In 1958 and 1972, Swami Kriyananda (a close and direct disciple of the great Indian spiritual master Paramhansa Yogananda—author of Autobiography of a Yogi) traveled to India, meeting a number of great saints in that distant land and writing about his experiences in a series of letters to spiritual friends, and brother and sister disciples. This book captures the spirit of Yogananda's classic autobiography and other enlightening accounts of sacred experiences in the East. In Visits to Saints of India we walk alongside Kriyananda and see India and its spiritual representatives through his eyes—the eyes of an advanced Western yogi and truth seeker. As Kriyananda wrote in the prologue to this book: India! Land of great saints and yogis. One has only to set foot on that sacred ground, if he is sensitive, to feel the blessings rising up therefrom. Fittingly did Paramhansa Yogananda end his life with the last words of his poem, “My India”: “I am hallowed. My body touched that sod.”
In this book, Sri Mrinalini Mata, president of Self-Realization Fellowship / Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, recounts her experiences of traveling with Sri Daya Mata during a trip to India in 1961. Sri Mrinalini Mata's experiences in India were truly remarkable, for she not only came in contact with two of India's most revered twentieth-century saints Sri Anandamoyi Ma and Sri Sitaramdas Omkarnath but she also was night and day in the presence of Daya Mata, who today is widely revered as a saint herself. There are more than 40 color and sepia tone images in this beautifully presented book. Many of the photos were taken by Sri Ananda Mata, sister of Sri Daya Mata, and also by Mrinalini Mata herself. As 2017 marks the centennial of Paramahansa Yogananda's work in India, it is a fitting occasion to bring out this inspiring account for the first time in book form.
In 1958 and 1972, Swami Kriyananda (a close disciple of the great yoga master Paramhansa Yogananda--author of the classic Autobiography of a Yogi) traveled to India, meeting a number of great saints and writing about his experiences in a series of letters to spiritual friends. In Visits to Saints of India, we walk alongside Kriyananda and see India and its spiritual representatives through his eyes--the eyes of an advanced Western yogi and truth-seeker.
A guide to the beliefs and practices of India. The book introduces some of India's leading saints, sadhus and gurus, while chapters of Buddhist, Sufi and Christian India demonstrate the variety and complexity of religious traditions.
India is not just a geography or history. It is not only a nation, a country, a mere piece of land. It is something more: it is a metaphor, poetry, something invisible but very tangible. It is vibrating with certain energy fields that no other country can claim. For almost ten thousand years, thousands of people have reached to the ultimate explosion of consciousness. Their vibration is still alive, their impact is in the very air; you just need a certain perceptivity, a certain capacity to receive the invisible that surrounds this strange land. It is strange because it has renounced everything for a single search, the search for the truth. In these pages, we are treated to a spellbinding vision of what Osho calls "the real India," the India that has given birth to enlightened mystics and master musicians, to the inspired poetry of the Upanishads and the breathtaking architecture of the Taj Mahal. We travel through the landscape of India's golden past with Alexander the Great and meet the strange people he met along the way. We are given a front-row seat in the proceedings of the legendary court of the Moghul Emperor Akbar, and an insider's view of the assemblies of Gautama the Buddha and his disciples. In the process, we discover just what it is about India that has made it a magnet for seekers for centuries, and the importance of India's unique contribution to our human search for truth.
In India: A Sacred Geography, renowned Harvard scholar Diana Eck offers an extraordinary spiritual journey through the pilgrimage places of the world's most religiously vibrant culture and reveals that it is, in fact, through these sacred pilgrimages that India’s very sense of nation has emerged. No matter where one goes in India, one will find a landscape in which mountains, rivers, forests, and villages are elaborately linked to the stories of the gods and heroes of Indian culture. Every place in this vast landscape has its story, and conversely, every story of Hindu myth and legend has its place. Likewise, these places are inextricably tied to one another—not simply in the past, but in the present—through the local, regional, and transregional practices of pilgrimage. India: A Sacred Geography tells the story of the pilgrim’s India. In these pages, Diana Eck takes the reader on an extraordinary spiritual journey through the living landscape of this fascinating country –its mountains, rivers, and seacoasts, its ancient and powerful temples and shrines. Seeking to fully understand the sacred places of pilgrimage from the ground up, with their stories, connections and layers of meaning, she acutely examines Hindu religious ideas and narratives and shows how they have been deeply inscribed in the land itself. Ultimately, Eck shows us that from these networks of pilgrimage places, India’s very sense of region and nation has emerged. This is the astonishing and fascinating picture of a land linked for centuries not by the power of kings and governments, but by the footsteps of pilgrims. India: A Sacred Geography offers a unique perspective on India, both as a complex religious culture and as a nation. Based on her extensive knowledge and her many decades of wide-ranging travel and research, Eck's piercing insights and a sweeping grasp of history ensure that this work will be in demand for many years to come.
His Unknown Life Before And After The Crucifixion. Why Has Christianity Chosen To Ignore Its Connections With The Religions Of The East, And To Dismiss Repeatedly The Numerous Claims That Jesus Spent A Large Part Of His Life In India? This Compelling Book Presents Irrefutable Evidence That Jesus Did Indeed Live In India, Dying There In Old Age. The Result Of Many Years Of Investigative Research, Jesus Lived In India Takes The Reader To All The Historical Sites Connected With Jesus In Israel, The Middle East, Afghanistan And India. As Well As Revealing Age-Old Links Between The Israelites And The East, The Evidence Found By Theologian Holger Kersten Points To The Following Startling Conclusions: In His Youth Jesus Followed The Ancient Silk Road To India. While There He Studied Buddhism, Adopting Its Tenets And Becoming A Spiritual Master. Jesus Survived The Crucifixion. After The Resurrection Jesus Returned To India To Die In Old Age. Jesus Was Buried In Srinagar, The Capital Of Jammu And Kashmir, Where He Continues To Be Revered As A Saintly Man. The Tomb Of Jesus Still Exists In Kashmir.
"By patient accumulation of anecdote and detail, Rustad evolves Shetler’s story into something much more human, and humanly tragic, into a layered inquisition and a reportorial force....suffice it to say Rustad has done what the best storytellers do: tried to track the story to its last twig and then stepped aside." —New York Times Book Review In the vein of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, a riveting work of narrative nonfiction centering on the unsolved disappearance of an American backpacker in India—one of at least two dozen tourists who have met a similar fate in the remote and storied Parvati Valley. For centuries, India has enthralled westerners looking for an exotic getaway, a brief immersion in yoga and meditation, or in rare cases, a true pilgrimage to find spiritual revelation. Justin Alexander Shetler, an inveterate traveler trained in wilderness survival, was one such seeker. In his early thirties Justin Alexander Shetler, quit his job at a tech startup and set out on a global journey: across the United States by motorcycle, then down to South America, and on to the Philippines, Thailand, and Nepal, in search of authentic experiences and meaningful encounters, while also documenting his travels on Instagram. His enigmatic character and magnetic personality gained him a devoted following who lived vicariously through his adventures. But the ever restless explorer was driven to pursue ever greater challenges, and greater risks, in what had become a personal quest—his own hero’s journey. In 2016, he made his way to the Parvati Valley, a remote and rugged corner of the Indian Himalayas steeped in mystical tradition yet shrouded in darkness and danger. There, he spent weeks studying under the guidance of a sadhu, an Indian holy man, living and meditating in a cave. At the end of August, accompanied by the sadhu, he set off on a “spiritual journey” to a holy lake—a journey from which he would never return. Lost in the Valley of Death is about one man’s search to find himself, in a country where for many westerners the path to spiritual enlightenment can prove fraught, even treacherous. But it is also a story about all of us and the ways, sometimes extreme, we seek fulfillment in life. Lost in the Valley of Death includes 16 pages of color photographs.
The present book is an English translation of Mahipati's Marathi poem Bhakta-Vijaya which records the legends of Indian saints, irrespective of their difference in caste, community, creed, language and place of origin. Thus we have the record of different saints - Yayadeva, Jnanadeva, Namadeva, Ramananda, Tulasidasa, Kabir, Suradasa, Narsi Mehta and Guru Nanakadeva. A lot of information is available on Ekanath-the greatest scholar-philosopher-saint-poet-cum-social reformer and the towering personalities Tukaram and Ramadasa. It also records the miraculous and fascinating legends of several saints, how they spread the Bhakti cult, how they struggled against discrimination between man and man and how they tried to uproot the malpractices which prevailed in the name of Religion in those days.
