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Wisdom...
Wisdom
The Absolute is Adorable by: Nataraja GuruThis innovative elucidation charts out the structural map of wisdom the finalised knowledge concerning life in its generic and specific aspects. It encompasses the entire range of human wisdom including epistemology, axiology, politics and mysticism.
$20.00
ISBN: 9788124600337
Year Of Publication: 1995
Edition: 1st
Pages : viii, 284
Bibliographic Details : Glossary; Index
Language : English
Binding : Hardcover
Publisher: D.K. Printworld Pvt. Ltd.
Size: 23 cm.
Weight: 500
This strikingly innovative elucidation charts out the structural map of wisdom the finalised knowledge concerning life, both in its generic and specific aspects. Nataraja Guru, the eminent contemporary thinker, handles the theme as well as the methodology in a very original way. Thematically it encom-passes the entire range of human wisdom, including epistemology, axiology, mathematics, sociology, politics and mysticism. The author presents a scheme of coherent pattern in which all distinctions between contemplative and active, functional and theoretical, contingent and necessary, Eastern and Western dissolve into the unity of the Absolute Truth. The subject-matter and object-matter of wisdom when put in proper perspective around the normative notion of the Absolute, culminate in the idea of common human happiness. In the age of excessive specialization and compart-mentalization, Nataraja Gurus handling of the subject matter is a unique response to the legitimate cry for unification and integration. The methodology adopted throughout this interpretation is unitively taking care of the vertical progress of human wisdom along with the horizontal process of adjustment with the incidental necessities that are demanded by the process. Nataraja Gurus insightful combination of the spiritual with the modem science stands out as a tall land-mark in the field of contemporary wisdom and scholar-ship. It is a powerful beacon to the solace-seeking mankind that is being tortured by the outrageously materialistic society.
Preface
Part I
The Absolute is the Adorable
1. Wisdoms Frame of Reference
The Total Content of Wisdom
Two Intersecting Axis of Correlation
Limits of Empiricism
Dialectics to the Rescue
Dialectics not Old, New, Eastern or Western
Common Knowledge vs. Modern Theories
Platonism and Aristotelianism Really Complementary
The Vertical Axis Implied in Plato
Mathematical Version of Dialectical Descent
The Ascent from Prius Nobis to Entelecheia
The Central Locus of Paradoxes
The Monad Fitted into the Frame
Cosmological Correlation
Correlation in Particle Physics
Biological Correlation
Theological Correlation
Psychological Correlation
Ethical and Aesthetic Correlations
Logical and Mathematical Correlation
Logical Syntax and Correlaton
Mystical or Contemplative Correlation of Wisdom
2. Existence
Existence and Essence
Existentialism
Static and Dynamic Existence
Mometary and Eternal Existence
Metaphysical Bewilderment and Overlapping Definitions
The Nortion of Non-Dual Existence
The Existent in Shankaras Philosophy
3. Subsistence
The Charge-Over from Existence to Subsistence
Alternation
Double Negation in Hegel and Shankara
Hypostatic and Hierophantic Substances
Ascent into the Specific Essence
Values are More than Mere Concepts
4. Value Dynamics
The Emergence of Value
Scale of Values
Axiology and Phenomenology
Consciousness Of and In a World
Personal Intentions and Values Implied in Vertical Living
Axiological Dynamism
Phenomenology and Value Dynamics
Personalism and Pure Value Dynamics
5. The Absolute and the Relative
The Crowing Gift of Wisdom
Present Status of the Notion of the Absolute
Paradox Explained
Double Negation and Double Affirmation
To What Purpose?
Initiation into the Way of the Absolute
Einstein and Newton
Need for an Integral Science
Recent Appraisals
The Scope of Wisdom
6. The Philosophy of Necessity
Food as a High Value
Common Need for Happiness
7. The Absolute is the Adorable
The Epistemological and Methodological Home of the Absolute
Being and Becoming Meet in the Unitive Absolute
Degrees of Duality in the Logic of the Absolute
The Terms of the Paradox have to be Bridged
The Zig-Zag Course of Indian Logic and Thought
Symbolic Logic in the West Cannot be Expected to Resolve the Paradox
Pure Dialectics has to Come to the Rescue
The Absolute is Adorable and Merciful
Conclusion
PART II
The Unitive Approach
to Religion and Theology
8. Science and Religion Unitively Approached
The Two Dimensions of Religion
The Lost Dimension of Religion
Neutral Absolute at the Core of Conflicting Values
The Law of Reciprocity and Compensation
The Failure of Scientific Orthodoxy
The Return to Animism and a New Absolutism
Religions have Now All to be Understand Unitively as Belonging to the Same Context of the Absolute as the Central Norm of All Religions.
The Ever-Deepening Mystery of Matter
Hypostatic Trends in Materialism
Synthetic Science and Analytic Theology
A Larger Frame of Reference Needed
Vertical Exclusion and Horizontal Explosion
God as a Vertical Axis
9. The Lords Prayer for Man
The Best Prayer Asks for Nothing
Prayer Establishes a Unitive Relation
The Limits and Content of Prayer
Prayer Implies a Bipolar Relation
Conditions of Correct Prayer Fulfilled in Varied Forms
Unitive Prayer is a Darshana
Dualistic and Non-Dualistic Prayers
The Solipsist Principle Implicit in All Prayer
The Law of Reciprocity in Prayer
10. The Lost Idiom of the Bible
Two Categories of Thought
Crossroads
Wisdom-Reasoning
11. Allah the Absolute
Enigmatic Epithets
Challenge and Recognition
12. Temple Exoterics
Iconographic Esoterics
Microcosm and Macrocosm
Equating Self and Non-Self
The Vertical Axis
The Six Value Nodes (Shad-adhara)
13. The Androgynous God of South India
Shiva and Dionysos
A Peoples God
The Lingam
Release from Sex-Sin
14. The Philosophy of the Divine Family of Shiva
Myth and Philosophy
The Shiva Family
Shiva Legend and Wisdom
The Parvati Set of Values
Secrets of Stone Language
Ganesha
Subrahmanya
Guru-Aspect
Aryan-Dravidian Fusion
15. The Spiritual Role of the Sikhs
Meditation
Yoga can be Only One
Guru Formation of the Sikhs
Indian Behaviour Patterns, Dynamic and Static
The Sikh Pattern of Behaviour
Amritsar, The Norther City of Dream
Values and Guru Loyalties
First Aquaintance with Sikhism
Anything Better than Something Worse
PART III
Guruhood
16. The Glory of Guruhood
The Model Gurus of Indian Tradition
Godly Men and Fully Human Divinities
Guru Model not Confined to India
We Need Reaffirmation of the Glory of Guruhood
17. A Guru Tradition Above Time and Clime
Three Wise Men of the East
The Absolute as the Common Content of Duality or Paradox
The Rapproachement of Eastern and Western Tradition
The Subjective Selectivism of Eddington
Whitehead, A Platonist with a Bergsonian Background
Complementary Aspects Represented by the Three Philosophers
The Seat of Philosophical Paradox or Duality
Does Eastern Vedanta Fare any Better?
Unitive Understanding of the Three Gurus of Vedanta
Unitive Trends in the Modern West
18. The Role of the Guru Today
Guru A Suspect Word
A Subtle Fire
Guruhood Principle in Daily Life
PART IV
Integration of the Sciences
19. Science and Human Values
Private Bodies Representing Integrated Education
No Common Intellectual Formation
Unitive and Universal Approach Needed
Positive and Negative Sciences
Integration can be Attempted from Different Poles
Conflicting Scales of Values
The Key to Integration Hidden in the Human Personality
20. Science and Certitude
Science and the Mind
Empiricism Fails
A Revised Approach Imperative
The Frustration of the Positivist
Some Heterodox Scientists
Reversion to Esoterics
No Sacrifice of Certitude
21. Mathematics and Mysticism
God as a Mathematician
The Content of Mysticism
How do Mathematicians Think?
Mystery of the Language of Physics
The Axis of Mathematical Dynamism
Quantitative and Qualitative Abstractions
The Primacy Due to Time Abstraction
Mysticism Enters by the Back Door
Non-Experimental Mathematics
Subjective Selectivism and Sheer Mysticism
22. Can A Science Be Sung?
Blending of Values
The Scientist as Guru
23. Towards a Common Speech for Science and Vedanta
If Gods and Gnomes should be Taboo
Poetry and Personification
Anthropomorphism in Religion
Mechanomorphism
Degrees of Mechanomorphism
We Believe What We See
Fable and Fact Meet in Modern Knowledge
The Morpism that is Common
The Form and the Formula of Unified Knowledge
Science and Vedanta
Orthodox and Academic Vedanta
24. The Travesty of Verbosity
The Way to Avoid Verbosity
The Structure of Word Families
Pragmatic and Semiotic Aspects of Words
Subjective, Selective, Structural Schematism Explained
Vertical, Horizontal, Hypostatic, Hierophantic Values Explained
Word Families, Clans, Systems, Aggregates
The Group of Ologies Considered Together
The Idea of a New Dictionary of Contemplative Words
What is Our Defence?
PART V
Hindu Orthodoxy
25. Patterns of Hindu Orthodoxy
Indias Precious Heritage
Orthodoxy and Tolerance
Each Orthodoxy has its Own Central Value
The Clash Between the Prophetic and the Hylozoic
The Place of Krishnaism in North India
Closed Group Formations of Recent Years
Other Scruples of Orthodoxy
Taboo-Counter-Taboo
26. Hindu Philosophical Orthodoxy
Strands in the String of Indian Thought
Indian and European Logic
A Common Method for Science, Philosophy or Reasoning
Brahma and Brahmana
New Sprouts from the Heart of Orthodoxy
Other Marks of Transition
The Six Systems and Sannyasins
Vedanta Represents Integrated Dialectical Wisdom
The Future of Orthodoxy in India
Semantics, Eastern and Western
27. The Sociology and Psychology of Caste
Name and Form
Common Root of Caste and Chastity
Nightmare of Caste in Indian History
The Tendency to Rationalize Caste
Sub-Conscious Biological Justification
Caste and Vertical Norms of Value
Manus and Vyasas Divisions Contrasted
The Caste of the Sages Vyasa and Parashara
The Moral Imperative and the Doctrine of Sva-dharma
The Revised Status of Caste
The Brahmana-Pariah Axis of Caste Dialectics
Caste as an Objective Social Factor
Narayana Gurus Attitude to the Caste Problem
Mans Humanity Distinguishes the Human Kind
Glossary
Index
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An Intergrated Science of the Absolute (2 Vols. Set) $80.00
It is not just the magnum opus, but a truly monumental effort of a scientist-philosopher who has spent a whole lifetime to formulate a unitive science, wherein all disciplines of human questing could find a common ground a science where modern science and ancient spiritual wisdom could meet and merge like two opposite poles of a magnet. As a direct disciple of one of the great rishis of the modern age, Nataraja Guru discovers this common ground in Brahma-vidya, which he calls the Integrated Science of the Absolute, and which has, at its base, his Gurus Dars?ana Mala.
A string of hundred Sanskrit verses, composed by the mystic-poet, Narayana Guru (18541928), the Darsana Mala is the very epitome of all visions of truth inspired by his remarkable acquisitions of Upanisadic thought and, yet far more, by his own tapas (mystical discipline). Reproducing these highly significative verses in Roman script, along with English translations, word meanings, and extensive commentaries, Nataraja Guru not only spells out his mentors Visions of the Absolute in contemporary idiom, but also shows how these visions are fully validated by modern science.
Eclectic synthesis of varied scientific disciplines into a systematic whole is not all that Nataraja Guru accomplishes here. Rather, his book (now in third edition) is an attempt to reintroduce Brahma-vidya as the one Master Science that embraces every branch of science, every human interest. -
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. “ -
Abhinavaguptas Hermeneutics of the Absolute $60.00
The Paratrishika Vivarana by the great Kashmiri philosopher and mystic Abhinavagupta is an extensive commentary on the Paratrishika Tantra, and it is one of the most profound texts, not only of non-dualist Kashmir Shaivism, but of Indian philosophy and mysticism in general. The present work attempts to make this difficult text accessible, by culling out the important themes and offering an interpretation. The main focus is on the understanding of the Absolute (Anuttara) and the ways to realize it. The central theme of mantra also leads to a mysticism of language with its philosophical implications. All these reflections and practices are inscribed in the theory that everything is related to the totality, every part contains the whole of reality (sarvam sarvatmakam). It is this holistic vision of Abhinavagupta, based on the Tantras, which makes this work so relevant in our times of fragmented aspects of life and knowledge in search of integration. No doubt, in the view of the Tantra and of Abhinavagupta, language and mantra provide the key.
This fascinating book is an important contribution to studies and interpretations on Kashmir Shaivism, its spirituality and philosophy, and on Abhinavagupta in particular. -
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. -
Journey to the Centre of my Being $12.00
Jim Wilson is an adventurer: mountaineering; Antarctic exploration; adventure films with Sir Edmund Hillary (on one of which he drove a jet boat up Mother Ganga from ocean to sky); climbing and school building with Sir Edmund in the Everest region of Nepal; and sailing to Pacific islands in a small yacht. These physical adventures provide an exciting backdrop to this book.
But Jim is also a religious adventurer. He relates in depth, with clarity and humour, his long journey in search of a satisfying way of understanding and experiencing the true nature of his self, and of his place in this mysterious universe. Studying Western philosophy and theology moved him away from intense involvement in the liberal Christianity of his parents. So he looked to India, inexhaustible source of inspiration. For two years he studied Indian philosophy and religion at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. Then he taught for 23 years in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, returning many times to India and Nepal.
Though profoundly moved by the religions he studied and taught about, he was unable to accept the metaphysical beliefs underpinning them. Increasingly, though, he became fascinated by modern scientific discoveries about the universe, and about our planet and the evolution of life on it. So he wove together elements from religious and scientific traditions. In particular, he took Adi Shankara’s Advaita, also known as spiritual monism, and applied it to the physical universe, adding in also feelings and attitudes from New Zealand’s indigenous Maori religion. He now believes that the centre of his being is the physical energy of the universe, with which, therefore, he is at one. He finds this deeply satisfying in understanding, and emotionally and morally experiencing, his place on this planet and in the universe. Because it owes so much to spiritual monism he calls it physical monism, or physical Advaita.
