Using religio-philosophical discourses and narratives from epic, puranic, and hagiographical literature, Indian Asceticism focuses on the powers exhibited by ascetics of India from ancient to modern time.

The Heart Sutra is perhaps the most famous Buddhist text, traditionally regarded as a potent expression of emptiness and of the Buddha's perfect wisdom. This brief, seemingly simple work was the subject of more commentaries in Asia than any other sutra. In Elaborations on Emptiness, Donald Lopez explores for the first time the elaborate philosophical and ritual uses of the Heart Sutra in India, Tibet, and the West. Included here are full translations of the eight extant Indian commentaries. Interspersed with the translations are six essays that examine the unusual roles the Heart Sutra has played: it has been used as a mantra, an exorcism text, a tantric meditation guide, and as the material for comparative philosophy. Taken together, the translations and essays that form Elaborations on Emptiness demonstrate why commentary is as central to modern scholarship on Buddhism as it was for ancient Buddhists. Lopez reveals unexpected points of instability and contradiction in the Heart Sutra, which, in the end, turns out to be the most malleable of texts, where the logic of commentary serves as a tool of both tradition and transgression.

A detailed guide to awakening your powers of supersensory perception • Details methods and techniques for the acquisition of supersensory powers distilled from Rudolf Steiner’s 400 published volumes and from Patañjali’s Yoga Sutra • Explores acquisition of these powers at birth (genetic) and through entheogens, mantra and prayer, effort and exercise, and nondual meditation • Includes a map of consciousness based on the work of neuroscientist Karl Pribram and physicist David Bohm According to philosopher Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), there exists within every human being the potential for developing supersensory powers and, with these powers activated, the ability to awaken the higher self and attain knowledge of non-physical higher worlds. Steiner himself worked diligently throughout his life to develop his faculties of “supersensible perception” and, scattered throughout his many works, he describes methods by which to activate and operate these supersensory-cognitive systems. Distilling techniques from Steiner’s more than 400 published volumes, Shelli Renée Joye, Ph.D., presents a practical, modern approach to acquiring, cultivating, and maintaining supersensible perception and developing higher consciousness. The five approaches she studies include acquisition by birth (genetic), entheogens, mantra and prayer, effort and exercise, and Samadhi--equated by many with nondual awareness. Adding another dimension to Steiner’s methods, the author shows how these steps are powerfully aligned with 4th-century South Indian sage Patañjali’s teachings in the Yoga Sutra. The author explores how to develop what you have acquired through imaginative, active, or intuitive thinking, as well as how to learn through inner guidance and how to transform knowledge gained from books into spiritual advancement. She also shares her own extraordinary experiences of supersensory networks of consciousness. Connecting Steiner’s ideas to modern advances in quantum physics, psychedelic science, and consciousness studies, Dr. Joye shows how each of us is capable of developing supersensible perception and expanding our awareness to connect with cosmic consciousness.

In this volume, leading American, European, and Indian scholars including John E. Cort, Friedhelm Hardy, Padmanabh S. Jaini, Laurie L. Patton, A. K. Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao, and David Shulman discuss the subject of the Purāṇas, focusing particularly on the relationship between the "Great Puran'as" of the Sanskrit tradition and the many other sorts of Purāṇas. The Puran'as are essentially collections of stories dealing with all aspects of myth, ritual, science, and history, and the authors of these essays are all superb storytellers.

Rebirth and the Stream of Life explores the diversity as well as the ethical and religious significance of rebirth beliefs, focusing especially on Hindu and Buddhist traditions but also discussing indigenous religions and ancient Greek thought. Utilizing resources from religious studies, anthropology and theology, an expanded conception of philosophy of religion is exemplified, which takes seriously lived experience rather than treating religious beliefs in isolation from their place in believers' lives. Drawing upon his expertise in interdisciplinary working and Wittgenstein-influenced approaches, Mikel Burley examines several interrelated phenomena, including purported past-life memories, the relationship between metaphysics and ethics, efforts to 'demythologize' rebirth, and moral critiques of the doctrine of karma. This range of topics, with rebirth as a unifying theme, makes the book of value to anyone interested in philosophy, the study of religions, and what it means to believe that we undergo multiple lives.