This new book has taken many years of spiritual exploration to create. It explores spirituality within various religions, and finds spiritual gems within each religion while discarding what is contrary to universal human spirituality. The book tries to tear out of religion whatever is tearing humanity apart. It extracts ideas and teachings from our various religions that give us the ability to practice the trimmings of simple spirituality free from the trappings of religious dogma. It reviews various approaches to meditation, and finds a simple letting-go meditation practice which opens up our innate spirituality. This method works for everybody, and is free of religious exclusivity. The meditation practice is based on the teachings of the Tao, Zen, and the Hindu Upanishads, and is consistent with Islamic and Christian spirituality. Finally, it teaches and guides us in bringing the spirituality acquired from prayer and meditation into our everyday lives. This insightful and inspiring book is a call to set spirituality free from the dead-weight of religious dogma. It fearlessly exposes the madness of religious fundamentalism and offers instead the loving kindness of genuine spiritual awakening. Bigoted religion is a source of most of the conflicts bedeviling our world today. In this book Raja Bhat offers an exciting alternative: spirituality transcending religion. Timothy Freke, author and co-author of numerous books on religion and spirituality, such as Encyclopedia of Spirituality; The Jesus Mysteries; Jesus And The Lost Goddess; Spiritual Traditions: Essential Teachings To Transform Your Life; The Complete Guide To World Mysticism and many others.

"Beyond Religion" is a stirring call to move beyond religion for the guidance to improve human life on individual, community, and global levels--including a guided meditation practice for cultivating key human values.

Do you describe yourself as spiritual but not religious? Whether young or old, church connected or not, are you spiritually restless for an authentic faith life but do not find conventional religious teachings pertinent to you? This accessible guide to a meaningful spiritual life is a salve for your soul. It reinterprets traditional religious teachings central to the Christian faith - God, Jesus, faith, prayer, morality and more - in ways that connect with people who have outgrown the beliefs and devotional practices that once made sense to them.

The Jungian concept of archetypes is of immense value for critically distinguishing what is potentially of universal practical value in religious and other cultural traditions, and separating this from the dogmatic elements. However, Jung encumbered the concept of archetypes with debatable constructions like the 'collective unconscious' that are unnecessary for understanding their practical function. This book puts forward a far-reaching new theory of archetypes that is functional without being reductive. At the centre of this is the idea that archetypes are adaptations to help us maintain inspiration over time. Humans are such distractable beings that they need constant reminders to maintain integration with their most sustainable intentions: reminders using the profound power of symbol linked to embodied experience. This multi-disciplinary book weaves together religious studies, ethical philosophy, the psychology of bias, the neuroscience of brain lateralisation, the linguistics of embodied meaning, the feedback loops of systems theory, with a lifetime's experience of Buddhist practice and appreciation of symbolism in the arts: all with the aim of producing a fresh understanding of the role of archetypes in religion and beyond, that can also be directly applied in practice.

As more people find themselves questioning or actually leaving religions of their youth and adult life, Beyond Religion provides answers and guidance for moving ahead on one's own more personal spiritual path - either still within institutionalized religion or beyond any singular religious belief.

This powerful manifesto outlines a vision called theological humanism based on the idea that that the integrity of life provides a way to articulate the meaning of religion for the human future. Explores a profound quest to understand the meaning and responsibility of our shared and yet divided humanity amidst the uncertainty of modern society Articulates the idea that human beings are mixed creatures striving for integrity not only trying to conform to God's will Sets forth a dynamic and robust vision of human life beyond the divisions that haunt the humanities, social sciences, theology, and religious studies

The medieval Islamic world comprised a wide variety of religions. While individuals and communities in this world identified themselves with particular faiths, boundaries between these groups were vague and in some cases nonexistent. Rather than simply borrowing or lending customs, goods, and notions to one another, the peoples of the Mediterranean region interacted within a common culture. Beyond Religious Borders presents sophisticated and often revolutionary studies of the ways Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers drew ideas and inspiration from outside the bounds of their own religious communities. Each essay in this collection covers a key aspect of interreligious relationships in Mediterranean lands during the first six centuries of Islam. These studies focus on the cultural context of exchange, the impact of exchange, and the factors motivating exchange between adherents of different religions. Essays address the influence of the shared Arabic language on the transfer of knowledge, reconsider the restrictions imposed by Muslim rulers on Christian and Jewish subjects, and demonstrate the need to consider both Jewish and Muslim works in the study of Andalusian philosophy. Case studies on the impact of exchange examine specific literary, religious, and philosophical concepts that crossed religious borders. In each case, elements native to one religious group and originally foreign to another became fully at home in both. The volume concludes by considering why certain ideas crossed religious lines while others did not, and how specific figures involved in such processes understood their own roles in the transfer of ideas.