SUNY series in Religious Studies – serie

Explores the music of the Tibetan Chöd tradition.The Sound of Vultures' Wings offers the first in-depth exploration of the music of the Tibetan Chöd tradition, which is based on the liturgical song-poems of the twelfth-century Tibetan female ascetic Machik Labdrön (1055–1153). Chöd is a musical-meditative Vajrayāna method for cutting off the root of suffering, our mistaken view of a self. The Chöd practitioner applies the antidote to self-cherishing by developing bodhicitta (altruistic awakening mind) and the antidote to self-grasping through the realization of the ultimate nature of reality: the correct view of emptiness. Chöd is regarded by many Tibetan Lamas as one of the most effective Buddhist practices for spiritual and social transformation. Jeffrey W. Cupchik details the significance of the complex, interwoven performative aspects of this meditative ritual and explains how its practice can bring about experiences of insight and inner transformation. In doing so, he undoes the notion of meditation being exclusively an experience of silence and stillness.

The role of Confucianism in the development of East Asian Cultures has only recently begun to be fully appreciated. Even with this recognition, there is still little understanding of the tradition as a religious tradition. This book presents Confucianism as a religious tradition. In no other book has there been a sustained presentation of the many and varied religious dimensions of the tradition.

This book presents a philosophical rethinking of the meaning and nature of spiritual discipline. It offers a new way of describing and justifying practices like praying, meditating, fasting, and yoga, and it provides an innovative case for their contemporary importance.Spiritual discipline is especially effective at combatting Pascalian diversion, the pursuit of activities that occupy the mind just enough to avoid thinking about important things; and Nietzschean decadence, the proclivity for extirpating instinctive drives instead of satisfying or sublimating them. In addition to overcoming diversion and decadence in contemporary consumerist culture, VanNess recommends spiritual discipline as a means of political resistance to powerful institutions which seek to exercise social control in democratic societies by promulgating addictive patterns of consumption.Finally, he argues that regimens of spiritual discipline can serve healthful and liberating purposes, and generally promote fullness of life, only insofar as they are shaped by an ethos of intellectual criticism and aesthetic experimentation.

This book begins with a comprehensive historical section that places the New Age within the context of its predecessor movements. It then focuses on specialized aspects of this subculture, from essays on the convergence of New Age spirituality with women's spirituality, to an essay on how Evangelical Christians have responded to the movement. The book also examines the international impact of the New Age.

A vast and diversified religious movement originating from Sai Baba of Shirdi, is often referred to as "the Sai Baba movement." Through the chronological presentation of Sai Baba's life, light is shed on the various ways in which the important guru figures in this movement came to be linked to the saint of Shirdi.

This book probes the origins of the practice of nonviolence in early India and traces its path within the Jaina, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions, including its impact on East Asian Cultures. It then turns to a variety of contemporary issues relating to this topic such as: vegetarianism, animal and environmental protection, and the cultivation of religious tolerance.

This book deals with the meaning of a science rooted in the sacred, the metaphysical foundation of such science, its contrast to modern science and its pertinence to some of the major issues facing humanity today. In the first part, the author turns to the fundamental question of the multiplicity of sacred forms. He discusses why it is necessary in the contemporary world to treat sacred science in the context of diverse religions. He also deals with the importance of sacred science in providing a meaningful study that would remain religiously significant of religions themselves.

Neville returns eternity to the center of consideration by analyzing the obsessive culture that attempts to get along denying it; and he analyzes the nature of time's flow itself, the nature of divine eternity, and the subtle problems of personal immortality. He argues that time and eternity constitute one topic and that, therefore, time itself is beyond understanding, beyond personal grasp, and beyond civilized orientation without a proper comprehension of eternity.

This book is an introduction to cross-cultural philosophy of religion. It presents an alternative to Western-oriented philosophy of religion by focusing on questions of truth in the context of religious pluralism, including the criteria, models, and hermeneutics of cross-cultural truth in religion. The essays included are by some of the leading philosophers of religion and scholars in comparative religious thought such as Ninian Smart, Raimundo Panikkar, Harold Coward, William Wainwright, William Christian Sr., and Frederick Streng.

A source of reliable information on the most important new and alternative religions covering history, theology, impact on the culture, and current status. It includes a chapter on the Branch DavidiansThis is a single-volume source of reliable information on the most important alternative religions, covering for each such essentials as history, theology, impact on the culture, and current status. The chapters of the book were written by experts who study the movements they have written about.

Presents the contemporary religious crisis in India, providing historical perspective and focusing on the crises in Punjab, Kashmir, and Ayodhya.Many of ancient India's religious traditions are alive in modern India, and many of these religious traditions are in conflict with one another regarding the future of India. Even the so-called "secular state" is deeply pervaded by religious sentiments growing out of the Neo-Hindu nationalist movement of Gandhi and Nehru. A careful analysis of the current religious scene when placed in its proper long-term historical perspective raises interesting questions about the nature and future of religion not only in India but elsewhere as well.

Presents a wide range of information about Ganapati or Ganesh, the Hindu Lord of Beginnings, the Remover of Obstacles, the Keeper of the Threshold, and the Master of the Mind. He is elephant-headed, plump, and loveable, but who is he really?Ganapati is the Hindu Lord of Beginnings, the Keeper of the Threshold, the Remover of Obstacles, Master of the Mind, Son of Siva, Elephant-headed, plump, and loveable. This book offers a wide range of information about Ganapati gathered from such diverse sources as hymns, poems, myths, shrines, practices, and theologies. It considers Ganapati's complexity: his transcendence of sectarian and territorial limits, his delayed but dramatic development into the religious pantheon, his paradoxical mythology, and his physical manifestation, an elephant's head on a human body.Ganapati: Song of the Self fosters an understanding from within a tradition. It presents a positive interpretation of the material and encourages an inner quest for spiritual truth.

Clarifies the relationship between God and the creation for Gaudapada, Bhartrhari, and Shankara, and by doing so, demonstrates a major continuity of thought from Gaudapada through Bhartrhari to Abhinavagupta and Kashmir Shaivism.This book deals with one of the most interesting periods in the development of Indian religious and philosophical traditions. Starting with the teaching of the proto-vedantist philosopher Gaudapada, and then analyzing the ideas of his famous contemporary, the grammarian Bhartrhari, the author suggests an entirely new approach to the whole history of vedanta.Gaudapada and Bhartrhari are presented as founders of an independent trend within Indian orthodox philosophy, a trend that culminates later in the theistic tenets of Kashmir Shaivism. Isayeva shows that, in contrast to SAankara, early vedantist philosophers regarded the higher Brahman as a kind of continuous reverberation of a peculiar phonic energy that was ever producing the same constantly renewable structures and patterns of the universe. This idea found its continuation in the metaphysical and aesthetical concepts of Abhinavagupta, where the ultimate ontological reality is manifested through the rhythmical outbursts of God's creative power.

Provides a cross-cultural analysis of how religious symbols function from a theological and philosophical perspective.This book provides a cross-cultural analysis of how religious symbols function from a theological and philosophical perspective. Showing how religious symbols can be true in various qualified senses, Neville presents a theory of religious symbolism in the American pragmatic tradition extending and elaborating Tillich's claim that religious symbols participate in the divine realities to which they refer and yet must be broken in order not to be idolatrous or demonic. The Truth of Broken Symbols offers a theory of religious symbolism treating reference, meaning, and interpretation, and discussing different functions of religious symbols in theological, practical, and devotional contexts. It shows that religious symbols are to be properly understood as true or false and that symbol-systems such as myths, theologies, or liturgical symbols are to be used to engage divine realities while internally exhibiting semiotic structures of reference, meaning, and interpretation.

A radical new look at the religious, economic, and political roots of terracide and how things can change for the better.This book offers an original assessment of the crisis caused by the combined impact of overpopulation, overconsumption, and economic and political injustice. It summons religious scholarship into urgent dialogue with the other disciplines and with the world's policymakers. The authors seek a new understanding of religion and its power since, for good or for ill, the world's religions will be players in the crises relating to population and the threat of ecocide. Two-thirds of the world's people affiliate with these religions and the other third cannot escape the influence of these symbol-filled cultural powerhouses.Ethics for a Small Planet offers complementary studies by two major social ethicists on these issues. Daniel C. Maguire indicts our male-dominated religions for the problems they have caused for our ecology and reproductive ethics. He raises the controversial questions of whether the very concept of God is a problem and whether Christianity's notions of afterlife and a divinized male have done more harm than good. Larry L. Rasmussen also recognizes that the problems of our planet are largely male-made and rich-dominated. He writes that Europeans packaged a form of earth-unfriendly capitalism and shipped it all over the world with missionary zeal. He ably scans the long history that led to the current manic rush to push the earth beyond its limits, and goes on to suggest moral norms and policy guidelines for sustainable communities and genuinely shared power.Both authors argue that there are positive and renewable moral energies in the world's religions and that unless religion, understood as a response to the sanctity of life, animates our ethical debates, the prospects for the world are grim. The sense of the sacred is presented here as the nucleus of the good and the only force that can bring about the lifestyle changes and power reallocations that are necessary to prevent terracide.

Presents the multi-faceted Hindu deity Dattatreya from his Puranic emergence to modern times.This book presents the multi-faceted Hindu deity Dattatreya from his Puranic emergence up to modern times. Dattatreya's Brahmanical portrayal, as well as his even more archaic characterization as a Tantric antinomian figure, combines both Vaisnava Saiva motifs. Over the course of time, Dattatreya has come to embody the roles of the immortal guru, yogin and avatara in a paradigmatic manner. From the sixteenth century Dattatreya's glorious characterization emerged as the incarnation of the trimurti of Brahma, Visnu, and Siva. Although Maharastra is the heartland of Dattatreya devotion, his presence is attested to throughout India and extends beyond the boundaries of Hinduism, being met with in Sufi circles and even in Buddhism and Jainism via Nathism.The scarce attention which most Western scholars of Indian religions have paid to this deity contrasts with its ubiquitousness and social permeability. Devotion to Dattatreya cuts through all social and religious strata of Indian society: among his adepts we find yogis, Brahmans, faqirs, Devi worshippers, untouchables, thieves, and prostitutes. This book explores all primary religious dimensions: myth, doctrine, ritual, philosophy, mysticism, and iconography. The comprehensive result offers a rich fresco of Hindu religion as well as an understanding of Marathi integrative spirituality: precisely this complexity of themes constitutes Dattatreya's uniqueness.

Maintains that the Yoga-Sutras do not advocate abandonment of the world, but rather support a stance that enables one to live more fully in the world without being enslaved by worldly identification.The Integrity of the Yoga Darśana centers on the thought of Patañjali, the great exponent of the authoritative and Classical Yoga school of Hinduism and the reputed author of the Yoga-Sutras. In this textual, historical, and interpretive study, Whicher offers a plausible and innovative reading of the "intention" of the Yoga-Sutras, namely that Yoga does not advocate the abandonment or condemnation of the world, but rather supports a stance that enables one to live more fully in the world without being enslaved by worldly identification. Challenging and correcting misperceptions about Yoga drawn by traditional and modern interpretations of the Yoga-Sutras, the author argues for a fresh vision of the spiritual potential present in this seminal text, thereby contributing to our understanding of the meaning and practical relevance of Yoga and its reception today.

Explores religious experience in the South Asian immigrant communities of Britain, Canada, and the United States.This book explores the experience of religious communities that have migrated from South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) to live in Britain, Canada, and the United States, three countries sharing a common language (English) and an interwoven history. The work introduces the migration history of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs along with the cultural nuances of these traditions. The contributors discuss the various communities' experiences that grow out of or are related to religion. The book shows how traditions are reformed or reinvented and how they are passed on, both through the family and through institutions. Issues related to public policy and minority status are also addressed. While the main focus is on the Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh communities, specific sections also cover South Asian Christians, the Zoroastrian diaspora, and new religious movements in the West led by South Asians. The book strikes a balance between stories and statistics in order to emphasize the narrative of the immigrants' experience.[Contributors include: Roger Ballard, Judith Coney, Harold Coward, Diana L. Eck, Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, John R. Hinnells, Kim Knott, Gurinder Singh Mann, Sheila McDonough, Jørgen S. Nielsen, Joseph T. O'Connell, and Raymond Brady Williams.]

Explores the concept of Restorative Justice in diverse spiritual traditions.This interdisciplinary study explores what major spiritual traditions say in text, tradition, and current practice about criminal justice in general and Restorative Justice in particular. It reflects the close collaboration of scholars and professionals engaged in multifaith reflection on the theory and practice of criminal law. A variety of traditions are explored: Aboriginal spirituality, Buddhism, Chinese religions, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Sikhism. Drawing on a wide range of literature and experience in the field of Restorative Justice and recognizing the ongoing interdisciplinary research into the complex relationships between religion and violence, the contributors clarify how faith-based principles of reconciliation, restoration, and healing might be implemented in pluralistic multicultural societies.

A Buddhist interpretation of Western history that shows civilization shaped by the self's desire for groundedness.Buddhism teaches that to become happy, greed, ill-will, and delusion must be transformed into their positive counterparts: generosity, compassion, and wisdom. The history of the West, like all histories, has been plagued by the consequences of greed, ill-will, and delusion. A Buddhist History of the West investigates how individuals have tried to ground themselves to make themselves feel more real. To be self-conscious is to experience ungroundedness as a sense of lack, but what is lacking has been understood differently in different historical periods. Author David R. Loy examines how the understanding of lack changes at historical junctures and shows how those junctures were so crucial in the development of the West.

Explores the influence of yoga in the seminal Indian philosophy of Bhartrhari and in the Western psychology of Freud, Jung, and the transpersonalists, providing unique insights into the differences between Eastern and Western concepts of human nature.Harold Coward explores how the psychological aspects of Yoga philosophy have been important to intellectual developments both East and West. Foundational for Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist thought and spiritual practice, Patañjali's Yoga Sutras, the classical statement of Eastern Yoga, are unique in their emphasis on the nature and importance of psychological processes. Yoga's influence is explored in the work of both the seminal Indian thinker Bhartrhari (c. 600 C.E.) and among key figures in Western psychology: founders Freud and Jung, as well as contemporary transpersonalists such as Washburn, Tart, and Ornstein..Coward shows how the yogic notion of psychological processes makes Bhartrhari's philosophy of language and his theology of revelation possible. He goes on to explore how Western psychology has been influenced by incorporating or rejecting Patañjali's Yoga. The implications of these trends in Western thought for mysticism and memory are examined as well. This analysis results in a notable insight, namely, that there is a crucial difference between Eastern and Western thought with regard to how limited or perfectible human nature is-the West maintaining that we as humans are psychologically, philosophically, and spiritually limited or flawed in nature and thus not perfectible, while Patañjali's Yoga and Eastern thought generally maintain the opposite. Different Western responses to the Eastern position are noted, from complete rejection by Freud, Jung, and Hick, to varying degrees of acceptance by transpersonal thinkers.

Explores the influence of yoga in the seminal Indian philosophy of Bhartrhari and in the Western psychology of Freud, Jung, and the transpersonalists, providing unique insights into the differences between Eastern and Western concepts of human nature.Harold Coward explores how the psychological aspects of Yoga philosophy have been important to intellectual developments both East and West. Foundational for Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist thought and spiritual practice, Patañjali's Yoga Sutras, the classical statement of Eastern Yoga, are unique in their emphasis on the nature and importance of psychological processes. Yoga's influence is explored in the work of both the seminal Indian thinker Bhartrhari (c. 600 C.E.) and among key figures in Western psychology: founders Freud and Jung, as well as contemporary transpersonalists such as Washburn, Tart, and Ornstein..Coward shows how the yogic notion of psychological processes makes Bhartrhari's philosophy of language and his theology of revelation possible. He goes on to explore how Western psychology has been influenced by incorporating or rejecting Patañjali's Yoga. The implications of these trends in Western thought for mysticism and memory are examined as well. This analysis results in a notable insight, namely, that there is a crucial difference between Eastern and Western thought with regard to how limited or perfectible human nature is-the West maintaining that we as humans are psychologically, philosophically, and spiritually limited or flawed in nature and thus not perfectible, while Patañjali's Yoga and Eastern thought generally maintain the opposite. Different Western responses to the Eastern position are noted, from complete rejection by Freud, Jung, and Hick, to varying degrees of acceptance by transpersonal thinkers.

Explores contemporary controversies in bioethics from a Hindu perspective.S. Cromwell Crawford breaks new ground in this provocative study of Hindu bioethics in a Western setting. He provides a new moral and philosophical perspective on fascinating and controversial bioethical issues that are routinely in the news: cloning, genetic engineering, the human genome project, reproductive technologies, the end of life, and many more. This Hindu perspective is particularly noteworthy because of India's own indigenous medical system, which is stronger than ever and drawing continued interest from the West. The Hindu bioethics presented in this book are philosophically pluralistic and ethically contextual, giving them that conceptual flexibility which is often missing in Western religions, but which is demanded by the twenty-first century's complex moral problems. Comprehensive in scope and passionate in nature, Crawford's study is an important resource for analyses of practical ethics, bioethics, and health care.

Through examinations of Gandhi's critics, both individuals and groups, this book shows the complexity of Indian society and opinion at the time of the Indian Independence Movement.Although Gandhi has been the subject of hundreds of books and an Oscar-winning film, there has been no sustained study of his engagement with major figures in the Indian Independence Movement who were often his critics from 1920–1948. This book fills that gap by examining the strengths and weaknesses of Gandhi's contribution to India as evidenced in the letters, speeches, and newspaper articles focused on the dialogue/debate between Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Annie Besant, and C. F. Andrews. The book also covers key groups within India that Gandhi sought to incorporate into his Independence Movement-the Hindu Right, Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs-and analyzes Gandhi's ambiguous stance regarding the Hindi-Urdu question and its impact on the Independence struggle.

Looks at the ideals of masculine Hinduism—and the corresponding feminine ideals—that have built the Indian nation, and explores their consequences.Make Me a Man! argues that ideas about manhood play a key role in building and sustaining the modern nation. It examines a particular expression of nation and manliness: masculine Hinduism. This ideal, which emerged from India's experience of British imperialism, is characterized by martial prowess, muscular strength, moral fortitude, and a readiness to go to battle. Embodied in the images of the Hindu soldier and the warrior monk, masculine Hinduism is rooted in a rigid "us versus them" view of nation that becomes implicated in violence and intolerance. Masculine Hinduism also has important connotations for women, whose roles in this environment consist of the heroic mother, chaste wife, and celibate, masculinized warrior. All of these roles shore up the "us versus them" dichotomy and constrict women's lives by imposing particular norms and encouraging limits on women's freedom.Sikata Banerjee notes that the nationalism defined by masculine Hinduism draws on a more general narrative of nation found in many cultures. If the outcomes of this narrative are to be resisted, the logic of masculinity, armed manhood, and nation need to be examined in diverse contexts.

Explores yoga and meditation in Eastern religions, incorporating psychological and social aspects of these practices.A historical and comparative study grounded in close readings of important works, this book explores the dynamics of the theory and practice of yoga in Hindu and Buddhist contexts. Author Stuart Ray Sarbacker explores the fascinating, contrasting perceptions that meditation leads to the attainment of divine, or numinous, power, and to complete escape from worldly existence, or cessation. Sarbacker demonstrates that these two dimensions of spiritual experience have affected the doctrine and cultural significance of yoga from its origins to its contemporary practice. He also integrates sociological and psychological perspectives on religious experience into a larger phenomenological model to address the multifaceted nature of religious experience. Speaking to a broad range of methodological and contextual issues, Samadhi provides numerous insights into the theory and practice of yoga that are relevant to both scholars of religious studies and practitioners of contemporary yoga and meditation traditions.

Explores yoga and meditation in Eastern religions, incorporating psychological and social aspects of these practices.A historical and comparative study grounded in close readings of important works, this book explores the dynamics of the theory and practice of yoga in Hindu and Buddhist contexts. Author Stuart Ray Sarbacker explores the fascinating, contrasting perceptions that meditation leads to the attainment of divine, or numinous, power, and to complete escape from worldly existence, or cessation. Sarbacker demonstrates that these two dimensions of spiritual experience have affected the doctrine and cultural significance of yoga from its origins to its contemporary practice. He also integrates sociological and psychological perspectives on religious experience into a larger phenomenological model to address the multifaceted nature of religious experience. Speaking to a broad range of methodological and contextual issues, Samadhi provides numerous insights into the theory and practice of yoga that are relevant to both scholars of religious studies and practitioners of contemporary yoga and meditation traditions.

A new interpretation of Hindu tradition focusing on the nature of God, the value of the world, and the meaning of liberation.2007 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title In this book, Anantanand Rambachan offers a fresh and detailed perspective on Advaita Vedanta, Hinduism's most influential and revered religious tradition. Rambachan, who is both a scholar and an Advaitin, attends closely to the Upanisads and authentic commentaries of Sankara to challenge the tradition and to reconsider central aspects of its current teachings. His reconstruction and reinterpretation of Advaita focuses in particular on the nature of brahman, the status of the world in relation to brahman, and the meaning and relevance of liberation.Rambachan queries contemporary representations of an impersonal brahman and the need for popular, hierarchical distinctions such as those between a higher (para) and lower (apara) brahman. Such distinctions, Rambachan argues, are inconsistent with the non-dual nature of brahman and are unnecessary when brahman's relationship with the world is correctly understood. Questioning Advaita's traditional emphasis on renunciation and world-denial, Rambachan expands the understanding of suffering (duhkha) and liberation (moksa) and addresses socioeconomic as well as gender and caste inequalities. Positing that the world is a celebrative expression of God's fullness, this book advances Advaita as a universal and uninhibited path to a liberated life committed to compassion, equality, and justice.

Explores the issue of the perfectibility of nature in philosophy, psychology, and a variety of world religions.How perfectible is human nature as understood in Eastern and Western philosophy, psychology, and religion? Harold Coward examines some of the very different answers to this question. He poses that in Western thought, including philosophy, psychology, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, human nature is often understood as finite, flawed, and not perfectible-in religion requiring God's grace and the afterlife to reach the goal. By contrast, Eastern thought arising in India frequently sees human nature to be perfectible and presumes that we will be reborn until we realize the goal-the various yoga psychologies, philosophies, and religions of Hinduism and Buddhism being the paths by which one may perfect oneself and realize release from rebirth. Coward uses the striking differences in the assessment of how perfectible human nature is as the comparative focus for this book.