A rich compendium of looniness!

    When Sigmund Freud awakened modern interest in the dream a century ago, his theory of interpretation undermined the potential insights dreams had to offer. For Freud, dreams were little more than fragmented puzzle parts made up of events from our waking lives. Most of us today still live under Freud's far-reaching influence. When we wake up after experiencing a powerful series of images, we too readily explain them away or simply ignore them all together. Whatever emotion or insight the dream evokes slowly fades. But what if Freud was wrong? Unless we challenge his deeply-ingrained assumptions, we will forever lose the gift of our dreams.International bestselling author Rodger Kamenetz believes it is not too late to reclaim the lost power of our nightly visions. Kamenetz's exploration of the world of dreams reopens all the questions scientists and psychologists claimed to have settled long ago. The culmination of decades of research, The History of Last Night's Dream is a riveting intellectual and cultural investigation of dreams and what they have to teach us. We discover how the age-old struggle between what we dream and how we interpret our dreams has shaped Western culture from biblical times to today. Kamenetz introduces us to an eighty-seven-year-old female kabbalist in Jerusalem, a suave Tibetan Buddhist dream teacher in Copenhagen, and a crusty intuitive postman-turned-dream master in northern Vermont. He fearlessly delves into this mysterious inner realm and shows us that dreams are not only intensely meaningful but that they hold essential truths about who we are. In the end, each of us has the choice to embark on this illuminating path to the soul. But one thing is certain: our dreams will never be the same again.

    So succinct are the author's insights that these writings have outlasted the dissolution of the samurai class to come down to the present and be read for guidance and inspiration by the captains of business and industry, as well as those devoted to the practice of the martial arts in their modern form.

    This revolutionary book brings together many teaching stories that were hidden for centuries, unknown until this volume. These stories are extraordinary expressions of freedom and fearlessness, relevant for men and women of any time or place. In these pages we meet nuns, laywomen practicing with their families, famous teachers honored by emperors, and old women selling tea on the side of the road.Each story is accompanied by a reflection by a contemporary woman teacher—personal responses that help bring the old stories alive for readers today—and concluded by a final meditation for the reader, a question from the editors meant to spark further rumination and inquiry. These are the voices of the women ancestors of every contemporary Buddhist.

    An important book for art and design theorists, and other thoughtful creators.

    This recent collection of conversations between him and the many seekers who came to his ashram for guidance contains the essence of his teaching. His concern throughout his long life of imparting his experience to others was to convince his listeners that self-realisation – or enlightenment – is not an alien or mysterious state, but the natural condition of man. This state can be easily discovered by undertaking the self-investigation clearly described in these talks. The lucid instructions to each section provide further illumination of this greater seer’s message.

    Superbly illustrated by Borin Van Loon, the book illuminates this process through a rich legacy of stories and explains the practices of meditation, Taoism and Zen. It goes on to describe the role of Buddhism in modern Asia and its growing influence on Western thought.

    This was a special teaching describing the secret wisdom about the nature of the universe and of the soul as well as a path to make the journey, through varied phases of spiritual evolution, from mortal to immortal and from earth to heaven and beyond. The goal is to regain one's divine stature and transcendental place. In its earliest form, originated in Ancient Egypt, it was related to theurgical religious system developed in the priests and priestesses of the Ancient Egyptian city of Anu and the Tree was seen as the source of life. This book explains that teaching, which has been available to all, but missed by those who did not possess the keys to unlock its mystic formula. In this volume the Creation teaching of Anu, the TREE OF LIFE metaphysical teachings, disciplines and techniques, from the hieroglyphic texts, for activating the Tree, are given.

    For fifteen hundred years, Zen koans have been passed down through generations of masters, usually in private encounters between teacher and student. This book deftly retells fourteen traditional koans, which are partly paradoxical questions dangerous to your beliefs and partly treasure boxes of ancient wisdom. Koans show that you don't have to impress people or change into an improved, more polished version of yourself. Instead you can find happiness by unbuilding, unmaking, throwing overboard, and generally subverting unhappiness. John Tarrant brings the heart of the koan tradition out into the open, reminding us that the old wisdom remains as vital as ever, a deep resource available to anyone in any place or time. "Here's a book to crack the happiness code if ever there was one. Forget about self-improvement, five-point plans, and inspirational seminars that you can't remember a word of a week later. Tarrant's is the fix that fixes nothing because there is nothing to fix. Your life is a koan, a deep question whose answer you are already living--this is the true inspiration, and Tarrant delivers."--Roger Housden, author of the "Ten Poems" series "Every life is full of koans, and yet you can't learn from a book how to understand them. You need someone to put you in the right frame of mind to see the puzzles and paradoxes of your experience. With intelligence, humor, and steady, deep reflection, John Tarrant does this as no one has done it before. This book could take you to a different and important level of experience."--Thomas Moore, author of "Care of the Soul" and "Dark Nights ofthe Soul" ""Bring Me the Rhinoceros" is one of the best books ever written about Zen. But it is more than that: it is a book of Zen, pointing us to reality by its own fluent and witty example. John Tarrant has the rare ability to enter the minds of the ancient Zen masters as they do their amazing pirouettes upon the void and, with a few vivid touches, to illuminate our lives with their sayings."--Stephen Mitchell, author of "Gilgamesh: A New English Version" "This book's straightforward honesty, clear writing, and destabilizing insight have a profound effect. John Tarrant does indeed bring on the rhinoceros and a host of other powerful but invisible creatures, ready to run us down when we refuse to acknowledge the fierce, awkward, and beautiful world we inhabit"--David Whyte, author of "Crossing the Unknown Sea" "John Tarrant's talent for telling these classic Zen tales transforms them magically into a song in which, as you read, the words disappear as the music continues to echo in your mind and make you happy. Mysteriously, like koans." --Sylvia Boorstein, author of "Pay Attention, for Goodness' Sake

    A magnificent compilation of sacred writings from all traditions and the perfect companion to Stephen Mitchell's poetry collection, The Enlightened Heart, and the bestselling Tao Te ChingA collection of prose--discourses, sermons, essays, and aphorisms--includes texts and authors such as the Hindu, Confucian, and Buddhist sciptures, Heraclitus and Plato, Chuang-tzu, Jesus, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Symeon the New Theologian, the Chinese Zen masters, and others.

    Celebrated scholar Joseph Campbell shares his intimate and inspiring reflections on the art of living in this beautifully packaged book, part of a new series to be based on his unpublished writings.

    Integrating the ancient teachings of Tibetan Buddhism into the everyday grind, A Spiritual Renegade’s Guide to the Good Life presents a fresh take on our quest for a joyful existence. Each chapter includes an action plan designed to elicit true happiness and forge a clear path toward fulfillment. You’ll learn how to: • transform problems into opportunities; • set yourself free from fear and anxiety; • unburden yourself of past resentment; • create an action plan for true happiness. Further explore the concepts of a spiritual renegade lifestyle through Microsoft Tags within this book, which link to online videos of Lama Marut discussing each of his concepts firsthand. This book is bound to disrupt your suffering, disturb your dissatisfaction, and elicit a deep-seated contentment. Happiness is in your hands.

    In the West particularly, sizable tomes have been composed speculating upon the nature and historical background of one of the main characters of Western religions, Jesus Christ. Many have tried to dig into the precious few clues as to Jesus's identity and come up with a biographical sketch that either bolsters faith or reveals a more human side of this godman to which we can all relate. Obviously, considering the time and energy spent on them, the subjects of Christianity and its legendary founder are very important to the Western mind and culture, and increasingly to the rest of the world as well.Despite all of this literature continuously being cranked out and the significance of the issue, in the public at large there remains a serious lack of formal and broad education regarding religion and mythology, and most individuals are highly uninformed in this area. Concerning the issue of Christianity, for example, the majority of people are taught in most schools and churches that Jesus Christ was an actual historical figure and that the only controversy regarding him is that some people accept him as the Son of God and the Messiah, while others do not. However, whereas this is the raging debate most evident in this field today, it is not the most important. Shocking as it may seem to the general populace, the most enduring and profound controversy in this subject is whether or not a person named Jesus Christ ever really existed.ContentsIntroductionThe ControversyHistory and Positions of the Debate"Pious Fraud"The ProofThe GnosticsBiblical SourcesNon-Biblical SourcesThe CharactersThe Major PlayersBuddhaBuddha's BirthBuddhist CrucifixionHorus of EgyptMithra, Sun God of PersiaMithra's "Virgin" Birth?Mithra and the TwelveKrishna of IndiaKrishna's "Virgin" Birth?The Names of Krishna and ChristKrishna's Solar NaturePrometheus of GreeceThe Creation of a MythThe "Son" of God is the "Sun" of GodEtymology Tells the StoryThe Book of Revelation is Egyptian and ZoroastrianThe "Patriarchs" and "Saints" are the Gods of Other CulturesThe "Disciples" are the Signs of the ZodiacWas Jesus an Essene Master?Qumran is Not an Essene CommunityWas the New Testament Composed by Therapeuts?ConclusionBibliographyEndnotes

    Yet the word 'Hindu' is of foreign 18th-century origin. Hinduism is defined as a polytheistic religion, but Mahatma Gandhi famously declared that one can be a Hindu without believing in any god. Hinduism appears to accommodate endless contradictions. It is a religion at least as much of myth as of history - it has no historical founder, no single authoritative book, and few central doctrines." Introducing Hinduism offers a guide to this extraordinarily diverse faith. It untangles the complexities of Hinduism's gods and goddesses, its caste system and its views on sex, everyday life and asceticism. Why do Hindus revere the cow? Must Hindus be vegetarian? Introducing Hinduism explores the links with and differences from Buddhism, Jainism and other religions, and describes the resurgence of Hindu extremism, the phenomenon of Bollywood and the overseas Hindu diaspora.

    Jung's insistence on the psychogenic and symbolic significance of such states is even more timely now than then. As R. D. Laing stated... 'It was Jung who broke the ground here, but few followed him.'"--From the introduction by Sonu ShamdasaniJung's seminar on Kundalini yoga, presented to the Psychological Club in Zurich in 1932, has been widely regarded as a milestone in the psychological understanding of Eastern thought and of the symbolic transformations of inner experience. Kundalini yoga presented Jung with a model for the developmental phases of higher consciousness, and he interpreted its symbols in terms of the process of individuation. With sensitivity toward a new generation's interest in alternative religions and psychological exploration, Sonu Shamdasani has brought together the lectures and discussions from this seminar. In this volume, he re-creates for today's reader the fascination with which many intellectuals of prewar Europe regarded Eastern spirituality as they discovered more and more of its resources, from yoga to tantric texts. Reconstructing this seminar through new documentation, Shamdasani explains, in his introduction, why Jung thought that the comprehension of Eastern thought was essential if Western psychology was to develop. He goes on to orient today's audience toward an appreciation of some of the questions that stirred the minds of Jung and his seminar group: What is the relation between Eastern schools of liberation and Western psychotherapy? What connection is there between esoteric religious traditions and spontaneous individual experience? What light do the symbols of Kundalini yoga shed on conditions diagnosed as psychotic? Not only were these questions important to analysts in the 1930s but, as Shamdasani stresses, they continue to have psychological relevance for readers on the threshold of the twenty-first century. This volume also offers newly translated material from Jung's German language seminars, a seminar by the indologist Wilhelm Hauer presented in conjunction with that of Jung, illustrations of the cakras, and Sir John Woodroffe's classic translation of the tantric text, the Sat-cakra Nirupana. ?