Within days, it had been shared more than one million times. Why? Because Saunders’s words tap into a desire in all of us to lead kinder, more fulfilling lives. Powerful, funny, and wise, Congratulations, by the way is an inspiring message from one of today’s most influential and original writers.

    Krishnamurti, or just U.G., was a speaker and philosopher, often known as an "anti-guru" or as "the man who refused to be a guru." This book is a compilation of discussions between U.G. Krishnamurthi and various questioners in India, Switzerland, Australia, the Netherlands, and the U.K. According to U.G., "The religious states of bliss and ecstasy can never be experienced, can never be grasped, contained, much less given expression to you, by man. That beaten track will lead you nowhere. There is no oasis situated yonder; you are stuck in a mirage."

    This 8-hour free course introduced the study of philosophy and the methods employed by The Open University in teaching philosophy.

    A collection of the essays by Ferdinand von Schirach published between Februaray 2010 and September 2013 in the German news magazine Der Spiegel.

    Set amidst the natural beauty of the Santa Lucia Mountains, their conversations—harnessing their ideas of all that is wild, sacred and intimate in this world—move from the admission that Snyder’s mother was a devout atheist to his personal accounts of his initiation into Zen Buddhist culture, being literally dangled by the ankles over a cliff. After years of living in Japan, Snyder returns to the States to build a farmhouse in the remote foothills of the Sierras, a homestead he calls Kitkitdizze.For all of the depth in these conversations, Jim Harrison and Gary Snyder are humorous and friendly, and with the artfully interspersed dialogue from old friends and loves like Scott Slovic, Michael McClure, Jack Shoemaker, and Joanne Kyger, the discussion reaches a level of not only the personal, but the global, redefining our idea of the Beat Generation and challenging the future directions of the environmental movement and its association with “Deep Ecology.”The Etiquette of Freedom is an all-encompassing companion to the film The Practice of the Wild. A DVD is included which contains the film together with more than an hour of out-takes and expanded interviews, as well as an extended reading by Gary Snyder. The whole offers a rare glimpse of their extended discussion of life and what it means to be wild and alive.

    These fascinating essays reveal the versatility of his extraordinary mind. They range from subjects such as the greeting-card image of Mother to ancient fertility rites; from the origin of the alphabet to the relation of language to philosophy; from literary censorship to the appalling lack of sexual knowledge in modern society. Exciting, caustic, sometimes shocking, they offer Aldous Huxley's unique view of that continuing paradox - mankind.

    The answer has major implications, and the stakes are high. To put it in the simple terms that have come to dominate these debates, if we are free to make our own decisions, we areaccountable for what we do, and if we aren't free, we're off the hook.There are neuroscientists who claim that our decisions are made unconsciously and are therefore outside of our control and social psychologists who argue that myriad imperceptible factors influence even our minor decisions to the extent that there is no room for free will. According to philosopherAlfred R. Mele, what they point to as hard and fast evidence that free will cannot exist actually leaves much room for doubt. If we look more closely at the major experiments that free will deniers cite, we can see large gaps where the light of possibility shines through.In Free: Why Science Hasn't Disproved Free Will, Mele lays out his opponents' experiments simply and clearly, and proceeds to debunk their supposed findings, one by one, explaining how the experiments don't provide the solid evidence for which they have been touted. There is powerful evidence thatconscious decisions play an important role in our lives, and knowledge about situational influences can allow people to respond to those influences rationally rather than with blind obedience.Mele also explores the meaning and ramifications of free will. What, exactly, does it mean to have free will -- is it a state of our soul, or an undefinable openness to alternative decisions? Is it something natural and practical that is closely tied to moral responsibility? Since evidence suggeststhat denying the existence of free will actually encourages bad behavior, we have a duty to give it a fair chance.

    Letter to A Christian Nation is his reply. Using rational argument, Harris offers a measured refutation of the beliefs that form the core of fundamentalist Christianity. In the course of his argument, he addresses current topics ranging from intelligent design and stem-cell research to the connections between religion and violence. In Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris boldly challenges the influence that faith has on public life in our nation.

    Or Hillary Clinton, or Steven Spielberg. Clearly they have no trouble getting stuff done. For the great majority of us, though, what a comfort to discover that we’re not wastrels and slackers, but doers . . . in our own way. It may sound counterintuitive, but according to philosopher John Perry, you can accomplish a lot by putting things off. He calls it “structured procrastination”:In 1995, while not working on some project I should have been working on, I began to feel rotten about myself. But then I noticed something. On the whole, I had a reputation as a person who got a lot done and made a reasonable contribution. . . . A paradox. Rather than getting to work on my important projects, I began to think about this conundrum. I realized that I was what I call a structured procrastinator: a person who gets a lot done by not doing other things.Celebrating a nearly universal character flaw, The Art of Procrastination is a wise, charming, compulsively readable book—really, a tongue-in-cheek argument of ideas. Perry offers ingenious strategies, like the defensive to-do list (“1. Learn Chinese . . .”) and task triage. He discusses the double-edged relationship between the computer and procrastination—on the one hand, it allows the procrastinator to fire off a letter or paper at the last possible minute; on the other, it’s a dangerous time suck (Perry counters this by never surfing until he’s already hungry for lunch). Or what may be procrastination’s greatest gift: the chance to accomplish surprising, wonderful things by not sticking to a rigid schedule. For example, Perry wrote this book by avoiding the work he was supposed to be doing—grading papers and evaluating dissertation ideas. How lucky for us.

    Loss is unavoidable; grief isn't. Death is certain. And life? Well, life isn't certain. Its uncertainty, unpredictability, even its irrationality, make it what it is. Often, we run blindly into fire, we step on snakes, we get entangled in snares - these are the fires of desire, the snakes of attachment, and the snares of jealousy and covetousness. If we are bitten, burnt and hurt, we call it suffering, and believe it to be the way of life, when, in fact, we are mistaking our pain for our suffering. We have little control over the former but the latter is almost entirely in our hands. We can take things in our stride or be tossed on the tide. All it takes is to be able to open our eyes. This choice, we must remember, is ours; always. Om Swami's new book marks the way to enlightenment through mindful thinking.

    The bad news is that these turn out to be the very things most discouraged by contemporary culture. This knotty dilemma is the subject of The Age of Absurdity - a wry and accessible investigation into how the desirable states of wellbeing and satisfaction are constantly undermined by modern life. Michael Foley examines the elusive condition of happiness common to philosophy, spiritual teachings and contemporary psychology, then shows how these are becoming increasingly difficult to apply in a world of high expectations. The common challenges of earning a living, maintaining a relationship and ageing are becoming battlegrounds of existential angst and self-loathing in a culture that demands conspicuous consumption, high-octane partnerships and perpetual youth. In conclusion, rather than denouncing and rejecting the age, Foley presents an entertaining strategy of not just accepting but embracing today's world - finding happiness in its absurdity.

    Chanakya who was born around 3rd BC in Bharat (now Hindustan), astute, shrewd and ruthless political master. Equally selfless and patriotic teacher who politically united the small states post invasion of Greeks and reclaimed the boundaries of Bharat stretching from Puruvarsha (Persia, now Iran), Gansthan (now Afghanistan) to far east of Magadh (Bihar state). We know Chanakya for his Niti-shashtras, for his voluminous work on economy, maxims of wisdom and intelligence. But we do not know much about minute details with which he governed the country at that time. We do not know, during his time of around 3rd BCE, at how much advance stage the economy, public life, administration, industries, defence mechanisms, taxations, public-private partnerships, foreign policy, judicial systems, banking and accounting systems ….. were there in India. It seems, they all were in more than perfect stage compared to present scenario factoring advancement in science and technology etc. We will look at each of them one by one. In this book, “Chanakya Niti on Corruption”, we will take a look at corruption. What Chanakya thinks about sources of corruption, ways of finding about corruption, judgements and punishments of corruptions etc. Chanakya knows very well that just like it is impossible to know when and how much water a fish drinks, it is utmost difficult to know how much money government officials steal away while in charge of it. Knowing human nature which succumbs to greed, fear, lust, anger or any such tamas gunas, and indulges in acts of corruption to accumulate wealth in the country or outside. Chanakya keeps eye on conduct and life style of not only ministers, but all levels of the government officials too. Chanakya takes multi pronged approach to tackle and eradicate corruption. He knows that by establishing one department to tackle corruption problems are not going to be solved, instead will increase many fold later when that department itself becomes corrupt eventually. He relies on spying, continuous intelligence gathering, harsh punishments leading to deaths, rewards who bring to notice acts of corruptions by officials etc, promotions and rewards to who do their job righteously. Not only that, 3rd century BC, do you imagine there were clear cut rules and guidelines how to write account books, !. At that time, he knew that what impact it creates on overall economy and nation building, if sanctioned amount for projects are not utilised actually? Chanakya knows corruption is contiguous, and he tackles such problems too with well laid out and practical laws to follow at that time. Looking at the crux of the guidelines what Chanakya outlines, it seems that essence of those laws are applicable still today with more verbatim or expansion of words to suite and cover present scenarios. But, the essence remains same. He knew that in corruption free country, trade and business, entrepreneurship and industries flourishes and so overall wealth, health and security of the nation. I hope reading this book "Chanakya Niti on Corruption", will open up a window to explore further on how an Indian political guru administered this nation 3rd century BCE.

    The species that survive will be the ones that are most compatible with us: the weedy species--from mosquitoes to coyotes--that thrive in continually disturbed human-dominated environments. The End of the Wild is a wake-up call. Marshaling evidence from the last ten years of research on the environment, Stephen Meyer argues that nothing--not national or international laws, global bioreserves, local sustainability schemes, or wildlands--will change the course that has been set. Like it or not, we can no longer talk about conserving nature, only managing what is left. The race to save biodiversity is over.But that doesn't mean our work is over. The End of the Wild is also a call to action. Without intervention, the surviving ecosystems we depend on for a range of services--including water purification and flood and storm damage contro--could fail and the global spread of invasive species (pests, parasites, and disease-causing weedy species) could explode. If humanity is to survive, Meyer argues, we have no choice but to try to manage the fine details. We must move away from the current haphazard strategy of protecting species in isolation and create trans-regional meta-reserves, designed to protect ecosystem functions rather than species-specific habitats.

    In this new essay collection, Földényi considers the continuing fallout from the collapse of religion, exploring how Enlightenment traditions have not replaced basic elements of previously held religious mythologies—neither their metaphysical completeness nor their comforting purpose. Realizing beautiful writing through empathy, imagination, fascination, and a fierce sense of justice, Földényi covers a wide range of topics including a meditation on the metaphysical unity of a sculpture group and an analysis of fear as a window into our relationship with time.

    In Danger is the first anthology in English devoted to his political and literary essays, with a generous selection of his poetry. Against the backdrop of post-war Italy, and through the mid-'70s, Pasolini's writings provide a fascinating portrait of a Europe in which fascists and communists violently clashed for power and where journalists ran great risks. The controversial and openly gay Pasolini was murdered at the age of fifty-three; In Danger includes his final interview, conducted hours before his death.