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The Loom of Time...
The Loom of Time
by: Subhash KakIt shows how reality is generated in a recursive fashion and uses this insight to illuminate many puzzles of history and culture. The book straddles history and science, aesthetics and religion, and politics and power, by juxtaposing material in ways that provide surprising new insights.
$24.00
ISBN: 9788124608746
Year Of Publication: 2017
Edition: Revised Edition Published in India
Pages : xii, 154
Bibliographic Details : Index
Language : English
Binding : Hardcover
Publisher: D.K. Printworld Pvt. Ltd.
Size: 23
Weight: 450
The Loom of Time shows how reality is generated in a recursive fashion and uses this insight to illuminate many puzzles of history and culture. Recursion is at basis of mimicry in nature and germination and development of biological organisms; it also provides structure to mental images of physical systems and human behavior. It helps us make sense of the repeating patterns across cultures and nations, understand the manner in which technology is impacting society, and see the reasons behind the crises of the contemporary world.
The topics covered in this book include philosophical bases of recursion, cosmologies old and new, religion and modernity, globalization and bureaucratic control, loss of meaning and freedom, spirituality, narcissism leading to despair, and limits of medicine. It deals with problems of employment and questions of meaning of life when robots and other machines become more numerous than humans. The book straddles history and science, aesthetics and religion, and politics and power, by juxtaposing material in ways that provide surprising new insights.
Preface
1. Many Worlds
2. Minds Evolution
3. Impressions in Recursion
4. Names of God
5. Mimic Worlds
6. Masks of Power
7. Worship of Many Gods
8. Prison Suffering
9. Modernity and Tradition
10. Endangered Future
11. Colonizing Body and Mind
12. The Fight over Water
13. Asias Two Butterfly Syndromes
14. Taiping to Tiananmen
15. Chinese Whispers
16. Thanks, But no Thanks, to the Empire
17. The Revenge of Medea
18. Biology and the Past
19. El and Yahweh
20. Americas Angst
21. Globalization East and West
22. Paris Burning
23. Pie in the Sky
24. Non-Western Cosmology
25. Three Kinds of Reality
26. The Age of Machines
27. The Future of Living Sanskrit
28. In Praise of the Yazidis
29. The Fourth Way
30. Freedom and Harmony
Index
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Kundalini $24.00
“Tantra, an exposition of Sri-vidya, is a thread of Vedic tantu. This ray of the light of consciousness folds upon itself as a coil (kundala) forming the coiled energies of the conscious universe, thus becoming kundalini.
This book looks at Tantra from a different perspective against the common view of it being more associated with its carnal/sexual nature. Tantra is the “art of celibacy”. Human beings are a wave in the ocean of Consciousness and this wave passes through our psycho-physiological complex compound, forming the personal kundalini. All sensations in human body are manifestations of the presence of kuõóalinã. Our desires are the signals released by the kundalini. Different psycho-physical apparatuses are plugged into it like electric plugs in different socket.
This volume, while portraying kundalini from its psycho-physical and spiritual implications and impacts, tries to alleviate some misconceptions about the nature of cakras — the consciousness centres. It deals at length with the phenomena of higher levels of spiritual evolution — “raising the kundalini” and “opening the cakras” — helping one drop all mental habit patterns to achieve “liberation”.
This book is a “must read” for the practitioners of Yoga and all who want to take their spiritual life to a new realm. “ -
An Introduction to Jain Philosophy $54.00
It is well-known that the Jain tradition has been extremely influential in the development of Indian thought and culture. The Jain tradition teaches that there is an interdependence of perception, knowledge, and conduct unified by an axiomatic principle of non-violence in thought, speech, and action. In this way, non-violence defines the core of the Jain tradition, which has had a profound effect on other dharmic traditions originating in India. Jain Dharma is so significant that in some ways it may be incomplete to attempt to understand other Indian traditions (such as Buddhism or Hinduism) without knowing the basics of the Jain tradition, since these other traditions developed in an ongoing dialogue with the insights and wisdom of Jain respondents and visionaries.
This book enables the reader to enjoy a comprehensive journey into the intricate world of Jain thought and culture in a way that is philosophical in its compelling rationality, deeply spiritual in its revelations, yet accessible in its language. The organization of this book allows the reader to engage in an overview of the central teachings of the Jain tradition, but also to ascertain the profundity of its depths. It can be read with equal efficacy in succession from beginning to end, or pursued by individual topics of interest to the reader. Either strategy will have the same effect: a systematic understanding of what the timeless teachings of Jain thinkers have to say about the universal issues of the human condition – and how we might understand our harmonious relationship with other living entities as a powerful and effective spiritual journey. -
Mind and Cognition An Interdisciplinary Sharing $100.00
“Knowing one’s tradition is important; but only when tradition is not presented as fossilised but as continuous with our present-day living. In most places we do not make enough effort to show the link between the classical philosophical thoughts and the contemporary world view. We need to show that we can still meaningfully interact with the classical philosophical systems”, writes Amita Chatterjee in her seminal essay “In Search of Counterpoints”. This volume is dedicated in her honour. “Knowing one’s tradition is important; but only when tradition is not presented as fossilised but as continuous with our present-day living. In most places we do not make enough effort to show the link between the classical philosophical thoughts and the contemporary world view. We need to show that we can still meaningfully interact with the classical philosophical systems”, writes Amita Chatterjee in her seminal essay “In Search of Counterpoints”. This volume is dedicated in her honour. Chatterjee belongs to a genre of philosophers, who have as part of their cultural heritage, like Raghunath Siromani and Immanuel Kant. Chatterjee, in addition to breaking cultural boundaries, desired to break boundaries that have kept professional disciplines apart. She deeply believes that there are certain basic questions that are questions not for any specific discipline. These questions, she thinks, could not be answered by remaining within one single discipline. It is no surprise that she was the founder of the first Cognitive Science Centre in India. Responding to her multifaceted academic talent, forty academics from diverse disciplines and from all over the world have contributed papers to this volume. The major areas of Chatterjee’s interest that feature in this volume are: (i) Fusion Philosophy, (ii) Mind and Cognition, (iii) Mind and Perception, (iv) Mind and Language, (v) Logic and Vagueness, (vi) Logic, (vii) Indian Philosophy, and (viii) Philosophy, Society and Popular Culture. Chatterjee’s intellectual autobiography and her responses to each of the papers are parts of this volume.
ISBN 9788124609514 (vol. 1)
ISBN 9788124609521 (vol. 2)
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Vedanta for the Western World $57.00
Vedanta for the Western World is a collection of sixty-eight articles appeared in a magazine having the same title during 1938-45 by eminent scholars of international repute such as Aldous Huxley, Allan Hunter, Gerald Heard and Swami Prabhavananda reflecting on the varied aspects and universal reflections of Vedanta, with an Introduction by Christopher Isherwood. Vedanta, the Vedic philosophy per se, and not time-specific, focuses on three fundamental propositions that man’s real nature is divine; aim of human life is to realize this divine nature; and all religions are essentially in agreement as far as this divine concept is concerned. The essays featured in this volume imbibe and exude the same philosophy being best suited to the understanding of new generation audience, especially the one that belongs to the Western world. This unique volume stands out in its genera of works due to a wide gamut of topics featured in it under the umbrella banner Vedanta. It enables every student of Vedanta know the essence of the Vedic philosophies from the perspectives of both Indian and Western scholars and men of merit.
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Navya Nyaya Philosophy of Language $20.00
This book represents the philosophy of language in Navya-Nyaya, based upon an analysis of the “Verbal Suffix Chapter” (Akhyatavada) of Gangesha’s Tattvacintamani. Since this chapter elaborates what kind of verbal understanding is generated and discusses related issues, the book demonstrates the main features of that philosophy of language and serves as a good introduction to that. The analysis mainly deals with Gangesha, but in some cases it refers to Raghunatha. Since the book is an attempt to pursue philological exactness and philosophical analysis, it is hoped to interest not only Sanskrit scholars, but also philosophers in general.
The book consists of four lectures. Lecture I clarifies Gangesha’s view of the meaning of the suffixes of a finite verb, which (meaning) is greatly disputed among the Navya-Nyaya philosophers, the Mimamsa philosophers, and the Grammarians. Lecture II investigates how Gangesha determines the meaning of words and illustrates that his method bears upon ontological categories of Vaisheshika. Lecture III deals with Gangesha’s “Five Definitions of Invariable Concomitance Section” (Vyaptipancaka) and elucidates the relation between meaning and the logical structure of the definitions. The lecture also provides diagrams as a tool to represent the structure. Lecture IV explains the realistic standpoint of Navya-Nyaya by clarifying the concept of the counterpositive (pratiyogin) of absence (abhava), or a thing whose existence is negated, focusing on empty terms or non-factual expressions such as “a round triangle”, “the present King of France”, “a rabbit’s horn”, and so forth. The lecture delineates how Udayana, Gangesha, and Raghunatha observed and, as the time passed, did realism thoroughly in language analysis.
