This book recounts the legendary love story of Chandidas and Rami, 14th-century Bengalis. He is a young Brahmin priest who renounces his caste status to become an heretical poet-musician wandering the byways of India with a small band of mystics and bards. Rami is a beautiful 20-year-old widow, of low caste, living with her two children. To survive, she washes the clothes of local villagers. An overwhelming magnetism of love and fate compels them to come together against prevailing religious and social customs. Rami leaves all of her familiar world behind to travel, sing and praise the Divine with her beloved Chandidas, along the dusty roads of Bengal. Krishna’s Heretic Lovers is an historical romance that blends fiction and fact, love and sex, action and spiritual teachings, politics, and true characters with the authentic poetry written by the revered poet Chandidas (later known as the “Father of Bengali poetry”). The synthesis of these elements, together with rare insight into the practices of a genuine tantric sect, creates an unforgettable alchemy for readers. Vivid descriptions of cultural and natural environments along with richly detailed characters capture the religion, politics, and lifestyle of the late 14th /early 15th century of remote Bengali villages. The reader is transported into an era when the basic human freedom to create, love, and worship based on one’s natural impulse had to be carved from the stone of rigid hierarchical, even feudal, societal and religious structures. Thanks to Mary Angelon Young, Chandidas and Rami live again to sing the glories of Krishna and Radha to a new audience. Victory to the Divine Couple! —Dr. Robert Svoboda, author of Mysticism in the 21st Century and Aghora: At the Left Hand of God. A BOOK FOR STUDENTS OF COMPARATIVE RELIGION, OR ANYONE FASCINATED WITH EASTERN TRADITIONS, ESPECIALLY THOSE YEARNING FOR A LOVE STORY THAT INCLUDES SPIRITUAL TEACHINGS (DHARMA) AND SCHOLARSHIP.

This book was written during the global pandemic of 2020, when the gravity of our situation called us, as individuals, to sanity and inner strength. “Sheltering in place,” or “in confinement” as some prefer, we entered into a fierce and strange new world. If we had not actively developed our contemplative side before this, the insistent, benevolent voice of that inner world, so famously avoided in today’s society, now sounded a clarion call. The Art of Contemplation is intended to inspire your own reflections, as I explore the timeless treasure house of contemplation, the reasons we actually need it, and how to work with the blocks that most of us encounter on the way. For contemplation is a journey within, with no beginning and no end, taken from anywhere and everywhere that we find ourselves in life. For the theists among us, our contemplations will organically lead to prayer, just as bud goes to flower and flower goes to seed, which drops to the ground to begin another round of creation. For the nontheists, the inner state of contemplative prayer might be called inner stillness, meditation on truth, or the practice of pure awareness―or even “inner yoga,” as yoga is anything that links us to the Divine. It does not matter what we call it. What does matter is that we, as human beings, evolve in a mutual love affair with the Universe from which we are created. What matters is praise. There is a time to beg for grace to intervene in the sufferings we endure as human beings. As we contemplate our own awareness within the mystery of life, we begin to expand our generosity as vessels of awareness, of awakened consciousness, for our own personal transformation and for the benefit of all beings. Then our inner yoga takes flight. Resting in receptive inner space enables us to rejuvenate and restore, to tap intrinsic healing, intuitive and creative energies, at the level of source water where the river of life flows pristine and we touch the ineffable. The Taoists have a beautiful way of expressing it. Lao Tzu said, “Muddy water, let stand, becomes clear.” Clarity is one of the many gifts of contemplation, and as we build a capacity for the inner journey, a sacred world is revealed in the mirror of the soul.

A study of women's roles and alternative patterns of sexuality in seven contemporary communal and millenarian movements. Based almost exclusively on interviews and first-hand data, this book will be of interest to scholars and students in communal and utopian studies, American religious history, and new religious movements. 10 illustrations. Index.

Most Americans know about the "Hare Krishnas" only from encounters in airports or from tales of their activities in the East Village and Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s. This entertaining and sensitive book deepens our knowledge by tracing the paths of those Western Hare Krishnas who eventually traveled to or lived in India. The charismatic leader of the sect, the Indian monk Swami Bhaktivedanta, aimed to save Westerners from what he saw as materialism and atheism by converting them to worship of the Hindu god Krishna. In addition, he hoped that Western disciples would inspire Indians to rediscover their own religious heritage. Charles Brooks describes in full detail the work of the "reverse missionaries" in the town of Vrindaban--which, since it is traditionally considered to be identical with Krishna's spiritual world, is one of the holiest places in India and the site of some of its most engaging rituals. Have the Western Hare Krishnas really become part of Indian culture? Can it be that Indians accept these foreigners as essentially Hindu and even Brahman? Brooks answers in a way that radically challenges our accepted images of Indian social dynamics. Analyzing the remarkable success of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and their temple complex in Vrindaban (where Bhaktivedanta was buried in 1977), Brooks describes the intricate social, economic, and religious relationships between Westerners and Indians. He demonstrates that social rank in the town is based not only on caste but also on religious competence: many Indians of Vrindaban believe, in Bhaktivedanta's words, that "Krishna is for all." Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

A ground-breaking work in comparative theology. This stimulating work of comparative theology brings into conversation the stories of the infancy and youth Jesus with that of Krishna in the Hindu tradition. The early chapters tell the stories, first of Krishna and then of Jesus, and then describe the role each plays as savior for the faithful of that tradition. Chapter 1: Comparative Theology and Learning about Jesus Chapter 2: A Savior in Disguise the Stories Chapter 3: Krishna and His Followers How He Saves Chapter 4: Immanuel the Stories Chapter 5: Jesus and His Disciples How He Saves Chapter 6: All Grown Up Krishna and Jesus as Adults The text is not only readable but engaging, particularly when it explores the playfulness of the young Krishna and compares Krishna's early years with those of Jesus as described in such non-canonical writings as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Through this comparison Largen demonstrates the unique role Jesus' nature as both human and divine has in our Christian understanding of salvation.