Mysticism in Selected Early Novels of John Steinbeck Tom E
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Mysticism in Indian Philosophy
The Indian Institute of World Culture Basavangudi, Bangalore-4 Transaction No.36 MYSTICISM IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY BY K. GOPALAKRISHNA RAO Editor, “Jeevana”, Bangalore 1968 Re. 1.00 PREFACE This Transaction is a resume of a lecture delivered at the Indian Institute of World Culture by Sri K. Gopala- Krishna Rao, Poet and Editor, Jeevana, Bangalore. MYSTICISM IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY Philosophy, Religion, Mysticism arc different pathways to God. Philosophy literally means love of wisdom for intellectuals. It seeks to ascertain the nature of Reality through sense of perception. Religion has a social value more than that of a spiritual value. In its conventional forms it fosters plenty but fails to express the divinity in man. In this sense it is less than a direct encounter with reality. Mysticism denotes that attitude of mind which involves a direct immediate intuitive apprehension of God. It signifies the highest attitude of which man is capable, viz., a beatific contemplation of God and its dissemination in society and world. It is a fruition of man’s highest aspiration as an integral personality satisfying the eternal values of life like truth, goodness, beauty and love. A man who aspires after the mystical life must have an unfaltering and penetrating intellect; he must also have a powerful philosophic imagination. Accurate intellectual thought is a sure accompaniment of mystical experience. Not all mystics need be philosophers, not all mystics need be poets, not all mystics need be Activists, not all mystics lead a life of emotion; but wherever true mysticism is, one of these faculties must predominate. A true life of mysticism teaches a full-fledged morality in the individual and a life of general good in the world. -
The Word and Words in the Abrahamic Faiths
Messiah University Mosaic Bible & Religion Educator Scholarship Biblical and Religious Studies 1-1-2011 The Word and Words in the Abrahamic Faiths Larry Poston Messiah College, [email protected] Linda Poston Messiah College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://mosaic.messiah.edu/brs_ed Part of the Library and Information Science Commons, and the Religion Commons Permanent URL: https://mosaic.messiah.edu/brs_ed/6 Recommended Citation Poston, Larry and Poston, Linda, "The Word and Words in the Abrahamic Faiths" (2011). Bible & Religion Educator Scholarship. 6. https://mosaic.messiah.edu/brs_ed/6 Sharpening Intellect | Deepening Christian Faith | Inspiring Action Messiah University is a Christian university of the liberal and applied arts and sciences. Our mission is to educate men and women toward maturity of intellect, character and Christian faith in preparation for lives of service, leadership and reconciliation in church and society. www.Messiah.edu One University Ave. | Mechanicsburg PA 17055 Running head: THE WORDPoston AND and WORDS Poston: The Word and Words in Abrahamic Faiths “The Word and Words in the Abrahamic Faiths” Linda and Larry Poston Nyack College Published by Digital Commons @ Kent State University Libraries, 2011 1 Advances in the Study of Information and Religion, Vol. 1 [2011], Art. 2 THE WORD AND WORDS Abstract Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are “word-based” faiths. All three are derived from texts believed to be revealed by God Himself. Orthodox Judaism claims that God has said everything that needs to be said to humankind—all that remains is to interpret it generation by generation. Historic Christianity roots itself in “God-breathed scriptures” that are “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” Islam’s Qur’an is held to be a perfect reflection of the ‘Umm al-Kitab – the “mother of Books” that exists with Allah Himself. -
In the Supreme Court of India Islamic Religious Text on Mosque
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CIVIL APPEAL NOS. 10866-10867 OF 2010 IN THE MATTER OF: - M. Siddiq (D) Thr. Lrs. …Appellant VERSUS Mahant Suresh Das & Ors. etc. etc. …Respondents AND OTHER CONNECTED CIVIL APPEALS ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS TEXT ON MOSQUE [ADDITION TO DR. RAJEEV DHAVAN, SENIOR ADVOCATE’S SUBMISSION ON REFERENCE TO A LARGER BENCH OF SOME ASPECTS IN ISMAIL FARUQUI’S CASE] PAPER BOOK (PLEASE SEE INDEX INSIDE) COMPILED BY:- EJAZ MAQBOOL, ADVOCATE FOR THE APPELLANTS INDEX S. NO. PARTICULARS PAGES 1. Note on Islamic Religious Text on Mosque. 1 - 12 2. Relevant excerpts of the Holy Quran. 13 – 24 1 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CIVIL APPEAL NOS. 10866-10867 OF 2010 IN THE MATTER OF: - M. Siddiq (D) Thr. Lrs. …Appellant VERSUS Mahant Suresh Das & Ors. etc. etc. …Respondents AND OTHER CONNECTED CIVIL APPEALS A. RELIGIOUS TEXT ON MOSQUE I. ESSENTIALITY AND IMPORTANCE OF MOSQUE IN ISLAM VERSES FROM HOLY QURAN: 1. Holy Quran Chapter 2 Surah Al Baqarah: Verse No.114 Who is more cruel than the one who prevents the mosques of Allah from His name being recited therein, and strives for their destruction? It was not for such men to enter them except in awe. For them there is disgrace in this world, and for them there is a mighty punishment in the other world. 2. Holy Quran Chapter 9 Surah Al Taubah: Verse No.18 In fact, the mosques of Allah are built-up only by those who believe in Allah and the Last Day and those who establish Salah and pay Zakah and who fear none but Allah. -
Women's Studies in the History of Religions
1 Women’s Studies in the History of Religions DAVID KINSLEY On the most archaic levels of culture, living as a human being is in itself a religious act, for alimentation, sexual life, and work have a sacramental value. In other words, to be— or rather, to become—a man means to be “religious.” —Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas o appreciate the radical impact women’s studies has had on the discipline Tof history of religions, it is necessary first to describe briefly how the his- tory of religions understands its task. The history of religions, which claims to be the objective, scientific study of religion, sets as its task nothing less than the study, in historical and cross- cultural perspective, of all human religious phenomena. It includes in its pur- view, not only sophisticated, literate, philosophical, and theological materials, but also popular expressions of human religiosity such as festivals, life cycle rituals, myths, and practices that are found only in oral traditions. The history of religions seeks to avoid an approach to human religiosity that privileges cer- tain materials as “higher” and others as “lower.” It assumes that all expres- sions of human religiosity are worthy of study. In the words of Mircea Eliade: “For the historian of religions, every manifestation of the sacred is important: every rite, every myth, every belief or divine figure reflects the experience of the sacred and hence implies the notions of being, of meaning, and of truth.”1 History of religions does not seek to evaluate one religion (or religious expression) vis-à-vis another with a view to declaring one superior to the other. -
Religious Teachings About Violence Against Women
BC Association of Specialized Victim Assistance & Counselling Programs Issue 2006-03 728-602 West Hastings Street, Vancouver BC V6B 1P2 Tel 604.633.2506 Fax 604.633.2507 www.endingviolence.org RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS ABOUT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN This issue of the newsletter coincides with our Annual Training One of the issues that will be addressed at the Forum is the ways Forum, “Emerging Spirit: From Violence to Social Justice Through in which religious teachings have been misinterpreted and used Faith and Culture.” We have gathered articles from many of our to justify or condone violence against women. When women are keynote speakers and workshop presenters, along with other materials, abused by members or leaders of religious communities, they to provide attendees of the Forum with even more information, analy- may be told that their religious teachings support the abuse, that sis and resources on this issue. We hope that the newsletter will be used as a basis for continuing the discussions started at the Forum. they are trying to teach her something. Or a woman may even tell herself that she must stay in an abusive relationship because leaving is morally wrong. In fact, though, in their original form religious teachings tend to promote peaceful and respectful rela- tionships and condemn violence. In her article “A Perspective on Domestic Violence in the Muslim Community,” Salma Elkadi Abugideiri explores the ways in which the Qu’ran (the religious text of Islam) and the teachings of Prophet Mohammed (which Muslims also follow) explicitly condemn violence against women.* Her insights are particularly valuable at this time, when anti-Islamic rhetoric is widespread. -
Mysticism and Mystical Experiences
1 Mysticism and Mystical Experiences The first issue is simply to identify what mysti cism is. The term derives from the Latin word “mysticus” and ultimately from the Greek “mustikos.”1 The Greek root muo“ ” means “to close or conceal” and hence “hidden.”2 The word came to mean “silent” or “secret,” i.e., doctrines and rituals that should not be revealed to the uninitiated. The adjec tive “mystical” entered the Christian lexicon in the second century when it was adapted by theolo- gians to refer, not to inexpressible experiences of God, but to the mystery of “the divine” in liturgical matters, such as the invisible God being present in sacraments and to the hidden meaning of scriptural passages, i.e., how Christ was actually being referred to in Old Testament passages ostensibly about other things. Thus, theologians spoke of mystical theology and the mystical meaning of the Bible. But at least after the third-century Egyptian theolo- gian Origen, “mystical” could also refer to a contemplative, direct appre- hension of God. The nouns “mystic” and “mysticism” were only invented in the seven teenth century when spirituality was becoming separated from general theology.3 In the modern era, mystical inter pretations of the Bible dropped away in favor of literal readings. At that time, modernity’s focus on the individual also arose. Religion began to become privatized in terms of the primacy of individuals, their beliefs, and their experiences rather than being seen in terms of rituals and institutions. “Religious experiences” also became a distinct category as scholars beginning in Germany tried, in light of science, to find a distinct experi ential element to religion. -
Metamorphoses of a Platonic Theme in Jewish Mysticism
MOSHE IDEL METAMORPHOSES OF A PLATONIC THEME IN JEWISH MYSTICISM 1. KABBALAH AND NEOPLATONISM Both the early Jewish philosophers – Philo of Alexandria and R. Shlomo ibn Gabirol, for example – and the medieval Kabbalists were acquainted with and influenced by Platonic and Neoplatonic sources.1 However, while the medieval philosophers were much more systematic in their borrowing from Neoplatonic sources, especially via their transformations and transmissions from Arabic sources and also but more rarely from Christian sources, the Kabbalists were more sporadic and fragmentary in their appropriation of Neoplatonism. Though the emergence of Kabbalah has often been described by scholars as the synthesis of Neoplatonism and Gnosticism,2 I wonder not only about the role attributed to Gnosticism in the formation of early Kabbalah, but also about the possi- bly exaggerated role assigned to Neoplatonism. Not that I doubt the im- pact of Neoplatonism, but I tend to regard the Neoplatonic elements as somewhat less formative for the early Kabbalah than what is accepted by scholars.3 We may, however, assume a gradual accumulation of Neoplatonic 1 G. Scholem, ‘The Traces of ibn Gabirol in Kabbalah’, Me’assef Soferei Eretz Yisrael (Tel- Aviv, 1960), pp. 160–78 (Hebrew); M. Idel, ‘Jewish Kabbalah and Platonism in the Middle Ages and Renaissance’, in Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought, ed. L. E. Goodman (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993), pp. 319–52; M. Idel, ‘The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations of Kabbalah in the Renaissance’, Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, ed. B. D. Cooperman (Cambridge, MA, 1983), pp. 186–242. 2 G. Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah (tr. -
Mysticism As an Ethical Form of Life: a Wittgensteinian
Mysticism as an Ethical Form of Life: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Ethics in the Mystical Instruction of Saints Teresa of Avila and Ignatius of Loyola in dialogue with Michel de Certeau’s Mystical Science by Matthew Ian Dunch A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Regis College and the Graduate Centre for Theological Studies of the Toronto School of Theology. In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Theology awarded by Regis College and the University of Toronto. © Copyright by Matthew Ian Dunch 2018 Mysticism as an Ethical Form of Life: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Ethics in the Mystical Instruction of Saints Teresa of Avila and Ignatius of Loyola in dialogue with Michel de Certeau’s Mystical Science Matthew Ian Dunch Master of Theology Regis College and the University of Toronto 2018 Abstract This thesis argues that there is an ethical development inherent in the mystical pedagogy of Ignatius of Loyola and Teresa of Avila. The various stages of mystical development are read through the lens of Wittgenstein as ethical forms of life premised on an absolute good. Through mystical pedagogy one simultaneously develops the language and the praxis of mystical forms of life. Mystical forms of life, though seeking the transcendent, are historically and socially conditioned. This historical and social conditioning is explored principally through Michel de Certeau’s account of spiritual spaces. ii Contents Chapter One: Introduction ...................................................................................................... -
A Text Mining Analysis of Religious Texts Religious Text Scholarship
The Journal of Business Inquiry 2014, 13, Issue 1 (Special Issue), 27-47 http:www.uvu.edu/woodbury/jbi/articles/ ISSN 2155-4072 A Text Mining Analysis of Religious Texts By DANIEL MCDONALD Religious text scholarship explores the meaning of passages and uses critical/rhetorical research methods. In contrast, automated tools that perform shallower but broader quantitative analysis have been created. These tools process entire books and help illuminate relationships between religious texts. We have automatically extracted and categorized noun and verb phrases from nine religious texts: the Book of Mormon, the Greater Holy Assembly, the New Testament, the Old Testament, the Pop Torah. The extracted topics were used as input to a Self-Organizing Map (SOM). The map uncovered some interesting relationships. Keywords: Religious Text Analysis, Self-Organizing Map JEL Classification: C38 I. Introduction The research of religious texts is often performed by literary and philosophy scholars and those trained in schools of Divinity. The research uncovers insights into religious passages that go deeper than words or phrases. Such focus on the meaning of scripture passages produces insights into the beliefs and practices of religions. Such research often uses qualitative and critical/rhetorical research methods. Such methodologies are appropriate as passages may have multiple levels of meaning and symbolism and do not fall into the often flattened categories of quantitative research. In contrast to a deep understanding of scriptural passages is the automated lexical analysis that is used in information retrieval systems of today. Words and phrases are extracted from documents and indexed to facilitate searching. Users of search tools enter a few words and phrases and similar documents are retrieved. -
Mysticism and Cognitive Neuroscience: We Stand at the Threshold of a New Era in Modern Science … with the Coming of the Neuroscience Revolution
248 discipline within a network of diverse approaches to humanistic issues. Taylor writes that, Mysticism and cognitive neuroscience: We stand at the threshold of a new era in modern science … with the coming of the neuroscience revolution. Before, pure science was able a partnership in the quest for consciousness to brush the philosophical questions aside and, indeed, banished all but the most positivist rhetoric from the discussion of what constituted * Brian Les Lancaster scientific reality. Now, the neuroscience revolution, with its inter- disciplinary communication between the basic sciences, its cross- -fertilization of methods, and its focus for the first time on the biology of Resumo consciousness, appears to have important humanistic implications far beyond the dictates of the reductionistic approach that spawned it. Neste artigo são integrados os conhecimentos neurofisiológicos com (p. 468) um modelo de processos perceptuais e de memória, baseado no misticismo da linguagem Sufi e judaica, e com a análise do pensamento An indicator of the importance of neuroscience may be observed in fundado em textos do Budista Abhidhamma. Os estados místicos pro- the various hybrid disciplines that have been spawned over recent years, movidos nestas tradições parecem envolver consciência, sugerindo-se each of which includes the prefix ‘neuro-’ as an emblem of authority, as it que são estes estados de pré-consciência que produzem a consciência were. Illustrative of this trend are neurophenomenology (Varela, 1996, 1999), de algo mais que William James, Rudolph Otto e outros classicamente neuro-psychoanalysis (Kaplan-Solms & Solms, 2000; Solms, 2000), and the associaram no sentido do espiritual, em particular a asserção principal, topic of my paper, neurotheology (Ashbrook, 1984; d’Aquili & Newberg, dos textos místicos Judeus de que o impulso de baixo activa o de cima é comparável com a neurociência da consciência. -
What Do You Know About Hinduism?
UWS An Inclusive Community UWS Multifaith Chaplaincy September 2008 What do you know about Hinduism? Followers of the teachings of the Vedas are called Hindus. Hindu staff and students form a substantial part of the UWS community. Acknowledging and respecting Hindu identities at UWS therefore requires, in part, a basic understanding of what Hinduism and being a Hindu is about. About Hinduism Hinduism originated and developed in India over the last 3,000-3,500 years. It is the majority religion in India. Hindus believe in one Supreme God who manifests him/herself in many different forms. Some of these include Krishna, Durga, Ganesh, Sakti (Devi), Vishnu, Surya, Siva and Skanda (Murugan). Hindus believe: • in the Vedas (scriptures) • there is one Supreme God who is the creator of the universe • in reincarnation • that everyone creates their own destiny (karma) There are four major Hindu denominations classified according to their respective focus of worship. Vaishnavism Vaishnavism worship Vishnu and his incarnations, particularly Krishna and Rama, as the Supreme God. Saivism Saivites worship Siva (also spelt Shiva) as the Supreme God. Shaktism Shaktas worship God as the Shakti, Sri Devi or the Divine Mother in her many forms. Hindu Dress Code Traditional Hindu women wear the sari. Traditional male Hindus wear the Smartism white cotton dhoti. Smarta Hindus view the different manifestations of God as equivalent. They accept all major Hindu gods and are commonly known as liberal or Women in particular may wear a dot (tilak) of turmeric powder or other non-sectarian. coloured substance on their foreheads as a symbol of their religion. -
Jean Paul Sartre: the Mystical Atheist
JEAN PAUL SARTRE: THE MYSTICAL ATHEIST JEROME GELLMAN Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Abstract: Within Jean Paul Sartre’s atheistic program, he objected to Christian mysticism as a delusory desire for substantive being. I suggest that a Christian mystic might reply to Sartre’s attack by claiming that Sartre indeed grasps something right about the human condition but falls short of fully understanding what he grasps. Then I argue that the true basis of Sartre’s atheism is neither philosophical nor existentialist, but rather mystical. Sartre had an early mystical atheistic intuition that later developed into atheistic mystical experience. Sartre experienced the non-existence of God. Jean Paul Sartre called himself a “material” atheist, one who not only believes that God does not exist but is profoundly aware of God’s absence. This is to be compared to a group of people who meet regularly at a coffee house in Paris. One evening Pierre does not come. The entire evening, those present feel Pierre’s absence, his absence is tangible, part of the scene, like the tables and the chairs. Pierre is missing. Just so, for Sartre, God’s absence is to be felt everywhere. God is missing. And since God is missing we are to feel the obligation to create ourselves in freedom. Within his program of material atheism, Sartre enunciated a critique of Christian mysticism. In his book on Jean Genet, Sartre defined “mysti- cism,” in general, as follows: “The quest for a state in which subject and object, consciousness and being, the eternal and the particular, merge in an absolute undifferentiation.”1 Elsewhere in the same book, Sartre characterizes Christian mysticism in particular as follows: “It is God who will attain himself in the mystical ecstasy, which is a fusion of the Subject and the Object.