Four Testaments brings together four foundational texts from world religions—the Tao Te Ching, Dhammapada, Analects of Confucius, and Bhagavad Gita—inviting readers to experience them in full, to explore possible points of connection and divergence, and to better understand people who practice these traditions. Following Brian Arthur Brown’s award-winning Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel, Quran, this volume of Four Testaments features essays by esteemed scholars to introduce readers to each...

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, ...

No country, no culture, no person today is untouched by what happens in the rest of the world. Technological innovation, environmental degradation, economic gain & loss, nuclear weapons, instant communication have all created unprecedented familiarity among the world’s many cultures. With this historic development, the Dalai Lama understands that the essential task of humanity in the 21st Century is to cultivate peaceful coexistence.Many believe in the inevitability of an escalatin...

A world Bible for our time from Buddhist, Hindu, Confucian, Taoist, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and primal religion sources!In this perfect companion to Huston Smith's bestselling The World's Wisdom, Philip Novak distills the most powerful and elegant expressions of the wisdom of humankind. Authentic, poetic translations of key texts are coupled with insightful introductions and "grace notes."

Life-affirming and lyrical writings for inspiration and meditation, from saints and sages of the Christian, Hindu, Sufi, Jewish, Native American, Buddhist, and Taoist traditions.Eknath Easwaran taught meditation and spiritual living for nearly 40 years and drew deep, ongoing inspiration from the sacred literature of the world's traditions.Read these 149 passages for daily inspiration, for the insights they give into other spiritual traditions, for the light...

Why are we here?How should we live?What happens after we die?Why does evil exist?Religion For Dummies explains how the world’s great religions answer questions that persist through generations. Authors Rabbi Marc Gellman and Monsignor Thomas Hartman are trusted religious advisors known as the God Squad. With wonderful wit and incredible wisdom, they host a daily talk show which reaches nearly 4 million homes in the New York area, and have appe...

An essential and concise introduction to eight of the world's major religions.For the Christian, there's value in learning about different religions and unfamiliar expressions of belief. First of all, it gives us a greater understanding of the world we live in. But a study of other faiths can also deepen our own while making us more effective witnesses to those who don't share a belief in Christ.In World Religions, Gerald R. McDermott explains what...

Understanding other religions is no longer an academic, ivory tower exercise. In this timely and important book, Dr, Braswell provides an introduction to the major world religions, as well as many of the minor ones.

The spiritual teachings of many faith traditions can help you step beyond the limits of any one tradition to the reality that can't be named.The fastest growing spiritual movement in the United States today is that of the religiously unaffiliated. These spiritual seekers make up 20 percent of the adult American population; they are the spiritual equivalent of political independents. Refusing to limit themselves to one religion or another, these seekers without bord...

A comprehensive survey of how religions understand death, dying, and the afterlife, drawing on examples from Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and Shamanic perspectives.Considers shared and differing views of death across the world's major religions, including on the nature of death itself, the reasons for it, the identity of those who die, religious rituals, and on how the living should respond to deathPlaces emphasis on the varying concepts of t...

"An impressive array of selections. They show common ethics that transcend the narrow confines of sectarianism."ATLANTA JOURNAL & CONSTITUTIONBeneath the seeming differences of all the world's great religions, lies a pool of universal truth. ONENESS collects these beliefs together for the first time, in the actual words of each religion's scriptures. These universal principles act as a guide to inner development, and allow each individual to achieve spiritual richness.

The Prophet has said, 'God is beautiful, and He loves beauty.' Now the word 'beautiful' does not refer to the form of God. God is formless. He has no personality until He manifests Himself to Himself. Therefore it is not His personality, which is beautiful, for God is beyond that which in the ordinary sense of the word is called personality. What then is the source of God's beauty? God is beautiful because He has created beauty. If there were no beauty in God, there could have been none in...