the egoic mind, until we reach its outer boundary. Here, we are invited to take a leap of Self-faith into simply being who we are right now... Free Spirit,




The Secular Enlightenment


Book Description

Provides a panoramic account of the radical ways that life began to change for ordinary people in the age of Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau. In this book, familiar Enlightenment figures share places with voices that have remained largely unheard until now, from freethinkers and freemasons to French materialists, anticlerical Catholics, pantheists, pornographers, readers, and travelers. Jacob reveals how this newly secular outlook was not a wholesale rejection of Christianity but rather a new mental space in which to encounter the world on its own terms. She takes readers from London and Amsterdam to Berlin, Vienna, Turin, and Naples, drawing on rare archival materials to show how ideas central to the emergence of secular democracy touched all facets of daily life. Jacob demonstrates how secular values and pursuits took hold of eighteenth-century Europe, spilled into the American colonies, and left their lasting imprint on the Western world for generations to come. --Adapted from publisher description.




Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment


Book Description

Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment Isn't One Kind of Enlightenment - It's the Only Kind THE MARK OF A TRUE MASTER is that he can express a subject of the utmost complexity with uncanny simplicity. Jed McKenna is such a master, and spiritual enlightenment is his subject. His first book, Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing, was an instant classic and established him as a spiritual teacher of startling depth and clarity. Now, his second book, Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment, takes us on a fascinating tour of the enlightened state - what it is and what it's not, who's there and who's not, how to get there and how to get somewhere better. Delightful surprises abound, including the dramatic unveiling of perhaps the greatest spiritual masterpiece of all time - long hidden in plain view and well known to all. Whitman, Melville, Thoreau, Mark Twain and U.G. Krishnamurti all appear, and a student from the first book returns to share her Spiritual Autolysis journals. Also surprising are the author's gentle efforts to guide the reader away from enlightenment toward a more desirable and accessible state. Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged, Missing me one place, search another, I stop somewhere, waiting for you. - Walt Whitman Jed McKenna's books aren't for everyone. They're for people who are tired of the spiritual merry-go-round and ready to confront the unadorned reality of the awakening process. If you like your teachers with all the spiritual trimmings and trappings, Jed may not be right for you, but when you're ready to jump off the merry-go-round and begin your journey, Jed McKenna is the guy you want to see standing there, waiting for you.