This unique work was composed in 1731 A.D. by Sri Nayanananda Thakur. The word preyo is used in the Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu as a synonym for sakhya (fraternity). Nayanananda Thakura was a resident of Mangala-dihi village, and hailed from the disciplic branch of the famous Sri Parni Gopal, who was the direct disciple of Lord Nityananda's personal associate known as SriSundarananda Gopal. Sundarananda is celebrated as the incarnation of Sudama, one of the principal cowherd boys, who are eternal associates of Lord Balarama. These dear boyfriends incarnate on earth in order to sport with Balarama when He descends as Lord Nityananda during the performance of Gauranga-lila. This is described in the Sri Chaitanya- Charitamrita, Adi-lila, 11.13-48. The author's composition naturally follows in the footsteps of Sudama. Therefore we find the ecstatic descriptions of a day in the life of the cowherd boys of Vraja.
Śrī Kṛṣṇa-bhāvanāmṛta is a work describing the daily pastimes of Rādhā and Kṛṣna extending over a full day from early morning to late night. This follows after Govinda-līlāmṛta of Kṛṣṇa dāsa Kavirāja, one of the first Gauḍīya works on this topic and covers many of the same pastimes. Since a devotee eventually enters into the pastimes of the Lord in the spiritual world, the devotee may be inquisitive to understand the activities there and how he could participate in those activities. Since the Gauḍīyas generally concentrate on realization of Rādhā and Kṛṣna, most works describing the daily pastimes are concerned with their pastimes.
We long for boundless love as we long for home. But how can we find our home our meaning and purpose if we don't know our self? Wise-Love is an exploration of the self, or consciousness, guided through the meditative eyes of saints, sages, seers, and mystics. We discover that the self's most charming characteristic -- part of its unchanging nature is that it is a lover, a lover only when ordinary love evolves into wise-love. Pranada, a devoted pilgrim and teacher, illuminates bhakti's wisdom school of heartfulness and shows why mindfulness can never satisfy the self. Joy comes from an awakened heart not a stilled mind.The first part of Wise-Love explores the nature of self/consciousness and how we interface in the world with our physical and subtle body (mind, intelligence, and ego). Understanding the distinctions between our real and false selves, we can answer the questions Who am I? What is my purpose? How can I be happy? The second half examines the nature of matter, the world of consciousness, karma, faith, mysticism, the efficacy of sacred sound, the maha-mantra, kirtan, humility, depth compassion, and how to culture wise-love. Each chapter unfolds with an understanding of matter and consciousness to present a key that unlocks our eternal nature so that we can experience the unbounded joy of the self in our daily lives.When we encounter the self, we're automatically introduced to our Divine Inner Suitor and our loving relationship. Filled with insight and fresh perspectives, Wise-Love offers a map for the journey to our home of eternal affection, where a porch light is always lovingly lit, and a warm embrace from our Divine Other awaits.Secretly nestled in the Upanishads and extolled in the Bhagavad Gita, bhakti yoga shines as the crown jewel on the head of India's timeless wisdom about consciousness and how to live one's meditation. Often over-simplified as devotion, bhakti is the method of experiencing the self and its Essence/Source. This concise, comprehensive handbook exploring the meaning of bhakti's sophisticated philosophy promises to enrich you wherever you are on the spiritual path.
"[This] magnificent critical survey, with its inherent respect for both the 'Westt's mainstream high culture' and the 'radically changing world' of the 1990s, offers a new breakthrough for lay and scholarly readers alike....Allows readers to grasp the big picture of Western culture for the first time." SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Here are the great minds of Western civilization and their pivotal ideas, from Plato to Hegel, from Augustine to Nietzsche, from Copernicus to Freud. Richard Tarnas performs the near-miracle of describing profound philosophical concepts simply but without simplifying them. Ten years in the making and already hailed as a classic, THE PASSION OF THE WESERN MIND is truly a complete liberal education in a single volume.
If you want to understand the philosophy of yoga, this book is for you. In Search of the Highest Truth is a trip into yoga's spiritual dimension that offers readers an unconventional approach to discovering the enduring relevance of ancient yoga wisdom. This book is a must for yoga teachers who want to integrate the philosophy of yoga into their classes and yoga practitioners who want deepen their experience of yoga. Here's what you'll learn: - A brief history of yoga philosophy - The functions of yoga philosophy - The relationship of yoga and religion - The ethics of yoga - How yoga philosophy reconciles destiny and free will - Strategies for reading traditional yoga wisdom texts - How to develop spiritual vision - How to apply the principles of traditional yoga philosophy to life in the modern world. Yoga philosophy provides compelling answers to life's most important questions, offers practical solutions to life's greatest challenges, and radically transforms our experience of the world. In Search of the Highest Truth will deepen your experience of yoga and clear a joyous path to living a spiritual life in the material world. "Here is a carefully conceived book that will be appreciated by students and teachers alike as an excellent introduction to yoga philosophy." - Joshua M. Greene, author of Swami in a Strange Land: How Krishna Came to the West "Hari-kirtana das makes central ideas from the classic texts of yoga easy to grasp and, with just enough cheeky style, shows us how several commonplace 'truths' of yoga trip over their philosophical shoelaces." - Jayadvaita Swami, author of Vanity Karma: Ecclesiastes, the Bhagavad-gita, and the meaning of life "In Search of the Highest Truth is eminently readable, engaging, and definitely fills a gaping hole in the popular literature on yoga." - Carol Horton, author of Yoga, Ph.D.: Integrating the Life of the Mind and the Wisdom of the Body "This companion to the most seminal yoga texts is full of wit and clarity - an excellent resource for advanced trainings or individual study." - Beth Filla, owner and director of yoga teacher training at Yogawood in Collingswood, New Jersey
A fascinating look at India’s remarkable impact on Western culture, this eye-opening popular history shows how the ancient philosophy of Vedanta and the mind-body methods of Yoga have profoundly affected the worldview of millions of Americans and radically altered the religious landscape. What exploded in the 1960s, following the Beatles trip to India for an extended stay with their new guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, actually began more than two hundred years earlier, when the United States started importing knowledge--as well as tangy spices and colorful fabrics--from Asia. The first translations of Hindu texts found their way into the libraries of John Adams and Ralph Waldo Emerson. From there the ideas spread to Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and succeeding generations of receptive Americans, who absorbed India’s “science of consciousness” and wove it into the fabric of their lives. Charismatic teachers like Swami Vivekananda and Paramahansa Yogananda came west in waves, prompting leading intellectuals, artists, and scientists such as Aldous Huxley, Joseph Campbell, Allen Ginsberg, J. D. Salinger, John Coltrane, Dean Ornish, and Richard Alpert, aka Ram Dass, to adapt and disseminate what they learned from them. The impact has been enormous, enlarging our current understanding of the mind and body and dramatically changing how we view ourselves and our place in the cosmos. Goldberg paints a compelling picture of this remarkable East-to-West transmission, showing how it accelerated through the decades and eventually moved from the counterculture into our laboratories, libraries, and living rooms. Now physicians and therapists routinely recommend meditation, words like karma and mantra are part of our everyday vocabulary, and Yoga studios are as ubiquitous as Starbuckses. The insights of India’s sages permeate so much of what we think, believe, and do that they have redefined the meaning of life for millions of Americans—and continue to do so every day. Rich in detail and expansive in scope, American Veda shows how we have come to accept and live by the central teaching of Vedic wisdom: “Truth is one, the wise call it by many names.”
Foreword by Klaus K. Klostermaier, PhD The Biography of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada A remarkable journey into the deepest dimensions of the human experience, Swami in a Strange Land shows how one man with a dream can change the world. In 1965, a seventy-year-old man—soon to be known as Prabhupada—set sail from India to America with a few books in his bag, pennies in his pockets, and a message of love in his heart. He landed in New York at the peak of the revolutionary counterculture movement of the ’60s, and went on to spark a global spiritual renaissance that led to the creation of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, which has changed millions of lives. Through the depiction of Prabhupada as both an enlightened luminary and a personable, funny, and conscientious individual, Swami in a Strange Land shows why cultural icons such as George Harrison and Allen Ginsberg incorporated Prabhupada’s teachings into their lives, and why millions more around the globe embarked upon the pa th of bhakti yoga in his footsteps. Carefully researched, skillfully crafted, and extraordinarily intimate, this narrative follows Prabhupada as he rises from an anonymous monk to a world-renowned spiritual leader. Set in locations as far ranging as remote Himalayan caves and the gilded corridors of Paris’s City Hall, this book traces the rise of Eastern spirituality in the West—and in particular, the rise of yoga culture and vegetarianism and the concepts of karma and reincarnation. JOSHUA M. GREENE has produced films for PBS and Disney, has served as vice president for New York’s largest PR rm, and was appointed director of strategic planning for the United Nations Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. He was also an adjunct professor at Hofstra University in New York. “Joshua Greene reveals the true, thrilling adventure story of Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada...” —SHARON GANNON, author and co-founder of Jivamukti Yoga “Overflowing from his heart was a treasure of spiritual love that he yearned to share with the world. And miraculously, he did—within a few years Prabhupada had inspired a movement that spread across the planet. ” —RADHANATH SWAMI , author, The Journey Home
This beautiful Gaudiya Vaishnava classic, Sri Gauranga-Lilamrta, is an extremelyrare manuscript. The work is a result ofthe combined efforts of Srila VisvanathaChakravarti Thakura and his disciple, SrilKrishna Dasa. Srila Chakravartipada had composed the first eleven verses in Sanskrit, known as Sriman-Mahaprabhor-Ashta-Kaliya-Lila-Smarana-Mangala-Stotram, which are the seed verses or sütras that describe the eternal eightfold daily pastimes of the fair-complexioned Lord. His disciple, Sri Krishna Dasa, composed Bengali verses that expound on these elevenverses to give a fuller, more detailed picture of the Lord's daily schedule. This translation, by Dasaratha-Suta Dasa (ACBSP) brings this rare classic to the English audience in all its beauty-allowing us to follow a day in the life of the Golden Avatara.
Sacred Preface is an extended commentary on the auspicious invocation?mangalacarana?of Krsnadasa Kaviraja's Sri Caitanya-caritamrta. Krsnadasa inserted his own commentary on this fourteen-verse invocation into the body of his hagiography, and this elaboration on the significance of his invocation no doubt served the Gaudiya community well. Much of the book's philosophy and theology is packed into this commentary, and it thus sets a philosophical stage on which the drama of the life and lila of Sri Caitanya is played out.
Tucked away in ancient Sanskrit and Bengali texts is a secret teaching, a blissful devotional (bhakti) tradition that involves sacred congregational chanting (kīrtana), mindfulness practices (japa, smaraṇam), and the deepening of one’s relationship with God (rasa). Brought to the world’s stage by Śrī Chaitanya Mahāprabhu (1486–1533), and fully documented by his immediate followers, the Six Goswāmīs of Vrindāvan, these unprecedented teachings were passed down from master to student in Gauḍīya Vaishnava lineages. The Golden Avatāra of Love: Śrī Chaitanya’s Life and Teachings, by contemporary scholar Steven J. Rosen, makes the profound truths of this confidential knowledge easily accessible for an English language audience. In his well-researched text, modern readers—spiritual practitioners, scholars, and seekers of knowledge alike—will encounter a treasure of hitherto unrevealed spiritual teachings, and be able to fathom sublime dimensions of Śrī Chaitanya’s method. Using the ancient texts themselves and the findings of contemporary academics, Rosen succeeds in summarizing and establishing Śrī Chaitanya’s life and doctrine for the modern world.
