Religious therapeutics explores the relationship between psychophysical health and spiritual and health presents a model for interpreting connections between religion and medicine in world traditions. This model emerges from the work`s investigation of health and religiousness in classical yoga, Ayurveda, and Tantra-Three Hindu traditions note worthy for the central role they accord the body. Author gregory P. Fields compares Anglo-European and Indian philosophies of body and health and uses fifteen determinants of health excavated from texts of ancient hindu medicine to show that health concerns the person, not the body or body/mind alone.

Bibliography Index The Tantra Is A Body Of Theories, Techniques And Rituals Developed In India In Antiquity, Which Has Two Fundamental Aspects. The First Aspect Of The Tantra Is The Theory Of Creation, Which Posits That The Universe Has No Beginning And No End, And That All Its Manifestations Are Merely The Projections Of Divine Energy Of Its Creator. The Second Aspect Of The Tantra Is The Belief That The Performance Of Tantrik Techniques And Rituals Facilitates Access To This Divine Energy, Enabling Their Practitioners To Empower Themselves, As Well As Empower Others Associated With Them In The Guru-Disciple Relationship. Thus The Knowledge And Proper Application Of Tantrik Techniques And Rituals Is Believed To Harness The Creator'S Cosmic Energies To The Promotion Of The Mundane As Well As Spiritual Goals Of Their Practitioners. Between The Vii And The Xii Centuries A.D. These Theories, Rituals And Practices Spread To Other Parts Of Asia. In These Parts Their Interaction With Indigenous Traditions Of Shamanism And Other Magical Cults Resulted In Potent Hybrids. These Not Only Served The Personal Needs Of Their Practi- Tioners, But Were Used By The Kings To Summon The Cosmic Forces To Legitimize Their Right And Power To Rule The Ancient Monarchies. Elaborate And Artistically Beautiful Icons Were Developed In Sculpture, Painting, Bronze And Bas-Relief To Portray The Basic Concept Of Tantrik Theories And Various Deities Of The Hindu And Buddhist Pantheons. This Book First Explores The Origin Of The Tantra In India, Its Development And Emergence Of Various Schools Of Hindu And Buddhist Tantrism Over The Centuries. Then It Explores Their Spread From Tantrik Universities In Bihar And Other Centres Of Tantrik Scholarship And Rituals Practised In West Bengal, Orissa And South India At That Time To Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia, China, Japan And Indonesia. The Coloured Plates Illustrate The Iconographic Presentation Of The Basic Theories And Concepts Of The Tantra, As Well As Various Deities Associated With The Pantheons Of Hindu And Buddhist Tantrism Drawn From Different Parts Of The World.

This book seeks to find creative and transformative relationship among roots and routes and create a new dynamics of awakening so that we can overcome the problems of closed and xenopbhobic roots and rootless cosmopolitanism. The book draws upon multiple philosophical and spiritual traditions of the world such as Siva Tantra, Buddhist phenomenology and Peircean Semiotics and discusses the works of Ibn-Arabi, Thoreau, Tolstoy, Gandhi and Raimon Panikkar,among others.The book is transdiscipinary building on creative thinking from philosophy, anthropology, political studies and literature. It is a unique contribution for forging a new relationship between roots and routes in our contemporary fragile and complex world.

A practical guide for both individuals and couples to transform sexual energy into spiritual and erotic fulfillment • Explains how to awaken advanced stages of sexual development for spiritual intimacy and deep erotic satisfaction • Includes illustrated instructions for exercises and techniques based on yoga, kundalini, breathing practices, mantra chanting, and chakra meditation • Explores how this practice can deepen a life partnership, enhance creativity, heal emotional scars, and awaken new understandings of gender Sexual development does not end in adolescence. There are advanced stages of glandular, emotional, and erotic development based in the lifelong “puberty of the spine.” Known in India as kundalini awakening, these stages form the energetic basis of all yoga forms and deeper erotic aspirations. They present an opportunity for couples and individuals to explore the consciousness-expanding abilities of sexual energy as both spirituality and sexuality transform into what Michel Foucault called ars erotica, far beyond the Freudian scientia sexualis sexuality of the Western world. Offering a guide to the advanced stages of human sexuality and a passionately infused tantric yoga practice, Stuart Sovatsky explains how to awaken the complete spinal puberty, resulting in spiritual intimacy and orgasmic pineal maturity that far surpasses the gratifications of modern sexuality. With illustrated instructions, he reveals flow-yoga asanas, mantras, and devotional breathing practices for solo kundalini yoga as well as couples’ yoga practices and chakra meditations to awaken the heart and the divinely eroticized mind. He shares inspiring stories from those on this path about ever-deepening life partnerships, enriched family life, enhanced personal creativity, profound new understandings of conception, masculinity, femininity, and gender itself as well as healing emotional scars of romantic breakups and sexual abuse. Sovatsky shows that by transcending conventional Western sexuality and returning to the ars erotica beliefs of ancient India, we can harness the divine energy--glimpsed for only an instant by most people--at the heart of all erotic yearning.

In course of his studies in Sanskrit literature and research relating to various aspects of it, the author of the present work often felt the need of a vade mecum containing brief accounts of authors and works, information about the principal characters of Sanskrit plays, poems and prose works, the meaning of certain technical terms in common use, the common geographical names and the notable myths and legends. A Companion to Sanskrit Literature, the first work of its kind, covers a period of nearly 3500 years from the Vedic age down to the modern times. It seeks to acquaint the reader, within a brief compass, with the contents of outstanding works and authors in Sanskrit literature, followed by up-to-date bibliographies. Brief accounts of the important character in well-known poems, dramas and prose works have also been given. Important geographical names, with their modern identification as far as practicable, have also been laid down. Common technical terms, used in the different branches of Sanskrit literature, have been briefly explained, Prominent figures in myths and legends have been dealt with. In a number of appendices, various kinds of useful information about Sanskrit literature including sciences, sports and pastimes, etc. in ancient and medieval India have been set forth. It is an indispensable vade mecum for the general readers, the specialists and researchers. It is like a capsule taking the reader through the vast firmament of Sanskrit literature up to remote ages. -- Amazon.com.

This innovative book provides an incisive critique of well-established positions in postcolonial theory and a dramatic expansion in the range of interpretative tools available. Peter Hallward gives substantial readings of four significant writers whose work invites, to varying degrees, a singular interpretation of postcolonialism: Edouard Glissant, Charles Johnson, Mohammed Dib, and Severo Sarduy. Using a singular interpretation of postcolonialism is central to the argument this book makes, and to understanding the postcolonial paradigm.

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