This book examines the transformation of the traditional understanding of love by four key Enlightenment thinkers - Hume, Adam Smith, Rousseau and Kant.

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Is "loving everyone" really possible, as the title of Michael J. Chase’s new book suggests? The answer may surprise you, as he chronicles his journey toward enlightenment, gaining insight from a very unlikely source—a four-legged guru named Mollie, who happens to be the most lovable yet mischievous dog in the world. In his attempt to understand her ability to unconditionally love all, Chase begins to see the world through his best friend’s eyes, especially during their morning walks. Mollie’s hilarious antics and maddening behavior ultimately lead to profound insights learned at the other end of the leash. Written with heart and sidesplitting humor, this one-of-a-kind true story of friendship and a divine albeit outrageous dog delivers on its promise to reveal a pathway toward enlightenment . . . and brings each of us one step closer to loving everyone.

Anyone who reads a Tantric text or enters a Tantric temple immediately encounters a pantheon of female Buddhas and a host of female enlighteners known as "dakinis," who dance and leap in joyous poses that communicate a sense of mastery and spiritual power. This striking female imagery is fully compatible with Shaw's findings. Drawing on interviews and archival research conducted during two years of fieldwork in India and Nepal, including more than forty previously unnoticed works by women of the Pala period (eighth through twelfth centuries C.E.), she substantially reinterprets the history of Tantric Buddhism during its first four centuries. In her view, the Tantric theory of this period promotes an ideal of cooperative, mutually liberative relationships between women and men while encouraging a sense of reliance on women as a source of spiritual insight and power.

In a romantic adventure that travels the globe, The Enlightenment of Bees beautifully explores what it means to find the sweet spot in life where our greatest passions meet the world’s greatest need. Sometimes a shattered heart leads to an amazing journey. At twenty-six, apprentice baker Mia West has her entire life planned out: a Craftsman cottage in Seattle, a job baking at The Butter Emporium, and her first love—her boyfriend, Ethan—by her side. But when Ethan declares he “needs some space,” Mia’s carefully planned future crumbles. Adrift and unsure where her future leads now, Mia joins her vivacious housemate Rosie on a humanitarian trip around the world funded by a reclusive billionaire. Along with a famous grunge rock star, a Rwandan immigrant, and an unsettlingly attractive Hawaiian urban farmer named Kai, Mia and Rosie embark on the adventure of a lifetime. From the slums of Mumbai to a Hungarian border camp during the refugee crisis, Mia’s heart is challenged and changed in astonishing ways—ways she never could have imagined if she hadn’t opened herself up to the opportunity. As she grapples with how to make a difference in a complicated world, Mia’s journey through self-discovery leaves her with the choice between the past she left behind and a new budding dream in her heart. “I combed through the pages with delight. This book is going to cause a real buzz.” —Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Love is so confusing. What does it mean? Is it an emotion? Who should we love? How and How Much? When and Where? What is the relationship between romantic love, impersonal cosmic love, sister love, evolutionary love, and outrageous love? How do love, sex and eros relate to each other? Why is a right understanding and experience of love the core of education, medicine, sex, business, politics and just about everything else. Read this book and let your love life be expanded and transformed forever. Fall in love all the way! May Marc Gafni's Loving Your Way to Enlightenment blow your mind, heart and body open; may you experience the force of his teaching as profoundly as we have experienced it in the Circle at Venwoude. These teachings read as if Marc Gafni is talking to you personally and transmits his wisdom and brilliant worldview right into your Being. mauk pieper, director of ciw europe and author of humanity's second shock and your unique self It is very rare that one comes across a teacher or a book that is 'changing the game'. My friend, Dr. Marc Gafni is such a teacher. He is a rare combination of brilliance, depth and heart. michael murphy, founder of the esalen institute, ca. usa

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR "My new favorite book of all time." --Bill Gates If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. By the author of the new book, Rationality. Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.