Jivanmukti in Transformation

Jivanmukti in Transformation

Author: Andrew O. Fort

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1998-01-01

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9780791439036

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Examines the Hindu concept of liberation while living from the perspective of the Advaita Vedanta school from the Upanisads to modern times.


The Perfectibility of Human Nature in Eastern and Western Thought

The Perfectibility of Human Nature in Eastern and Western Thought

Author: Harold Coward

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 0791478858

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How perfectible is human nature as understood in Eastern and Western philosophy, psychology, and religion? Harold Coward examines some of the very different answers to this question. He poses that in Western thought, including philosophy, psychology, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, human nature is often understood as finite, flawed, and not perfectible—in religion requiring God's grace and the afterlife to reach the goal. By contrast, Eastern thought arising in India frequently sees human nature to be perfectible and presumes that we will be reborn until we realize the goal—the various yoga psychologies, philosophies, and religions of Hinduism and Buddhism being the paths by which one may perfect oneself and realize release from rebirth. Coward uses the striking differences in the assessment of how perfectible human nature is as the comparative focus for this book.


Yoga and Psychology

Yoga and Psychology

Author: Harold Coward

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 0791487911

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Harold Coward explores how the psychological aspects of Yoga philosophy have been important to intellectual developments both East and West. Foundational for Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist thought and spiritual practice, Patañjali's Yoga Sutras, the classical statement of Eastern Yoga, are unique in their emphasis on the nature and importance of psychological processes. Yoga's influence is explored in the work of both the seminal Indian thinker Bhartrhari (c. 600 C.E.) and among key figures in Western psychology: founders Freud and Jung, as well as contemporary transpersonalists such as Washburn, Tart, and Ornstein.. Coward shows how the yogic notion of psychological processes makes Bhartrhari's philosophy of language and his theology of revelation possible. He goes on to explore how Western psychology has been influenced by incorporating or rejecting Patañjali's Yoga. The implications of these trends in Western thought for mysticism and memory are examined as well. This analysis results in a notable insight, namely, that there is a crucial difference between Eastern and Western thought with regard to how limited or perfectible human nature is—the West maintaining that we as humans are psychologically, philosophically, and spiritually limited or flawed in nature and thus not perfectible, while Patañjali's Yoga and Eastern thought generally maintain the opposite. Different Western responses to the Eastern position are noted, from complete rejection by Freud, Jung, and Hick, to varying degrees of acceptance by transpersonal thinkers.


Living Liberation in Hindu Thought

Living Liberation in Hindu Thought

Author: Andrew O. Fort

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1996-03-14

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 1438403054

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This book is about the state of embodied perfection often called enlightenment, self-realization, liberation, or jivanmukti. It examines the types, degrees, and stages of liberation that are possible, with and without a body.


Yoga

Yoga

Author: David Carpenter

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-12-08

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1135796068

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The popular perception of yoga in the West remains for the most part that of a physical fitness program, largely divorced from its historical and spiritual roots. The essays collected here provide a sense of the historical emergence of the classical system presented by Patañjali, a careful examination of the key elements, overall character and contemporary relevance of that system (as found in the Yoga Sutra) and a glimpse of some of the tradition's many important ramifications in later Indian religious history.


Encyclopedia of Hinduism

Encyclopedia of Hinduism

Author: Constance Jones

Publisher: Infobase Publishing

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 593

ISBN-13: 0816075646

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An illustrated A to Z reference containing more than 700 entries providing information on the theology, people, historical events, institutions and movements related to Hinduism.


Jivanmukti in Transformation

Jivanmukti in Transformation

Author: Andrew O. Fort

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1998-09-03

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780791439043

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Examines the Hindu concept of liberation while living from the perspective of the Advaita Vedanta school from the Upanisads to modern times.


The Thought of Bal Gangadhar Tilak

The Thought of Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Author: Robert E. Upton

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-02-16

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0198900678

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This work is a systematic study of Bal Gangadhar Tilak's thought, focusing on his views on 'communal' relations within the Indian polity, on caste and reform in Hindu society, and on political ethics regarding violence and non-cooperation. The Thought of Bal Gangadhar Tilak adopts a contextualist approach, situating his ideas in local Maharashtrian as well as pan-Indian and global cultural-intellectual contexts. The approach blends Tilak's quotidian journalism and speeches alongside his canonical texts on Aryan history and on the Bhagavad Gita. The work marks a departure from current interpretations, emphatically arguing that he is misappropriated and/or misunderstood as a proto-Hindutva thinker. Instead, he is revealed to be a radical liberal who supports counter-autocratic violence, a majoritarian pluralist in terms of intercommunity relations, a self-strengthening reformer who focuses on masculinity, and a Brahmin supremacist who is committed to reshaping India for the challenges of modernity. This book lays emphasis on his remarkable recognition as the nation's 'founding father' and particularly demonstrates how this later appropriation by Gandhi was contested by those celebrating Tilak's approach to contest him during the crucial mid-1920s period when he was indelibly linked to re-emerging Hindutva. More recently, growing ahistorical demi-official insistence on his social progressivism illustrates a change in India's public culture, as does the use of popular or even legal pressure to de-legitimize perennial criticism of Tilak's socio-political positions.