The first comparative treatment of the topic of līlā in Hindu and Christian traditions, this volume explores what it means to consider divine and human action under the categories of play, wit, drama, grace, and compassionGod at Play presents a theological exploration of the multifaceted motif of līlā across diverse Hindu and Christian landscapes and its wide-ranging connections to divine and human creativity. Given its ubiquity in Hindu ...

The World and God Are Not-Two is a book about how the God in whom Christians believe ought to be understood. The key conceptual argument that runs throughout is that the distinctive relation between the world and God in Christian theology is best understood as a non-dualistic one. The “two”—“God” and “World” cannot be added up as separate, enumerable realities or contrasted with each other against some common background because God does not belong in any category and creatures are...

Merton, one of the rare Western thinkers able to feel at home in the philosophies of the East, made the wisdom of Asia available to Westerners."Zen enriches no one," Thomas Merton provocatively writes in his opening statement to Zen and the Birds of Appetite--one of the last books to be published before his death in 1968. "There is no body to be found. The birds may come and circle for a while... but they soon go elsewhere. When they are gone, the 'nothing,' the 'no-body' that was ...

"The perfect guide for a course correction in life" (Deepak Chopra) that teaches us how to enjoy a deeper, more meaningful relationship with the spiritual in our present troubled times.Drawing on his experiences as a former priest, Watts skillfully explains how the intuition of Eastern religion—Zen Buddhism, in particular—can be incorporated into the doctrines of Western Christianity, offering a timeless argument for the place of mystical religion in today’s world....

Modern Civilization, Watts maintains, is in a state of chaos because its spiritual leadership has lost effective knowledge of man's true nature. Neither philosophy nor religion today gives us the consciousness that at the deepest center of our being exists an eternal reality, which in the West is called God. Yet only from this realization come the serenity and spiritual power necessary for a stable and creative society. One of the most influential of Alan Watts's early works, The Supreme I...

In this fascinating book, Richard Smoley examines the roles God has played for us and reconciles them with what we today know through science and reason. In the process, he shows that consciousness is the underlying reality beneath everything in the universe.In one of Hinduism’s great myths, Shiva plays a dice game with his consort, Parvati, and loses consistently. If he is the greatest god, why does he lose? Through this story, Richard Smoley explores the interplay between conscio...

C. G. Jung, son of a Swiss Reformed pastor, used his Christian background throughout his career to illuminate the psychological roots of all religions. Jung believed religion was a profound, psychological response to the unknown--both the inner self and the outer worlds--and he understood Christianity to be a profound meditation on the meaning of the life of Jesus of Nazareth within the context of Hebrew spirituality and the Biblical worldview.Murray Stein's introduction relates Ju...

Mysticism and esotericism are two intimately related strands of the Western tradition. Despite their close connections, however, scholars tend to treat them separately. Whereas the study of Western mysticism enjoys a long and established history, Western esotericism is a young field. The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism examines both of these traditions together. The volume demonstrates that the roots of esotericism almost always lead back to mystical traditions, whi...

Floating Tomb: Black Metal Theory is a collaborative collection of writings in black metal theory (BMT), an amorphous ‘metallectual’ movement initiated in 2009 with the symposium Hideous Gnosis. According to its earliest formulation, BMT seeks to creatively destroy the boundary between metal and theory, to make something new in the space of their shared negativity: ‘Not black metal. Not theory. Not not black metal. Not not theory. Black metal theory. Theoretical blackening of metal. Metall...

This book recalls that a sapiential (wisdom) consciousness is central to the New Testament writings and remained the mode of theological understanding in Eastern and Western traditions for more than twelve centuries. It proposes the rediscovery--or, better--a new birth of this theology and understanding but with a new scope and new power for our time.

Gnosticism was for C.G. jung the chief prefiguration of his analytical psychology. In this volume Robert Segal, an authority on theories of myth and Gnosticism, has searched the Jungian corpus for Jung's main discussions of this ancient form of spirituality. The progression in Gnosticism from sheer bodily existence to the release of the immaterial spark imprisoned in the body - and the reunion of that spark with the godhead - represents for Jung the psychological progression from ego consc...

Descripción / Resumen (Inglés): There are three aspects of fundamental intuition at the core of Panikkarian thinking or, in other words, cosmotheandric intuition according to which reality is at the same time the World, God and Man. It is not simply a question of an idea or a concept, but of an understanding that must be lived, a simultaneously intellectual and mystical experience. Man perceives reality sensitively and understands it rationally. This is precisely from where the plurality a...