Theo-Monistic Mysticism

Theo-Monistic Mysticism
Author: M. Stoeber
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 143
Release: 1994-04-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0230377068

In response to some of the current explanations of mystic phenomena, this book proposes an interpretive framework for understanding mysticism. It clarifies various kinds of mystical experiences, suggesting they are not wholly determined by subjective categories of interpretation, and illustrates how they can be synthesised in a theistic, mystic teleology. In reference to Ramanuja, Aurobinodo, Sankara, Eckhart, Ruusbroec, and Boehme, monistic experiences are understood to culminate in higher theistic realizations, to which other kinds of mysticism can also be related.

Theo-monistic Mysticism

Theo-monistic Mysticism
Author: Michael Stoeber
Publisher:
Total Pages: 135
Release: 1994
Genre: Christianity and other religions
ISBN: 9780333610640

In response to some of the current explanations of mystic phenomena, this book proposes an interpretive framework for understanding mysticism. It clarifies various kinds of mystical experiences, suggesting they are not wholly determined by subjective categories of interpretation, and illustrates how they can be synthesized in a theistic, mystic teleology. In reference to Ramanuja, Aurobinodo, Sankara, Eckhart, Ruusbroec and Boehme, monistic experiences are understood to culminate in higher theistic realizations, to which other kinds of mysticism can also be related.

Theo-monistic Mysticism

Theo-monistic Mysticism
Author: Michael F. Stoeber
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 135
Release: 1994
Genre: Christianity and other religions
ISBN: 9780312107468

Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality

Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality
Author: Ayon Maharaj
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2018-10-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190868244

Sri Ramakrishna is widely known as a nineteenth-century Indian mystic who affirmed the harmony of all religions on the basis of his richly varied spiritual experiences and eclectic religious practices, both Hindu and non-Hindu. In Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality, Ayon Maharaj argues that Sri Ramakrishna was also a sophisticated philosopher of great contemporary relevance. Through a careful study of Sri Ramakrishna's recorded oral teachings in the original Bengali, Maharaj reconstructs his philosophical positions and analyzes them from a cross-cultural perspective. Sri Ramakrishna's spiritual journey culminated in the exalted state of "vijñana," his term for the "intimate knowledge" of God as the Infinite Reality that is both personal and impersonal, with and without form, immanent in the universe and beyond it. This expansive spiritual standpoint of vijñana, Maharaj contends, opens up a new paradigm for addressing central issues in cross-cultural philosophy of religion, including divine infinitude, religious pluralism, mystical experience, and the problem of evil. Sri Ramakrishna's vijñana-based religious pluralism--when grasped in all its subtlety--proves to have major philosophical advantages over dominant Western models. Moreover, his mystical testimony and teachings not only cut across long-standing debates about the nature of mystical experience but also bolster recent defenses of its epistemic value. Maharaj further demonstrates that Sri Ramakrishna's unique response to the problem of evil resonates strongly with Western "soul-making" theodicies and contemporary theories of skeptical theism. A pioneering interdisciplinary study of one of India's most important philosopher-mystics, Maharaj's book is essential reading for scholars and students in philosophy of religion, theology, religious studies, and Hindu studies.

Comparative Theology and the Problem of Religious Rivalry

Comparative Theology and the Problem of Religious Rivalry
Author: Hugh Nicholson
Publisher: OUP USA
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2011-04-08
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 019977286X

A model of interreligious theology that seeks to reconcile the ideal of religious tolerance with an acknowledgement of the extent to which religious communities construct identity on the basis of religious differences.

The Unity of Mystical Traditions

The Unity of Mystical Traditions
Author: Randall Studstill
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2018-08-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9047407210

This book argues that mystical doctrines and practices initiate parallel transformative processes in the consciousness of mystics. This thesis is supported through a comparative analysis of Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen (rdzogs-chen) and the medieval German mysticism of Eckhart, Suso, and Tauler. These traditions are interpreted using a system/cybernetic model of consciousness. This model provides a theoretical framework for assessing the cognitive effects of mystical doctrines and practices and showing how different doctrines and practices may nevertheless initiate common transformative processes. This systems approach contributes to current philosophical discourse on mysticism by (1) making possible a precise analysis of the cognitive effects of mystical doctrines and practices, and (2) reconciling mystical heterogeneity with the essential unity of mystical traditions.

Neoplatonism and Contemporary Thought

Neoplatonism and Contemporary Thought
Author: R. Baine Harris
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 430
Release: 2001-11-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0791489116

Significant twentieth-century thinkers offer views of Neoplatonism as having relevance to contemporary life and thought. Specifically discussed is how Neoplatonism relates to contemporary social theory, contemporary aesthetics, and contemporary spirituality, including discussions on ecology, environmental ethics, animal rights, transpersonal psychology, mysticism, and the philosophy of Derrida and Foucault. Contributors include Aphrodite Alexandrakis, John Anton, A. H. Armstrong, Werner Beierwaltes, Robert Berchman, Oleg Bychkov, Roman T. Ciapalo, John N. Findlay, L. E. Goodman, Paulos Mar Gregorios, R. Baine Harris, Robert Meredith Helms, Michael Hornum, Daniel Kealey, Alicia Kuczynska, David R. Lea, John Mayer, Parvis Morewedge, Robert Cummings Neville, Eric D. Perl, Leo Sweeney, S.J., Laura Westra, and Charles G. Woods.

Reason And Religious Faith

Reason And Religious Faith
Author: Terence Penelhum
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2019-07-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000309088

The concerns of philosophy and of religion overlap to a considerable extent—each seeks, among other things, to develop an account of mankind's place in the universe. But their relationship has never been an easy one. Faith gives rise to philosophical puzzlement just as secular beliefs do, but it also generates special philosophical questions that secular beliefs do not. This engaging text encourages students and other readers to grapple with these special questions of faith, to look at how they relate to other issues in philosophy and in the empirical study of religion. Equally accurate and insightful in its treatment of historical authors such as Aquinas and Pascal as it is in treatment of such contemporaries as Plantinga and Alston, Reason and Religious Faith is the most up-to-date and balanced introduction to these issues available. It marks an advance over earlier surveys in its recognition of religious pluralism and the relevance of non-Christian religious views. It is an ideal introduction to the issues of religious epistemology for students of both religious studies and philosophy.

Teaching Mysticism

Teaching Mysticism
Author: William B. Parsons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2011-10-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199876924

The term ''mysticism'' has never been consistently defined or employed, either in religious traditions or in academic discourse. The essays in this volume offer ways of defining what mysticism is, as well as methods for grappling with its complexity in a classroom. This volume addresses the diverse literature surrounding mysticism in four interrelated parts. The first part includes essays on the tradition and context of mysticism, devoted to drawing out and examining the mystical element in many religious traditions. The second part engages traditions and religio-cultural strands in which ''mysticism'' is linked to other terms, such as shamanism, esotericism, and Gnosticism. The volume's third part focuses on methodological strategies for defining ''mysticism,'' with respect to varying social spaces. The final essays show how contemporary social issues and movements have impacted the meaning, study, and pedagogy of mysticism. Teaching Mysticism presents pedagogical reflections on how best to communicate mysticism from a variety of institutional spaces. It surveys the broad range of meanings of mysticism, its utilization in the traditions, the theories and methods that have been used to understand it, and provides critical insight into the resulting controversies.

Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism

Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism
Author: Grace Jantzen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 412
Release: 1995-11-16
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 9780521479264

In the western Christian tradition, the mystic was seen as having direct access to God, and therefore great authority. In this study, Dr Jantzen discusses how men of power defined and controlled who should count as a mystic, and thus who would have power: women were pointedly excluded. This makes her book of special interest to those in gender studies and medieval history. Its main argument, however, is philosophical. Because the mystical has gone through many social constructions, the modern philosophical assumption that mysticism is essentially about intense subjective experiences is misguided. This view is historically inaccurate, and perpetuates the same gendered struggle for authority which characterises the history of western christendom. This book is the first on the subject to take issues of gender seriously, and to use these as a point of entry for a deconstructive approach to Christian mysticism.