A concise, and delightful introduction to Vedanta, the philosophical backbone of Hinduism.Written with verve and charm by a Western nun for a Western audience, this brief book gives a comprehensive overview of Vedanta philosophy while emphasizing its practical Western application.

    Appearing in the spiritual lineage established by Tilopa, is an incarnation of the great Mahasiddha, Saraha.

    Here, Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins tell the story of philosophy's development with great clarity and refreshing wit. The authors begin with the most ancient religious beliefs of the east and west and bring us right up to the feminist and multicultural philosophies of the present. Along the way, they highlight major philosophers, from Plato and the Buddha to William James and Simone de Beauvoir, and explore major categories, from metaphysics and ethics to politics and logic. The book is enlivened as well by telling anecdotes and sparkling quotations. Among many memorable observations, we're treated to Thomas Hobbes' assessment that life is nasty, brutish, and short and Hegel's description of Napoleon as world history on horseback. Engaging, comprehensive, and delightfully written, A Passion for Wisdom is a splendid introduction to an intellectual tradition that reaches back over three thousand years.

    Even More Notes from the Universe combines Mike Dooley's pithy and inspiring messages, direct from the Universe, to help you start living the life of your dreams -- today. Focusing on the desired results joyfully and with gratitude is infinitely more engaging than struggling and stressing about them. Relax, laugh, and enjoy the footwork the Universe has to share. Whether your dance is the tango, hula, or one of your own creation, dancing life's dance begins with that first brave step. The music has always been playing your favorite tune, yet hearing it requires action. And right on cue, your unfailing partner, the Universe, begins choreographing players and events in a waltz of miracles, moving heaven and earth to align the future of your dreams with your present circumstances. Nothing is impractical, impossible, or out of reach. Your thoughts create worlds, your words shape the future, and the steps you take unleash the magic behind creation. In this third book in the Notes from the Universe trilogy, Mike Dooley brings a fresh perspective from your most loyal friend.

    By the time he was 19, his parents had achieved global fame as best-selling authors and speakers, l'Abri had become a mecca for spiritual seekers worldwide — from Barbara Bush to Timothy Leary — and Frank had joined his father on the evangelical circuit. By the age of 23, he had directed two multi-part religious documentaries and had helped instigate the marriage between the American evangelical community and the anti-abortion movement. But as he spoke before thousands in arenas around America, published his own evangelical bestseller, and worked with such figures as Pat Robertson, Jack Kemp, Jerry Falwell, and Dr. James Dobson, Schaeffer felt alienated, precipitating his own crisis of faith and eventually resulting in his departure. Schaeffer has since become a successful secular author. He was reduced to stealing pork chops from the grocery store in LA, rather than take on any more high-paying evangelical speaking gigs. With its up-close portraits of the leading figures of the American evangelical movement, Crazy for God is a uniquely revealing and powerful memoir, which tells its story with empathy, humor, and bite.

    We all matter, we all count, and we are all able to make a difference.

    Now, in Nomad, Hirsi Ali tells of coming to America to build a new life, an ocean away from the death threats made to her by European Islamists, the strife she witnessed, and the inner conflict she suffered. It is the story of her physical journey to freedom and, more crucially, her emotional journey to freedom—her transition from a tribal mind-set that restricts women’s every thought and action to a life as a free and equal citizen in an open society. Through stories of the challenges she has faced, she shows the difficulty of reconciling the contradictions of Islam with Western values. In these pages Hirsi Ali recounts the many turns her life took after she broke with her family, and how she struggled to throw off restrictive superstitions and misconceptions that initially hobbled her ability to assimilate into Western society. She writes movingly of her reconciliation, on his deathbed, with her devout father, who had disowned her when she renounced Islam after 9/11, as well as with her mother and cousins in Somalia and in Europe. Nomad is a portrait of a family torn apart by the clash of civilizations. But it is also a touching, uplifting, and often funny account of one woman’s discovery of today’s America. While Hirsi Ali loves much of what she encounters, she fears we are repeating the European mistake of underestimating radical Islam. She calls on key institutions of the West—including universities, the feminist movement, and the Christian churches—to enact specific, innovative remedies that would help other Muslim immigrants to overcome the challenges she has experienced and to resist the fatal allure of fundamentalism and terrorism. This is Hirsi Ali’s intellectual coming-of-age, a memoir that conveys her philosophy as well as her experiences, and that also conveys an urgent message and mission—to inform the West of the extent of the threat from Islam, both from outside and from within our open societies. A celebration of free speech and democracy, Nomad is an important contribution to the history of ideas, but above all a rousing call to action.

    He spent two years gathering information that demonstrates this and along the way interviewed more than a hundred experts in a number of different fields. Among them were parapsychologists, medical doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, quantum physicists, and researchers into the true nature of reality. Specific examples are presented that indicate what happens when we die, for example that memories can be formed and retained despite a subject’s brain having been shutdown and the blood drained from it. Questions such as whether or not you will be able to communicate with living loved ones after death are addressed, if it is possible to be reborn, and what might be missing from reproductive theory to explain the various phenomena indicated in the many case histories and scientific investigations presented. All of us will someday cross the border to what Shakespeare called "The undiscovered country." As long as we must make that trip, wouldn’t it be smart to find out where we are going and what to expect when we get there?

    Are such powers really possible? Science says yes.According to noted scientist and bestselling author of The Conscious Universe, Dean Radin, magic is a natural aspect of reality, and each of us can tap into this power with diligent practice.But wait, aren't things like ESP and telepathy just wishful thinking and flights of the imagination? Not according to the author, who worked on the US government's top secret psychic espionage program known as Stargate. Radin has spent the last forty years conducting controlled experiments that demonstrate that thoughts are things, that we can sense others' emotions and intentions from a distance, that intuition is more powerful than we thought, and that we can tap into the power of intention (think The Secret, only on a more realistic and scientific level). These dormant powers can help us to lead more interesting and fulfilling lives.Beginning with a brief history of magic over the centuries (what was called magic two thousand years ago is turning out to be scientific fact today), a review of the scientific evidence for magic, a series of simple but effective magical techniques (the key is mental focus, something elite athletes know a lot about), Radin then offers a vision of a scientifically-informed magic and explains why magic will play a key role in frontiers of science.

    John's Abbey in Minnesota. Part record of her time among the Benedictines, part meditation on various aspects of monastic life, The Cloister Walk demonstrates, from the rare perspective of someone who is both an insider and outsider, how immersion in the cloistered world -- its liturgy, its ritual, its sense of community -- can impart meaning to everyday events and deepen our secular lives. In this stirring and lyrical work, the monastery, often considered archaic or otherworldly, becomes immediate, accessible, and relevant to us, no matter what our faith may be.* A New York Times bestseller for 23 weeks* A New York Times Notable Book of the Year