The Cosmotheandric Experience is not a Christian, or an Indic, or a Buddhist study, but an interdisciplinary study with a firm foundation. It aims at an integration of the whole of reality: We have to reconstruct the body of Prajapati, even if some of the parts feel unworthy, are shy or run away ... We have to think of all of the fragments of the present world in order to bring them together into a harmonious--though not monoliithic--whole. The Cosmotheandric principle, which the author advocates, could be formulated by saying that the divine, the human and the earthly are three irreducible dimensions which constitute the real.
An Advaitic Modernity?: Raimon Panikkar and Philosophical Theology poses Raimon Panikkar as a stimulating dialogue partner in postmodern philosophical theology who can help us rethink the relationship between transcendence and immanence through an advaitic critique of modernity. Andrew D. Thrasher argues that Panikkar advaitic critique of modernity may transform several discourses, such as how Panikkar’s cosmotheandric metaphysics may reshape a theology of religion and offer a religious interpretation of a relational ontology that builds on the Heideggerian ontological tradition and how Panikkar’s metaphysics solves problems in Heidegger’s ontology.
"Today's search for spirituality and authenticity leads ultimately to the question, and the experience, of God. In this profound meditation from one of today's most renowned religious voices, theologian Raimon Panikkar offers a way to reflect on the perennial quest for God, its significance in many religious traditions, and its connection to our own deepest purpose and meaning. .... " [from back cover]
Raimon Panikkar: A Companion to his Life and Thought is a guide to the life, work and thought of Raimon Panikkar, a self-professed Buddhist-Christian-Hindu philosopher and theologian. A man of deep and wide learning and an extremely prolific author, Panikkar is equally at home in various religious and cultural traditions and embodies in himself the ideals of intercultural, intrareligious, and interreligious dialogues. This book explicates Panikkar's basic vision of life as the harmonious rhythm of divinity, humanity, and the cosmos, which he terms cosmotheandrism, and shows how it permeates and illumines his articulations of the central Christian doctrines. Given the complexity and difficulty of Panikkar's thought this book is a welcome companion for a course on Panikkar and for a general reader who wishes to understand one of the most profound and orginal thinkers of our time.
The first volume of this Opera Omnia has been divided into two books, one dedicated to mysticism, intended as the supreme experience of reality, and the second dedicated to spirituality, intended as the path toward such an experience. There are different paths, because they depend not only on tradition and worship but also on the different sensitivities of human beings and historical periods. What kind of spirituality is appropriate to our times? ... The book starts with two booklets in which some lines of argument, developed in the context of Christian religious retreats, were spelled out in the plain language of everyday speech. The second section deals with a spirituality practiced by monks, although not confined to institutional monasticism, but seen rather as a universal archetype to be found in very human being (the search for monos, union with the Divine). There follows a description of the ascetic tradition in India and, as an example of the encounter of western (Christian) spirituality with Indic spirituality, an article dedicated to my friend Henri Le Saux, who is an example of the fertile encounter between the two traditions. The last section is dedicated to wisdom as the goal of a positive spirituality. (from the Introduction).
The vision of Raimon Panikkar is to examine an understanding of the fulness of the human experience, understood ultimately in the iconic image of Jesus, the Christ. This book aims to explore an understanding of his work in context, context of the history of humanity, the emerging integral era of perception, the context of the contemporary secular society, which he speaks of as an artificial life, and the context of creation and the creator. As creature he sees the secret of life in the inter-relational nature of the three, creature, creation and creator. The unique nature of this mysterious three-way unity leads him to coin a term to speak of its nature as Cosmotheandric. His extensive academic background, of philosophy, theology and science, and the broad life of spirituality lived in the context of the interreligious world of both East and West equips well his mind to probe life's nature. Of his many students, Ewert Cousins' asks the pertinent question of how to live Panikkar's vision? It is the author's contribution to respond to Cousins' question, while drawing upon Panikkar's cosmothendric concept, by drawing upon contemporary knowledge through the model of the scriptural wisdom to, 'love God and one's neighbour as one's self. This he refers to as Relational Spirituality. The integral era of history is appearing on the horizon of the global psyche to birth a new era of human mindfulness like never before. Carl Jaspers has highlighted two major times of transition shaping humankind through the passing millennia that have moved humanity from a simple human life to the highly complex time of today. Jaspers spoke of the transition in human consciousness through the millennium prior to the life of Jesus Christ, as the First Axial Period of History. Martin Heidegger, Teilherd de Chardin, Jean Gebser, Ken Wilber, Ewert Cousins, Raimon Panikkar, are some of the thought leaders of our time who have made major contributions to this understanding of the emerging Integral awareness. For many the disturbing changes encountered on the surface of society ring loudly of crisis. Secularisation is the dominant life-style primarily shaped by the cyber revolution and its Artificial Intelligence. Most concerning is the range of questions humans face about their personal value and loss of substantial meaning. Dr Cheong draws upon the great minds listed above, in particular the work of Raimon Panikkar, to map a pathway for growing more fully into an Integral way of life, which he refers to as Relational Spirituality.
A quantum leap in our understanding of the universe one that reveals the whole consciousness that is active in every part and how every part participates in the whole. The award-winning author of Christ in Evolution and The Emergent Christ breaks new ground with this capstone in a trilogy that opens our eyes to the everywhere active, all powerful, all intelligent Love that guides and directs our new awareness of interrelatedness and interbeing. She writes: "We all have a part to play in this unfolding Love; we are wholes within wholes; persons within persons; religions within religions. We are one body and we seek one mind and heart so that the whole may become more whole, more personal and unified in love. This is our Christian vocation, to live in the Christ who is rising up from the ashes of death to become for us the God of the future."
“Religion” has become suspect in literary studies, often for good reason, as it has become associated with reactionary politics and outdated codified beliefs. In Modernist Reformations: Poetry as Theology in Eliot, Stevens, and Joyce, the author demonstrates how three high modernist writers work to reform religious experience for an age dominated by the extremes of radical skepticism and dogmatic rigidity. The author offers new and provocative readings of these well-studied writers: Joyce and Stevens are usually considered purely secular, and the Eliot in this book is more progressive than reactionary. The readings here provide a fresh approach to their work and to the period. Using studies of religious experience by sociologists and theologians both from the modernist era and from our own contemporary world to frame the argument, the author examines the poetry closely and in detail to demonstrate that the work of these writers does not merely reflect religious themes and issues but does the actual work usually considered theological. Their poetry is theology. Modernist Reformations will renew and deepen appreciation for these writers, and perhaps their efforts at reformation may allow for our own engagement with religion in a secular age.
