Religion Social

In Why I Am a Hindu, one of India’s finest public intellectuals gives us a profound book about one of the world’s oldest and greatest religions. Starting with a close examination of his own belief in Hinduism, he ranges far and wide in his study of the faith.

With The Teachings of Don Juan, Carlos Castaneda chronicled a journey toward enlightenment under the tutelage of Yaqui Indian guru Don Juan. Having sold more than eight million copies of his books around the world, Castaneda has inspired countless readers with his awareness-expanding experiences.

Carlos Castanada was a student of anthropology when he met Don Juan Matus, a Yaqui shaman and the inspiration for Castanada’s The Teachings of Don Juan. In this controversial work, Castanada relays his experiences being challenged by his mentor on his perception of the world and all living things in it.

At just under five feet tall, Virginia Prodan was no match for the towering six-foot-ten-inch, gun-wielding assassin the Romanian government sent to her office to take her life. It was not the first time her life had been threatened - nor would it be the last. As a young attorney under Nicolae Ceausescu's brutal communist regime, Virginia had spent her entire life searching for the truth.

Freedom from suffering is not only possible, but the means for achieving it are immediately within our grasp - literally as close to us as our own breath. This is the 2,500-year-old good news contained in the Anapanasati Sutra, the Buddha's teaching on cultivating both tranquility and deep insight through full awareness of breathing. In this book, Larry Rosenberg brings this timeless meditation method to life.

What is karma? Most people understand karma as a balance sheet of good and bad deeds, virtues and sins. The mechanism that decrees that we cannot evade the consequences of our own actions. In reality, karma has nothing to do with reward and punishment. Karma simply means action: your action, your responsibility. It isn’t some external system of crime and punishment, but an internal cycle generated by you. Accumulation of karma is determined only by your intention and the way you respond to what is happening to you.

In this classic work, Alasdair MacIntyre examines the historical and conceptual roots of the idea of virtue, diagnoses the reasons for its absence in personal and public life, and offers a tentative proposal for its recovery. While the individual chapters are wide-ranging, once pieced together, they comprise a penetrating and focused argument about the price of modernity.

My Big TOE: Awakening, written by a nuclear physicist in the language of contemporary culture, unifies science and philosophy, physics and metaphysics, mind and matter, purpose and meaning, the normal and the paranormal. The entirety of human experience (mind, body, and spirit) including both our objective and subjective worlds is brought together under one seamless scientific understanding.

The practice of what is commonly known as hatha yoga is but one of eight branches of the body of knowledge that is yoga. Yoga is a sophisticated system of self-empowerment that is capable of harnessing and activating inner energies in such a way that your body and mind function at their optimal capacity. It is a means to create inner situations exactly the way you want them, turning you into the architect of your own joy. A yogi lives life in this expansive state, and in this transformative book Sadhguru tells the story of his own awakening.

For centuries, the story of Adam and Eve has resonated richly through the corridors of art, literature, and theology. But for most moderns, taking it at face value is incongruous. Author John Walton explores the ancient Near Eastern context of Genesis 2-3, creating space for a faithful reading of Scripture along with full engagement with science for a new way forward in the human origins debate.

A History of Western Philosophy and Theology is the fruit of John Frame's 45 years of teaching philosophical subjects. No other survey of the history of Western thought offers the same invigorating blend of expositional clarity, critical insight, and biblical wisdom.

The 1964 murder of a nationally known cancer researcher sets the stage for this gripping exposé of medical professionals enmeshed in covert government operations over the course of three decades. Following a trail of police records, FBI files, cancer statistics, and medical journals, this revealing book presents evidence of a web of medical secret-keeping that began with the handling of evidence in the JFK assassination and continued apace....

Twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other televangelists first spoke of the United States being a Christian nation that would build a global Christian empire, it was hard to take such hyperbolic rhetoric seriously. Today, such language no longer sounds like hyperbole but poses, instead, a very real threat to our freedoms and our way of life.

In simple and straightforward language, Bhante Gunaratana shares the Buddha's teachings on mindfulness and how we can use these principles to improve our daily lives, deepen our mindfulness, and move closer to our spiritual goals. Based on the classic Satipatthana Sutta, one of the most succinct yet rich explanations of meditation, Bhante's presentation is nonetheless thoroughly modern.

Living and dying with bravery and honor is at the heart of Hagakure, a series of texts written by an 18th-century samurai, Yamamoto Tsunetomo. It is a window into the samurai mind, illuminating the concept of bushido (the Way of the Warrior), which dictated how samurai were expected to behave, conduct themselves, live, and die.

Consciousness creates all material reality. Biological processes do not create consciousness. This conceptual breakthrough turns traditional scientific thinking upside down. In An End to Upside Down Thinking, Mark Gober traces his journey. He explores compelling scientific evidence from a diverse set of disciplines, ranging from psychic phenomena to near-death experiences to quantum physics and beyond.

In A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, Marianne Williamson revealed how we each become miracle-workers when expressing love and forgiveness in our everyday lives. With The Mystic Jesus, Williamson reveals the role of Jesus in the teachings of the Course. For many, Jesus has become a precious relic, revered yet lacking the immediacy of authentic spiritual force. In The Mystic Jesus, Williamson writes of a Jesus who transcends both glib imagery and outdated religious dogma. She writes not only of an historical Messiah but of a spirit alive in all of us today.

Originally drawn to Yaqui Indian spiritual leader don Juan Matus for his knowledge of mind-altering plants, best-selling author Carlos Castaneda soon immersed himself in the sorcerer's magical world entirely. Ten years after his first encounter with the shaman, Castaneda examines his field notes and comes to understand what don Juan knew all along - that these plants are merely a means to understanding the alternative realities that one cannot fully embrace on one's own.

There are qualities we all yearn to experience in our lives - peace, simplicity, grace, connection, clarity. Yet these qualities evade us, because each of them arises from an experience of wholeness, and we live in a culture that enforces divisions within each of us. In Radical Wholeness, Philip Shepherd shows the countless ways in which we are persuaded to separate from the body and live in the head. Disconnected from the body's intelligence, we also disconnect from the wholeness of the present.

Remarkably relevant, beautifully written, and filled with wit and wisdom, these three essays by Bertrand Russell allow the listener to test the concepts of the good life, morality, the existence of God, Christianity, and human nature. "What I Believe" was used prominently in the 1940 New York court proceedings in which Russell was judicially declared "unfit" to teach philosophy at City College of New York. "Why I Am Not a Christian" concludes that churches throughout history have retarded progress and states that we should instead "look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in." Finally, "A Free Man's Worship", perhaps the most famous single essay written by Russell, considers whether humans operate from free will.