Heroes and Saints


Book Description

The present volume makes a unique contribution to the study of dying in ancient cultures by focusing on what happens in the critical moments before death. Employing a wide range of literary sources, the essays in this volume focus exclusively on the moment of death and practices associated with the transition from this world to the next. Five of the essays deal with Asian religions, primarily Buddhism in India, Tibet, China, and Japan. The other five essays deal with the moment of death in the West, old Norse-Icelandic, Old English, and the Judeo-Christian tradition. The authors explore the many ways in which the good death was envisioned. Remarkable parallels emerge between the good death in religious texts and in heroic sagas . Despite the diversity of cultures, time periods and religious traditions represented in these essays, this volume vividly illustrates the fundamental human need to see in the inevitable moment of death a possibility of choice and a promise of hope.




Heroes, Sages & Madmen


Book Description

Heroes, Sages and Madmen is not a book for everyone, but its potent message is about everyone. It reveals a direct and honest no nonsense revelation for spiritual aspirants who with courage, heroism, and sincerity are ready to go beyond the limitations of popular religion, academic philosophy, physical exercise yoga, and mental meditation. It is a revealing new, fresh, and amazing look into the four major traditional Paths of Enlightenment. It takes you where very few will go. It takes you into the midst of the personal attainments, blisses, challenges, pitfalls, and dangers of spiritual practices. And, it takes you into the consciousness and personal strategies of the far reaching socially popular and pretentious pop-guru. The seventy-nine short conversations in this book are guaranteed to convey many key secret spiritual teachings of the past. These secret spiritual teachings are traditionally known only by true and ripe spiritual Heroes and authentic Sages, Saints, and Yogis. Within these pages, you can discover what causes the social bondage, personal dissatisfaction, and the failing habitual struggles for inner Happiness and Peace. In the midst of the enigma and quagmire of ordinary thinking and analytical minds, the author reveals and restates many ancient esoteric secrets of spirituality. And, most importantly, the author shows how you can find a way out of your spiritual, social, and personal dilemmas. In the questions and answers in these conversations, many universal truths are delineated from major philosophies, religions, and spiritual practices and then their apparent differences are explored, summed up, and reconciled. The questions and answers in this book originated from dozens of sincere spiritual aspirants from group sessions, e-mails, personal notes, formal letters, telephone conversations, and one-on-one sessions since the early 1980s. Each question and answer is paraphrased by the author. The information, knowledge, and wisdom in this book have been distilled directly from personal experience from a lifetime of spiritual study and practices. The questions and answers are direct and sometimes surprising. At other times, the authors direct answers may challenge the spiritual assumptions of many neophyte and mature spiritual aspirants. The purpose of each answer was to directly serve the sincere spiritual aspirants spiritual development and awakening beyond their popular religious, academic philosophical, and social belief assumptions. In addition, popular misunderstandings surrounding classical spiritual teachings and their four major traditional Paths of Enlightenment and practice of yoga are described, evaluated, and discussed in depth. And lastly, the thinking-analytical meditation methods of popular spiritual movements in the West (European cultures) are considered in contrast to the contemplative meditations of the great Sages, Saints, and Yogis of the classical East (Non-European cultures). Unfortunately, the English language does not lend itself to explain and define the metaphysical principles and concepts of contemplative spirituality. Contemporary English is predominately a language of definitions, names, forms, and objects as demonstrated in English as used throughout the material world for business and commerce. Other languages such as Sanskrit, Pali, Tamil, and Hebrew are spoken and written to understand and verbally communicate both the dual physical world of objects and the multidimensional transcendental spiritual world beyond social psychology and formulative physics. For this reason, the author has modified many spelling, grammar, and syntax rules to emphasize and endeavor to explain contemplative concepts that cannot be explained by academic English. Therefore, you may discover that many sections may contain imperfect spelling, grammar, and syntax that are ordinarily absent from professionally produced books. To assure the authors metaphysical meani




Yogi Heroes and Poets


Book Description

This book provides a remarkable range of information on the history, religion, and folklore of the Nāth Yogis. A Hindu lineage prominent in North India since the eleventh century, Nāths are well-known as adepts of Hatha yoga and alchemical practices said to increase longevity. Long a heterogeneous group, some Nāths are ascetics and some are householders; some are dedicated to personified forms of Shiva, others to a formless god, still others to Vishnu. The essays in the first part of the book deal with the history and historiography of the Nāths, their literature, and their relationships with other religious movements in India. Essays in the second part discuss the legends and folklore of the Nāths and provide an exploration of their religious ideas. Contributors to the volume depict a variety of local areas where this lineage is prominent and highlight how the Nāths have been a link between religious, metaphysical, and even medical traditions in India.




The Hero and Hero-Making Across Genres


Book Description

This book critically examines how a Hero is made, sustained, and even deformed, in contemporary cultures. It brings together diverse ideas from philosophy, mythology, religion, literature, cinema, and social media to explore how heroes are constructed across genres, mediums, and traditions. The essays in this volume present fresh perspectives for readers to conceptualize the myriad possibilities the term ‘Hero’ brings with itself. They examine the making and unmaking of the heroes across literary, visual and social cultures —in religious spaces and in classical texts; in folk tales and fairy tales; in literature, as seen in Heinrich Böll’s Und Sagte Kein Einziges Wort, Thomas Brüssig’s Heroes like Us, and in movies, like Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and in the short film like Dean Potter's When Dogs Fly. The volume also features nuanced takes on intersectional feminist representations in hero movies; masculinity in sports biopics; taking everyday heroes from the real to the reel, among others key themes. A stimulating work that explores the mechanisms that ‘manufacture’ heroes, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of English literature, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, film studies, media studies, literary and critical theory, arts and aesthetics, political sociology and political philosophy.




The Hero of Our Story


Book Description

When we know who we truly are, rather than who we take ourselves to be, we will realize that we are indeed the hero of our story and that we need not look to others or the world to find our heart's desire. The Hero of Our Story is intended to be a simple and accessible entry point for those interested in Ramana and the teachings of Vedanta -- one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy. A commentary on Ramana's Sat Darshanam, each of the 42 verses from the text is presented and followed by commentary and discussion by the author.




Yoga Journal


Book Description

For more than 30 years, Yoga Journal has been helping readers achieve the balance and well-being they seek in their everyday lives. With every issue,Yoga Journal strives to inform and empower readers to make lifestyle choices that are healthy for their bodies and minds. We are dedicated to providing in-depth, thoughtful editorial on topics such as yoga, food, nutrition, fitness, wellness, travel, and fashion and beauty.




The Madness of the Saints


Book Description

Although ecstasy has been explored in several Indian contexts, surprisingly little scholarship has been devoted to its central role in Bengali devotion. In The Madness of the Saints, June McDaniel undertakes the first comprehensive study of religious ecstasy in Bengal, examining the texts that describe it, the people who experience it, and the traditions that support it.




Bear, Heart of a Hero


Book Description




The Hero with a Thousand Faces


Book Description

This newly redesigned edition of Campbell's seminal 1949 work combines the insights of modern psychology with the author's revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. Illustrated.




The Sanskrit Hero


Book Description

At the hand of the hero Karna this book offers a model for 'heroic religion', having to a large extent shaped not only the Indic epics, but also cognate Indo-European epics, such as Homer's Iliad.