For many people, recent years have been characterized by profound change, whether it relates to financial upheaval, political shifts, or even massive losses of life to disease and violence. Even on the personal level each person must confront the curves life throws his or her way. Buddhism has a great deal to say about change and impermanence and how to meaningfully deal with it. Change--whether on a large or small scale--provides our most important opportunity for learning about ourselves and the nature of reality. From this essential insight Lama Surya Das has crafted a fulfilling and important path to understanding and healing ourselves and finding peace. Full of personal stories, anecdotes, practical exercises, guided meditations and reflections, and pithy original aphorisms, Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be addresses life's most universal difficulties in a way that is accessible to all. By using memorable concepts such as The Virtues of Adversity, The Pearl Principle ("No inner irritation, no pearl"), and Gaining through Loss, Surya reminds readers that hiding from change and loss is futile. Learning to consciously accept and embrace change leads to a better understanding of ourselves and our own innate divine light. About The Author: About The Author: A voice of clarity in difficult times, Surya Das offers timeless wisdom in a timely message of hope helpful for us today and tomorrow. An authorized lama in the Dzogchen lineage of Tibet, SURYA DAS is a sought-after spiritual teacher and meditation master, poet, and spokesperson for the emerging American Buddhism. Founder of the Dzogchen Center, he is also the author of several pop

    No matter who we are, we feel fulfillment, happiness, and purpose inside of ourselves. These qualities are not felt outside of ourselves, and cannot be found in external things or circumstances. Similarly, knowledge of ourselves and our purpose cannot be found in external things, but are found inside. By knowing what is in our hearts and minds, by seeing what we usually ignore, we learn not only what we are capable of, but also what prevents us from developing our full potential. By knowing ourselves, we acquire the knowledge of how to change for the better. As we improve ourselves and awaken to our true nature, we spontaneously begin to radiate the light of divinity in everything we do, increasing our own happiness, and spreading it to others. This is how we begin to live the Gnostic message, which states that the light of the Divine is within us. By knowing ourselves, we also learn about that light, and can bring it into the world to benefit everyone. "All things, all circumstances that occur outside ourselves on the stage of this world, are exclusively the reflection of what we carry within. With good reason then, we can solemnly declare that the 'exterior is the reflection of the interior.' When someone changes internally-and if that change is radical-then circumstances, life, and the external also change." - Samael Aun Weor This book reflects and illuminates the spiritual psychology of all genuine religions and mystical traditions. With the practical guidance in this book, anyone can awaken to see the light for the Divine for themselves.

    Newell introduces some of Celtic Christianity’s leading practitioners, both saints and pioneers of faith, whose timeless wisdom is more necessary than ever, including:  Pelagius, who shows us how to look beyond sin to affirm our sacredness as part of all God’s creation, and courageously stand up for our principles in the face of oppression.Brigid of Kildare, who illuminates the interrelationship of all things and reminds us of the power of the sacred feminine to overcome those seeking to control us.John Muir, who encourages us to see the holiness and beauty of wilderness and what we must do to protect these gifts.Teilhard de Chardin, who inspires us to see how science, faith, and our future tell one universal story that begins with sacredness.By embracing the wisdom of Celtic Christianity, we can learn how to listen to the sacred and see the divine in all of creation and within each of us. Human beings are inherently spiritual creatures who intuitively see the sacred in nature and within one another, but our cultures—and at times even our faiths—have made us forget what each of us already know deep in our souls but have learned to suppress. Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul offers a new spiritual foundation for our lives, once centered on encouragement, guidance, and hope for creating a better world.

    Based on a course in Paganism that the authors have taught for more than a decade, it is full of exercises, meditations, and discussion questions for group or individual study.This book presents the basic fundamentals of Paganism. It explores what Pagans are like; how the Pagan sacred year is arranged; what Pagans do in ritual; what magick is; and what Pagans believe about God, worship, human nature, and ethics.For those who are exploring their own spirituality, or who want a good book to give to non-Pagan family and friends A hands-on learning tool with magickal workings, meditations, discussion questions, and journal exercises Offers in-depth discussion of ethics and magick

    This groundbreaking guide, in print since 1987, explores Chiron's mythology and history and analyzes its meaning in each sign and house in the natal chart. Chiron explores this planet's mythological background and history as well as its effect on astrology. This comprehensive astrology book includes:The meaning of Chiron when it appears in each house The meaning of Chiron in aspect to each planet The meaning of Chiron through each sign The mythological legacy of Chiron A Chiron ephemeris Chiron in transit Chiron as a bridge between the inner and outer planets Based on over 700 charts from the author's personal files, Chiron is the first book to explore in depth the astrological meanings of this planet. Learn how you can incorporate Chironic wisdom in your astrological readings and your life with this groundbreaking work.

    Celebrating three decades in publication with a special 30th-anniversary edition, this classic work reminds us to learn "that we are a part of nature, not a transcendent species with no responsibilities to the natural world." It is time again to listen to Vine Deloria Jr.'s powerful voice, telling us about religious life that is independent of Christianity and that reveres the interconnectedness of all living things.

    This book sheds light on the greater tradition and teachings of yoga, providing readers with an important approach to the practice that can harmonize their existence both individually and collectively. Yoga provides all students with a new appreciation of their dicipline's universe.

    This book explores how Christianity began by tracing its earliest texts, including the Gospel of Thomas, rediscovered in Egypt in 1945.When her infant son was diagnosed with fatal pulmonary hypertension, Pagels' spiritual and intellectual quest took on a new urgency, leading her to explore historical and archaeological sources and to investigate what Jesus and his teachings meant to his followers before the invention of Christianity. The discovery of the Gospel of Thomas, along with more than 50 other early Christian texts, some unknown since antiquity, offers clues. She compares such sources as Thomas' gospel (which claims to give Jesus' secret teaching and finds its closest affinities with kabbalah) with the canon to show how Christian leaders chose to include some gospels and exclude others from the collection many call the New Testament. To stabilize the emerging church in times of persecution, church fathers constructed the canon, creed and hierarchy - and, in the process, suppressed many of its spiritual resources.Drawing on new scholarship - her own and that of an international group of scholars - that has come to light since the 1979 publication of The Gnostic Gospels, she shows that what matters about Christianity involves much more than any one set of beliefs. Traditions embodied in Judaism and Christianity can powerfully affect us in heart, mind and spirit, inspire visions of a new society based on practising justice and love, even heal and transform us.Provocative and moving, Beyond Belief, the most personal of her books to date, shows how the impulse to seek god overflows the narrow banks of a single tradition. She writes, "What I have come to love in the wealth and diversity of our religious traditions - and the communities that sustain them - is that they offer the testimony of innumerable people to spiritual discovery, encouraging us, in Jesus' words, to 'seek, and you shall find.'"CONTENTSFrom the feast of Agape to the Nicene CreedGospels in conflict: John and Thomas God's word or human words?The canon of truth and the triumph of JohnConstantine and the Catholic Church AcknowledgementsNotesIndex

    Sticking out the tongue is still a polite sign of greeting in northern India and Tibet (see Body Parts).Cosmic Egg In ancient times the primeval universe-or the Great Mother-took the form of an egg. It carried all numbers and letters within an ellipse, to show that everything is contained within one form at the beginning (see Round and Oval Motifs).

    Margot Adler attended ritual gatherings and interviewed a diverse, colorful gallery of people across the United States, people who find inspiration in ancient deities, nature, myth, even science fiction. In this new edition featuring an updated resource guide of newsletters, journals, books, groups, and festivals, Margot Adler takes a fascinating and honest look at the religious experiences, beliefs, and lifestyles of modern America's Pagan groups.

    Marcus J. Borg, author of the bestselling Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, traces his personal spiritual journey to the discovery of an authentic yet fully contemporary understanding of God. In a compelling, readable way, he leads us from the distant, authoritarian God of our childhood to an equally powerful, dynamic adult image of God—"the beyond in our midst," the life spirit that is within us and all around us—that reconciles faith with science, history, critical thinking, and religious pluralism.

    This major work of ecological philosophy startles the senses out of habitual ways of perception.For a thousand generations, human beings viewed themselves as part of the wider community of nature, and they carried on active relationships not only with other people with other animals, plants, and natural objects (including mountains, rivers, winds, and weather patters) that we have only lately come to think of as inanimate. How, then, did humans come to sever their ancient reciprocity with the natural world? What will it take for us to recover a sustaining relation with the breathing earth?In The Spell of the Sensuous David Abram draws on sources as diverse as the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, Balinese shamanism, Apache storytelling, and his own experience as an accomplished sleight-of-hand of magician to reveal the subtle dependence of human cognition on the natural environment. He explores the character of perception and excavates the sensual foundations of language, which--even at its most abstract--echoes the calls and cries of the earth. On every page of this lyrical work, Abram weaves his arguments with a passion, a precision, and an intellectual daring that recall such writers as Loren Eisleley, Annie Dillard, and Barry Lopez.

    DeKorne is a "psychonaut" exploring the "imaginal realms" through Personal experimentation and scholarly research. He guides the reader through the history and lore of psychotropic plants, with advice on how to handle the eerie "Entitles" one encounters in "hyperspace". Plants and covered include: Belladonna Alkaloids; Acid Amide; Mescaline; Ayahuasca; DMT from Plants; Psilocybin; and more.

    We tell stories to track our process of personal and spiritual growth and to honor and respect the journeys we have made. Through stories we are provided with experiences of spiritual empowerment that can lead to transformation.In "Coyote Wisdom, " Lewis Mehl-Madrona explores the healing use of stories passed down from generation to generation in Native American culture and describes how we can apply this wisdom to empower and transform our own lives. A storytelling approach to transformation starts with how we were created and how we can re-create ourselves through the stories we tell. As we explore the archetypal characters and situations that populate the inner world of our stories, we can experience breakthroughs of healing and even miracles of transformation.This approach to healing through stories runs counter to the current model of modern psychology. The stories we tell about ourselves may model our lives, but by introducing new characters and plots, we can come to see ourselves in a new way. The author also draws upon the cultures of other indigenous peoples--the Maori, East Africans, Mongolians, Aborigines, and Laplanders--to illustrate the healing use of stories throughout the world.

    With The Bowl of Light, paleoanthropologist Hank Wesselman, PhD, provides a rare glimpse into the heart of this tradition as he unveils the teachings passed down to him from the great Kahuna elder, Hale Makua. Before his passing, this revered shaman and wisdom keeper granted Dr. Wesselman permission to share sacred spiritual knowledge seldom imparted to outsiders, including: The "Bowl of Light" --the vessel for our divine essence and how we must care for it to sustain our natural radianceThe three directives of the spiritual warrior love with humility, live with reverence, and know with self-disciplineRare descriptions of rituals used by Hale Makua for communing with nature, receiving wisdom from the spirit world, purifying our consciousness, and moreThe Ancestral Grand Plan exploring the path our ancestors set in motion millennia ago and how the Plan is playing out across the world today. In the oceanic islands where the flow of primal energies has created unparalleled natural beauty, one of the world's most advanced spiritual cultures remains largely unknown to the West. With The Bowl of Light, Hank Wesselman offers a privileged and intimate view into the mind of an authentic Hawaiian kahuna for the time has finally come for the world to hear the wisdom that this profound tradition offers.