A fresh, creative look at the underlying meaning of the Gospels that stresses the many dimensions of God's relationship to humanity.

    Beginning at the age of 20, when he wrote The Spirit of Zen, he developed an audience of millions who were enriched by his book, tape recordings, radio, television, and public lectures.Just before his death he completed the project most dear to his heart. In the secluded and relaxed atmosphere aboard his ferryboat SS Vallejo and at his mountain retreat in Druid Heights he recorded the basic tenets of his philosophy.Revised by his son Mark here is the last original work of Alan Watts now combined with several classic pieces previously not available in book form, including the favorites "Work As Play" and "The Trickster Guru."This final volume is an outstanding introduction to Watts for those who do not know him and a valuable legacy for all." - from the back cover

    Now updated, 'With Open Hands' offers gentle encouragement to readers seeking God & insight to the components of prayer: silence, acceptance, hope, compassion, & prophetic criticism.

    This is called "initiation" or "vision quest" in many traditional societies and ... a dangerous variety of self-psychotherapy in modern terminology. I do not recommend it for everybody... the main thing I learned is that "reality is always plural and mutable." — From the Preface

    Spiritual identity is the quest to know who we are, to find meaning in life and to overcome that sense of 'is that all there is?' In this book, Merton describes an awareness of the false and illusory self as the way to a realization of the true self.

    Alphonsus Ligouri teaches us how to use the small events of everyday life to raise our hearts and minds to God: in praise, contrition, hope, joy, and union with God’s will. In this way, we can “pray unceasingly” and converse with God in the way most pleasing to him—personally and confidently. This booklet features 20 bite-sized chapters, either for study or for daily meditation, and an index full of short prayers and aspirations. It is the perfect size to slip into a wallet, purse, or pocket, for use in church, at home, or at work—wherever you may be, for as this booklet shows, we can pray to God at any place and at any time. (77 pgs. PB.)

    In Holy the Firm she writes about a moth consumed in a candle flame, about a seven-year-old girl burned in an airplane accident, about a baptism on a cold beach. But behind the moving curtain of what she calls "the hard things -- rock mountain and salt sea," she sees, sometimes far off and sometimes as close by as a veil or air, the power play of holy fire.This is a profound book about the natural world -- both its beauty and its cruelty -- the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dillard knows so well.

    He was the first to suggest in a systematic way that the great psychological systems of the West could be integrated with the noble contemplative traditions of the East. Spectrum of Consciousness, first released by Quest in 1977, has been the prominent reference point for all subsequent attempts at integrating psychology and spirituality.

    Widely known and loved for his delightful humor and imagination, Bentov explains the familiar world of phenomena with perceptions that are as lucid as they are thrilling. He gives us a provocative picture of ourselves in an expanded, conscious, holistic universe.

    . . . Bly's versions . . . have exactly the luminous depth that permits and invites many rereadings, many studyings-even then they remain as fresh as ever."-The New York Times Book Review

    BROWN BOARDS WITH GOLD GILTING.

    Translation of J'entre dans la vie, originally issued under title: Novissima verba.

    Science of breath, law of rhythm, the creative process, healing power and psychological influence of music.

    Presents key points of the Infinite Way teachings: states and stages of consciousness, meditation, seeking answers within, opening consciousness to Truth, and mysticism -- subjects which lead the reader to the inner experience of God, conscious awareness of spiritual being.

    She traveled extensively with her husband, Billy Graham, on his many Crusades around the world. While their five children were growing up, she took on the responsibilities of managing the household to give Billy the freedom to travel and preach wherever God called him.These poems, first published as a collection in 1977, are from all phases and periods of her life. "I wrote because, at times, I had to. It was write, or develop an ulcer-or forget," she said. "I chose to write. At times I even wrote for the sheer fun."Numerous family photos taken over the years-including some never before published-add a rich context to this edition, creating a treasured memory book of the life of this remarkable woman.

    The surprise for me was how much I needed to hear him say familiar things.”—National Catholic ReporterThe Living Reminder is a gift from Henry J.M. Nouwen—along with C.S. Lewis and Thomas Merton, one of the 20th century’s most beloved and important spiritual writers. Subtitled “Service and Prayer in the Memory of Jesus Christ,” Nouwen’s book presents  simple yet powerfully profound expressions of the joys of religious service, prompting the publication New Review of Books and Religion to note that we read Nouwen “to discover new possibilities in our own faith.”

    Some of them open our minds to the immense energy of Love in the universe. Others reveal the presence of Love in human tribulation and suffering, or illuminate the most commonplace actions of daily life. In all of them, tenderness toward each created being touches the real hunger and hope of our lives for a relationship of loving communion with God, for a journey with a transcendent destination.There are also meditations on the presence of Christ. Also considered one by one are the actions of our daily lives, which so often threaten to become a meaningless routine. Each is brought into the light of a related incident in the life of Christ. Each is considered as if carried out in His immediate presence. What for us has so often become dull or meaningless is shown to be capable of transfiguration, of being potentially the action of an heir of God, of someone who transmits the intention of God to this world.

    The two works translated in this book, Mumonkan (The Gateless Gate ) and Hekiganroku (The Blue Cliff Record), both compiled during the Song dynasty in China, are the best known and most frequently studied koan collections, and are classics of Zen literature. They are still used today in a variety of practice lineages, from traditional zendos to modern Zen centers. In a completely new translation, together with original commentaries, the well-known Zen teacher Katsuki Sekida brings to these works the same fresh and pragmatic approach that made his Zen Training so successful. The insights of a lifetime of Zen practice and his familiarity with both Eastern and Western ways of thinking make him an ideal interpreter of these texts.

    The techniques presented here have been used by the sages of India from time immemorial to live in harmony with the world around them, to find strength to face life's difficulties, and to know themselves.

    These powers, or some of them, have been brought into the research laboratories of the parapsychologists who call them extrasensory perception and psychokinesis. Others call them miracles. Whatever the terminology, such powers and their practitioners demand sensible attention. This account relates some of the achievements of one of the most impressive men of miracles to appear in centuries. Satya Sai Babahis followers believe him to be a reincarnation of Sai Baba of Shirdi who died in 1918, appears to have been born with phenomenal powers, which he used in childhood and has employed constantly and openly ever since. They include all the varieties of E.S.P. and P.K. known to psychic science and more besides. The author, a Westerner devoted to science and logic, spent many months with Satya Said Baba--he claims to have found that his "unscientific," "illogical" miracles were, in fact, genuine yogic siddhis. He found, too, that along with Christlike miraculous powers went a Christlike love, compassion and the Godknowledge that opens the door to a new vision of life.

    paperback book

    Includes letters and lectures by Huxley never published elsewhere. In May 1953 Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gram of mescaline. The mystical and transcendent experience that followed set him off on an exploration that was to produce a revolutionary body of work about the inner reaches of the human mind. Huxley was decades ahead of his time in his anticipation of the dangers modern culture was creating through explosive population increase, headlong technological advance, and militant nationalism, and he saw psychedelics as the greatest means at our disposal to "remind adults that the real world is very different from the misshapen universe they have created for themselves by means of their culture-conditioned prejudices." Much of Huxley's writings following his 1953 mescaline experiment can be seen as his attempt to reveal the power of these substances to awaken a sense of the sacred in people living in a technological society hostile to mystical revelations. Moksha, a Sanskrit word meaning "liberation," is a collection of the prophetic and visionary writings of Aldous Huxley. It includes selections from his acclaimed novels Brave New World and Island, both of which envision societies centered around the use of psychedelics as stabilizing forces, as well as pieces from The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, his famous works on consciousness expansion.

    Parents will welcome this book and use it to help their children learn to cope with the complexities of modern life. Readers of all ages will use it to understand their own patterns of early development. The first four chapters define the roles of mother and father, explain the effects of various planetary energy systems and discuss the meaning of elements and crosses in a child's chart. Hand analyzes the charts of three children, including Judy Garland and Shirley Temple, to illustrate the astrological principles and psychological insights set forth in his intriguing study of personality development. The major part of the book consists of delineations of horoscope factors, written with young people in mind. Every planet in every sign, house and major aspect, as well as every rising sign, is interpreted in about three hundred words that stress possibilities rather than certainties.

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    A vitally useful guide for sincere seekers on any path. Filled with insightful stories and mystical adventures, The Path is considered by many as a companion to Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi.

    By the time of his tragic, untimely death in 1968, Father Louis (as he was known at the Trappist monastery where he lived for twenty-seven years) had published upwards of fifty books and pamphlets, including several more collections of poetry. All of these poems have been assembled in a single, definitive volume (first published by New Directions in 1977) which includes much additional unpublished or uncollected material drawn from the archive of the Merton Studies Center at Bellarmine College in Louisville, Kentucky, or supplied by the poet’s friends and associates. Brought together in The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton are: Early Poems (1940-42, published posthumously in 1971), Thirty Poems (1944), A Man in the Divided Sea (1946), Figures for an Apocalypse (1947), The Tear of the Blind Lions (1949), The Strange Islands (1957), Original Child Bomb (1962), Emblems of a Season of Fun (1963), Cables to Ace (1968), and The Geography of Lograire (completed in 1968 and published posthumously). These are followed by Sensation Time at the Home and Other New Poems, a book which Merton completed shortly before his death. There are also sections of uncollected poems, humorous verse, poems written in French, with some English translations, Merton’s translations of poetry from various languages, drafts and fragments, and a selection of concrete poems. With the availability of The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton as a New Directions paperbook, an ever wider audience may more fully appreciate the impressive range of the poet’s technique, the scope of his concerns, and the humaneness of his vision.

    For disillusioned writer and itinerant barnstormer Richard Bach, belief is as real as a full tank of gas and sparks firing in the cylinders...until he meets Donald Shimoda — former mechanic and self-described messiah who can make wrenches fly and Richard's imagination soar....In Illusions, Richard Bach takes to the air to discover the ageless truths that give our souls wings: that people don't need airplanes to soar...that even the darkest clouds have meaning once we lift ourselves above them... and that messiahs can be found in the unlikeliest places — like hay fields, one-traffic-light midwestern towns, and most of all, deep within ourselves.

    To a point this may help, but sad experience makes clear that these approaches alone never heal the polarization problems which plague our civil and ecclesial life.The Biblical therapy is radically different - and it achieves results. This book explores the divine strategy in detail. Research discovers in Scripture 40 or 50 themes that bear on discovering truth and recognizing that it has been solidly found. We learn how we discern whether we are being led by the Holy Spirit or by our own unredeemed inclinations and desires, whether it is the spirit of God or the prince of darkness that is operating in our disagreements and programs. We find in these themes clear responses to key questions:• Why are there divisions and factions in the Church?• How are these polarizations to be healed?• What are the sure signs that some people have truth, while others are in error?• What are the conditions for finding and maintaining a shared vision in marriage,parishes, dioceses, religious orders, the universal Church?

    Schools, teachers, and parents emphasize what we should think, rather than teaching how to think, to question, analyze, and discover the truth through our own experience. The modern system demands that students follow what they are told, and not to question what is taught. From the perspective of the ancient Gnostic tradition, beneficial growth for an individual or a society is an outcome of comprehension: knowing the truth through experience, rather than because of what someone else has said. History shows that those who are willing to question and analyze are those who arrive at the most useful and important knowledge for the benefit of everyone. This includes spirituality: the greatest spiritual leaders refused to follow the established "rules," and instead followed the guidance of awakened consciousness, thereby showing humanity the way to the Light. Over his lifetime, Samael Aun Weor taught millions of people how to awaken consciousness and free themselves of suffering. This book radiates his brilliant teaching method, a beautiful reflection of the same approach utilized by our most important sages, philosophers, and thinkers, which is a form of superior logic and tremendous love that illustrates how vital it is for people to learn not "what to think, but HOW to think." By awakening the consciousness and developing the heart and mind in equilibrium comes the potential to alter the painful realities that humanity is suffering within. Perhaps his most quotable book, it provides a solid and ethical foundation for students, teachers of any kind, and parents.

    The reader is exhorted to be mindful of God at all times, with specific advice given for enhancing the experience of prayer. By addressing adults who are not withdrawn from worldly pursuits, Reb Kalonymus has provided a timeless guide to Jewish spirituality that will be an invaluable resource for today's seekers.

    Man as a microcosm of the universe. Man as a reality that transcends the physical organism, all localisms and nationalisms, and in whom spirit and matter can unite in a Divine Marriage productive of ever creative tomorrows.

    Key to this powerful devotional practice as Dom Vitalis Lehodey points out is the realization that all whatsoever happens to us in this life either has been allowed to happen by Almighty God, or He has sent to us directly as some kind of special cross or lesson or chastisement. The author—who also wrote the comprehensive The Ways of Mental Prayer —cites many famous Catholic writers in what is probably the most thorough study of "holy abandonment," or "conformity to God's Holy Will," that has yet appeared in English. Point after point is covered by numerous poignant examples from the lives of the Saints and from passages from noted writers on the subject. He distinguishes between the Signified Will of God and His Will of Good Pleasure. The Abbot of Bricquebec also discusses the meaning of abandonment, the role of prudence on our part, how our desires and petitions and efforts fir into the picture, the role of suffering and self-oblation, the nature of detachment, faith and confidence in Divine Providence, abandonment in temporal things, abandonment in external things, health and sickness, reputation, humiliations, persecutions, failures, darkness of mind, insensibility, disgust, impotence of will, spiritual poverty, peace, fear of God, simplicity and liberty, constancy, joy and a number of other similar topics. Holy abandonment has nothing to do with fatalism or personal inertia, he says, but entails our constant, intelligent, loving union with God s Holy Will. Do you see how we ought to measure our humility? he quotes St. Francis de Sales. By obedience. If you obey with promptitude, sincerity and joy, you are truly humble. For without humility, it is impossible to have true obedience. Obedience requires us to be submissive, and he that is truly humble renders himself inferior and subject to every creature for the love of Jesus Christ. Such is the caliber of Dom Vitalis Lehodey s Holy Abandonment —a work of the first order, one that makes life-long devotees, and a book that will form the reader as a true follower of Jesus Christ and His holy Mother, who as our principal Father s Holy Will in all things, which is the main lesson in life we all need to learn.

    An anthology that offers perspectives on Job's question: 'If a man die, shall he live again?' Spanning over 5,000 years of world thought, this title invites consideration of an idea that has found hospitality in the greatest minds of history.

    Through stories, puns, parables and examples, he enables his readers to discover for themselves the peace and joy that is within us all.

    The reader takes a voyage into the rich and variegated world of twentieth-century Hasidism in Poland, a world destroyed by the Holocaust. This is a volume inspired by a deeply sensitive and poetic individual of faith who is grappling with an unfolding disaster. While the Holocaust has engendered a voluminous body of religious and philosophical writings attempting to probe the issues this unfathomable period raises in all their enormity, virtually all were written after the war, when a modicum of distance and reflection is possible. Contemporaneous diaries and chronicles written as the events were happening concentrate on the descriptive accounts of the horrors. The Holy Fire, however, engages a sustained theological reflection and stands alone as an extended religious response from within the heart of darkness itself while the catastrophe takes place, and is, for this reason, an extraordinary document and an astonishing personal achievement.

    

    

    Therese of Lisieux explained.

    Arthur Scholey has selected and retold 74 of Sadi's stories of the wisdom, humour and common sense of the kings, servants, lords, slaves and beggars, pupils and teachers, birds, beasts, insects and dervishes.

    He conducts an exhaustive analysis of both the oldest, most reliable texts and later biographies of the Buddha that contain mythological material.Carefully sifting these texts to separate facts from embellishments, he constructs a biography that begins with the Indian historical context at the time of Buddha's Birth and takes the reader through all the stages of his life. Professor Nakamura also compares the oldest Buddhist texts with the earliest Jain and Hindu writings and finds surprising similarities that elucidate the significance of the historical Buddha. Archeological discoveries and factual elements from Buddhist art support Professor Nakamura's fascinating story. This is the first of two volumes.

    

    Volume 1 of a four volume study of the national and local festivals of Scotland.

    

    Alan Watts beautifully interprets the Eastern way of experiencing liberation for the Western reader who is trapped in abstract thought.Nature, Man, and Woman vividly illustrates the theme of man and nature with the parallel problem of man's relation to woman, showing that sexual anxiety reflects alienation from the organic whole that is nature.Psychotherapy East and West compares ways of Eastern liberation - Buddhism, Taoism, Vedanta, and Yoga - to the way of Western liberation, psychotherapy, finding that all seek to relieve the vicious cycle of seemingly endless attempts to solve a false problem.