The Yoga of Kashmir Shaivism


Book Description

Consciousness is the most intimate experience of life the essence of life itself. among the many spiritual traditions born and developed in India one ancient philosophy-Kashmir Shaivism-has explored it completely. The Yoga of Kashmir Shaivism is a book that will transform you. It is a resource and guide towards investigating and deepening your own consciousness.




Consciousness Is Everything


Book Description

Consciousness Is Everything Until now, Kashmir Shaivism was an esoteric field accessible only to a few scholars and other specialists. In his book Swamiji presents the wisdom of this powerful tradition and explores Consciousness, the most intimate experience of life. Swami Shankarananda has succeeded in making Kashmir Shaivism come alive in these pages, and I consider this work the best introduction to that tradition thus far. Georg Feuerstein, author




The Wonder of Consciousness


Book Description

An argument that what makes consciousness wonderful is its intelligibility.




The Nature of Consciousness, the Universe and Everything


Book Description

An evidenced-based compilation of findings across disciplines supported by direct observations and the formal experiments of peer review research. What does it mean to know? Are plants conscious? Is the waggle dance of the honeybee a language? Do fish dream? Can squirrel monkeys learn to perceive the color red? Do chimpanzees lie? In charting the development of consciousness across species the nature of human consciousness is revealed and healthy life choices become clear. In the process, we discover some surprising implications for the ideas of self-concept and free-will. The information compiled here allows for nothing less than an awakening as to who we are in the universe. Though the evidence comes from naturalistic observations and the methods are based on the principles of science, the destination is ultimately spiritual.




The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind


Book Description

National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry




The Yoga of Kashmir Shaivism


Book Description

Kashmir Shaivism is the study of consciousness. Consciousness is the most intimate experience of life the essence of life itself. Among the many spiritual traditions born and developed in India, one ancient philosophy-Kashmir Shaivism-has explored it completely. Consciousness is the most intimate experience of life, the essence of life itself. Among the many spiritual traditions born and developed in India, one ancient philosophy-Kashmir Shaivism-has explored it completely. Until now, Kashmir Shaivism was an esoteric field accessible only to a few scholars and other specialists. Here, for the first time, Swami Shankarananda, a Self-realised spiritual master, presents the wisdom of this powerful tradition in a form that will delight and inspire all spiritual seekers. He explores the teachings in rich detail, elucidating ideas and meditative practices while drawing upon a vast canvas of many great beings, wisdom traditions and personal experience. When Kashmir Shaivism is studied the way a subject at university is studied, it becomes a set of principles and concepts, which are rich and suggestive. But Kashmir Shaivism is not only food for the intellect. It also implies direct nurturance of the soul, the direct experience of consciousness itself. The goal of this book is to inspire spiritual seekers to make sure of the sublime methods and understandings of Shaivism in their own practice. The Yoga of Kashmir Shaivism is a book that will transform you. It is a resource and guides you towards investigating and deepening your own consciousness.




Humans, Consciousness, and Everything in Between


Book Description

Somewhere in Manhattan, tucked away in a little alleyway, is a couch. "Humans, Consciousness, and Everything in Between" romps about in the mire of this curious and unassuming creature's thoughts. From factory to mental asylum, hospital to studio apartment, the couch's interaction with unknowing humans greatly informs its transformation, one which begins to take on a striking semblance to a counter-Gregor Samsa awakening. Who better to lend a hand in explaining the paradoxical and convoluted tangle of World Wars and gender-based stigma than an inanimate, threadbare object that's been idling in heaps of trash?




Everything Is Perfect


Book Description

If the fundamental cosmic constants were any different, there would not be any conscious life, at all. The entire cosmos exists exactly the way it is so that conscious living beings, us, could exist. If we became fully aware of the fundamental constants the whole universe rests on, we would realize that cosmos could not exist if it were not exactly the way it is right now, in everything, in every, even the tiniest detail. If you were not reading these lines, and if you were not where you are now, in such an environment and life situation that you are, if every thing you see were not there where it is - this entire cosmos could not exist. Such is the nature of the perfection of existence. Existence cannot be any different than it already is at any given moment. The reason we do not see the perfection of reality is due to the fact that we do not see the entire reality, we do not see that existence extends across multiple dimensions. We do not see all the dimensions of nature, but only its roughest, physical appearance, we are able to perceive with our senses. All the dimensions are in us, we are made up of all the dimensions of nature. Only to the point we become conscious of the reality of our own being, can the reality of the overall existence become clear to us, with all its dimensions. Only then can we have the right perspective for the true awareness of the answers to all the big questions of existence: of the life and death, good and evil, justice and injustice, happiness and unhappiness, success and failure... When we are whole we are harmonized with the wholeness and we see that everything is positive which always inspires us to do the right thing. When we do and view something as negative, it means we are not whole and we fail to see the wholeness. We can always be whole and perfect. The outside world is not an obstacle toward this aim. It is already perfect and it is waiting for you to recognize it as such. The problem is only in our mind and the existing mindset. That is the only thing that is being perfected as we speak. Our mind is best perfected by perceiving the perfection of existence here and now, all round us. In this book, you will discover and learn about: Why Do We Not See Reality as Perfect Consciousness, Existence and the Man in Between Scientific Evidence of the Existence of Perfection Sin: the Perfect Reason for the Birth and Death Causality and Free Will are Connected Perfectly Karmic Maturity and the Circling of Divine Consciousness The Perfection of Spiritual Practice and much, much more! The perfection of the divine consciousness that enables everything is always there. We only need a little stirring up to remind ourselves of it, some detachment from illusions in order to be able to observe it in everything, at any given moment. Get it now. --- "This book was written to be read with pleasure as we get very logical answers to questions about events from our lives that go beyond logic." - 5-star Amazon Review "If you are troubled by the paradoxes of life, the mystery of death, reincarnation, good and evil, justice and injustice ... here the background of these issues is clearly revealed. Far more than you would have expected." - 5-star Amazon Review "A perfect synthesis of science and mysticism with personal experience." - 5-star Amazon Review




The River of Consciousness


Book Description

From the bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, a collection of essays that displays Oliver Sacks's passionate engagement with the most compelling ideas of human endeavor: evolution, creativity, memory, time, consciousness, and experience. "Curious, avid and thrillingly fluent." —The New York Times Book Review In the pieces that comprise The River of Consciousness, Dr. Sacks takes on evolution, botany, chemistry, medicine, neuroscience, and the arts, and calls upon his great scientific and creative heroes--above all, Darwin, Freud, and William James. For Sacks, these thinkers were constant companions from an early age. The questions they explored--the meaning of evolution, the roots of creativity, and the nature of consciousness--lie at the heart of science and of this book. The River of Consciousness demonstrates Sacks's unparalleled ability to make unexpected connections, his sheer joy in knowledge, and his unceasing, timeless endeavor to understand what makes us human.




Consciousness


Book Description

Each of us, right now, is having a unique conscious experience. Nothing is more basic to our lives as thinking beings and nothing, it seems, is better known to us. But the ever-expanding reach of natural science suggests that everything in our world is ultimately physical. The challenge of fitting consciousness into our modern scientific worldview, of taking the subjective “feel” of conscious experience and showing that it is just neural activity in the brain, is among the most intriguing explanatory problems of our times. In this book, Josh Weisberg presents the range of contemporary responses to the philosophical problem of consciousness. The basic philosophical tools of the trade are introduced, including thought experiments featuring Mary the color-deprived super scientist and fearsome philosophical “zombies”. The book then systematically considers the space of philosophical theories of consciousness. Dualist and other “non-reductive” accounts of consciousness hold that we must expand our basic physical ontology to include the intrinsic features of consciousness. Functionalist and identity theories, by contrast, hold that with the right philosophical stage-setting, we can fit consciousness into the standard scientific picture. And “mysterians” hold that any solution to the problem is beyond such small-minded creatures as us. Throughout the book, the complexity of current debates on consciousness is handled in a clear and concise way, providing the reader with a fine introductory guide to the rich philosophical terrain. The work makes an excellent entry point to one of the most exciting areas of study in philosophy and science today.