Being Janana focuses on same-sex desiring male-bodied subjects in Lucknow, India, and explores how they make meaning in the marginalization of their desire through language performativity. Along with their desire for other men, jananas maintain ostensibly heteronormatively and culturally defined masculine positions. This book argues for an intersectional approach to understanding janana life worlds and situates janana subjectivity in dialogue with social, cultural, linguistic, and legal happenings. In engaging with the full complexity of janana identities and experience, Ila Nagar calls for a reassessment of gender categories and a new understanding of power and sexuality amidst emerging Indian modernities. Derived from ethnographic research conducted over a period of twelve years, this book also reflects on the interaction between social actors and researchers, and critically examines the use of ethnography as a method in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. It will be of interest to scholars from Anthropology, Asian Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and Linguistics.
ous powers proclaim His omnipotence; His wisdom, His analysis of the ills of humanity, and His prescription for their cure reveal His omniscience. You have the unique chance of meeting Him, at the Abode of Peace (Prasanthi Nilayam), and receiving from Him His blessings for the success of your spiritual pilgrimage. He will know and appreciate your earnestness and faith, and you can continue with greater confidence and courage, because He is certain to assure victory. He is the Eternal Teacher of the Gita, the Charioteer in your heart. In the pages of the magazine, published with His Blessings, and named after Him as Sanathana Sarathi, He wrote, out of His overwhelming love toward humanity, caught in the meshes of cynicism and credal fanaticism, this series of articles, called Stream of Spiritual Wisdom (Jnana Vahini). Month after month, thousands of readers awaited these articles (in the original Telugu as well as in the English translation), and when they received their copy, they perused it diligently and with reverential eagerness. These articles are now put together in book form for your guidance and inspiration.
Students of religion will find much of interest in this book; those who care for India in any way will be glad to receive an indication of high Hindu thought in one of the most striking religious movements of the day; while the orthodox Christian will derive some information from the work regarding the attitude of cultured Hindus toward Christianity and its Founder. After reading the book one is inexcusable if his ideas concerning Vedanta are hazy. The lectures are all extremely interesting, the style brilliant, the reasoning often subtle. Whether the philosophy advanced is satisfactory or not to those whose theories are the outgrowth of a different system of thought, Vivekanandas method of presenting it affords an “intellectual pleasure."
Jnana Yoga(Part II) (The yoga of knowledge) by Swami Vivekananda. based on Seven lectures on this topic delivered in New York in the beginning of 1896.
This book addresses LGBTQ issues in relation to among others law and policy, mobility and migration, children and family, social well-being and identity, visible and invisible landscapes, teaching and instruction, parades, arts and cartography and mapping. A variety of research methods are used to explore identities, communities, networks and landscapes, all which can be used in subsequent research and classroom instruction and disciplinary and interdisciplinary levels. This extensive book stimulates future pioneering research ventures in rural and urban settings about existing and proposed LGBTQ policies, individual and group mapping, visible and invisible spaces, and the construction of public and private spaces. Through the methodologies and rich bibliographies, this book provides a rich source for future comparative research of scholars working in social work, NGOs and public policy, and community networking and development.
Some 25 years ago, I had been struggling to receive spiritual initiation from a would-be diksha-guru for over three years, but he kept repeating that I was not ready yet. Just about that time (April 1994), I suffered what turned out to be a near-fatal heart attack during a lunch break at my FDA office. They rushed me into the emergency where I underwent triple heart bypass surgery. Three major arteries in my heart had ~98-100% blockages. One of these is the one commonly referred to by cardiologists as a “widow-maker!” Suffices to say that I could have suffered a massive heart attack, but for some divine intervention, I probably received another life. That incident alarmed me to seek spiritual initiation from my spiritual master, but I did not have much hope for that possibility. Based on my meagre scriptural knowledge at the time (Ante Narayana Smiti), I took refuge in whatever intelligence the Lord had endowed me. How do I attract Guru Maharaja’s attention to my cause? My intense greediness/eagerness [referred to as laulyam in sanskrit] initiated prompted me to study his mood using my intelligence. Through Krsna, we get introduced to our prospective guru, and thru Guru only, we attain Krsna. Thereby I figured out how he served his guru. His pranama-mantra happens to be “prabhup?dasya s?hitya? yat prak???ya vitirya?ca” Prabhupada ordered him to renounce this lucrative job of being a general manager of the Pepsi cola company, get married to a devotee woman even though he did not want to marry, return to India, and translate his books into several regional languages, and then distribute in India and abroad. All these he did in the prime of his youth when he was in Canada. That is when the idea flashed in my mind to write this essay on Absolute Knowledge despite my limited knowledge of Bhagavad-Gita at the time. I gathered enough courage to submit that essay with a degree of apprehension at his lotus feet. My would-be spiritual master was so pleased with it that not only did he invest the time out of his preaching schedule to read this synopsis written by an absolute novice like me, but he also initiated me within a month in our Potomac Temple in the suburb of Maryland, USA, on Lord Nrsimhadeva’s Appearance Day (May 25, 1997). Moreover, he gave me an order at my initiation, which was even more significant. I paraphrase it here: “Carucandra, I want you to learn the Gaudiya scriptures and then teach others.” This year, I would celebrate a silver jubilee to that fateful occasion in my spiritual life. And to this day, the divine couple has mercifully allowed me to keep my word to my Guru. Carrying out his order remains the very mission of my life balance.
What is the meaning of life? How can we be truly happy? Buddhism answers these questions through the Dharma, which is a traditional term meaning both "the truth" and "the path", and is the subject of this book, which offers a starter-kit of Buddhist teachings and practices.
