From the dawn of civilization to date, almost all thinkers, intellectuals, philosophers and visionaries were skeptics, agnostics or non-believers. God and religion is an intellectual bankruptcy, erupted out of ignorance and fear, the earlier we get rid of it, the better it would be for human beings on this planet.It has already done enormous damage to our lives and spirit of universal brotherhood and enquiry and promoted and practiced revenge and hatred. Let us stop bloodshed in it...

The World’s Religions, by beloved author and pioneering professor Huston Smith (Tales of Wonder), is the definitive classic for introducing the essential elements and teachings of the world’s predominant faiths. This essential guide to comparative religion covers Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, as well as regional native traditions.This revised and updated edition provides sympathetic descriptions of the various traditions, ...

As long as we have been human, we have been mythmakers. In A Short History of Myth, Karen Armstrong holds up the mirror of mythology to show us the history of ourselves, and embarks on a journey that begins at a Neanderthal graveside and ends buried in the heart of the modern novel.Surprising, powerful and profound, A Short History of Myth examines the world's most ancient art form - the making and telling of stories - and why we still need it.

Alan Watts introduced millions of Western readers to Zen and other Eastern philosophies. But he is also recognized as a brilliant commentator on Judeo-Christian traditions as well as a celebrity philosopher who exemplified the ideas and lifestyle of the 1960s counterculture. In this compilation of controversial lectures that Watts delivered at American universities throughout the sixties he challenges readers to reevaluate Western culture's most hallowed constructs. Watts treads the famili...

The Unfoldment presents a body of sacred wisdom and a deep spiritual perspective that puts real power and real magic into the hands of those who seek a path of awakening. Neil Kramer draws on a lifetime of spiritual encounters and experiential gnosis to formulate a unique synthesis of metaphysics, mysticism, and esoteric knowledge—genuine, hands-on tools and teachings for transformation and enlightenment in the 21st century.The Unfoldment is a natural human process; a journey of growth, re...

50 Spiritual Classics captures the diversity of life journeys that span centuries, continents, spiritual traditions and secular beliefs: from the historical The Book of Chuang Tzu to modern insight from the Kabbalah, from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet to Eckhart Tolle's recent The Power of Now. The first and only bite-sized guide to the very best in spiritual writing, this one-of-a-kind collection includes personal memoirs and complelling biographies of such diverse figures as Gandhi, Malcol...

Can the existence of God be proved by reason alone? Has scientific discovery destroyed the intellectual basis for religion? Does the presence of evil in the world mean that God does not care about us? And why does fundamentalism flourish in an age of progress? In Big Questions: God, Mark Vernon addresses these and many more perennial dilemmas, drawing on physics and philosophy, spiritual traditions and religious experience. He explores the place of religion in relation to science, in makin...

Widely recognized as one of the most influential spiritual teachers of the twentieth century, Jiddu Krishnamurti taught that in order for there to be peace in the world, we must each first make peace with ourselves. No spiritual path, leader, or personal or political philosophy will guide us in this endeavor, he said; this transformation of the human psyche is a truth that each of us must discover within.Here, Krishnamurti teaches that the war and destruction human beings wreak on ...

The current state of confusion about the real nature of spiritual experience is due to a lack of understanding of how the brain functions as a channel for the expression of consciousness. In this book, Gopi Krishna challenges scientists and psychiatrists alike to stop ignoring the important part the physical brain plays in our development. He asserts that an understanding of prana, the super-intelligent cosmic energy behind all forms of life, is the key to understanding how higher forms of...

In this pioneering book Rupert Sheldrake shows how science helps validate seven practices on which all religions are built, and which are part of our common human heritage:· Meditation· Gratitude· Connecting with nature· Relating to plants· Rituals· Singing and chanting· Pilgrimage and holy places.The effects of spiritual practices are now being investigated scientifically as never before, and many studies have shown that religious ...

The Dream of the Cosmos, twenty years in the making, is one of the publishing events of the year: brilliant, profound and magisterial in its scope. In it she addresses the real cultural roots of our multifaceted crisis — spiritual, psychological, ecological, social, political and economic. Much attention since 2008 has been directed to the economic symptoms that are now translating into a widespread social malaise, but few commentators have plumbed the depths as this book does and called f...

Where has science and faith gone wrong? What has brought us to religious and scientific conflict? Why has one faith or another taken on the role of fanatically converting the earths population and at what expense? When we die, what can we expect from a scientific view as opposed to a faith-based view of eternity? Can the two be reconciled? What are our spiritual responsibilities, as we evolve individually and as a species? These are humongous questions which are addressed in a very word-econo...