Sri Aurobindo

The book is divided into seven parts. The book focuses spiritual growth and it is a manual for building a Spirit-filled life in a world where perfection can only be found in God’s loving vision. Ortberg helps us gauge your spiritual health and measure the gap between where you are now and where God intends you to be. As the author emphasizes on

Henri J. M. Nouwen’s book, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, examines three aspects of spiritual movement in which he unveils how humanity relates to self, others, and God to achieve true spirituality. The first movement revealed is the movement from loneliness to solitude, second is the movement from hostility to hospitality, and finally, is the movement from illusion to prayer.

In the first discourse we learn about the excellence and singularity of the sacred mystery of the incarnation. The author states that the most important lesson that we are taught in the school of wisdom and salvation it the hole mystery of Incarnation. This mystery is so powerful that it exceeds even the highest thought of men

Another, aspect, spirituality is not as much a prearranged system, it is a quest and a prolongation of one’s development.

The level of consciousness of humanity can best be divided into two components, the enlightened and the unenlightened, those who are enlightened understand how to cease suffering and therefore end it to find bliss. The unenlightened do not comprehend how to can escape misery and are therefore doomed to frustration. The clarification on a new age of awareness is apparent in Shakespeare’s heart-rending Hamlet and similarly with Yann Martel courageous narrative Life of Pi, both protagonists have intertwined

This is truly an illuminating moments as readers are finally convinced of Siddhartha’s readiness as Buddha and are strangely perplexed at Siddhartha’s relentless dedication to the holy

1p. This composition serves as an informative and descriptive report of how spirituality is necessary in the recovery process. Not so much with recovery by itself, but through discovery together. It zooms in on how a person could be free from drug addiction or alcoholism, as well as from the chain of accepting a negative title as part of the recovery process.

Robin Goharchin Professor Hamma English 102 1 October 2014 The Devastated Angel Siddhartha Gautama or Buddha said, “Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.” This analogy demonstrates the power of religion to bring light where there is none. To believe in a higher power is an essential part life to many people. Although spiritual life may not mean anything to some, most of the world considers it to be the necessary guideline to life.

The life of Siddhartha Gautama has captivated millions of people around the world. Millions of humans practice and try to live a life free of possessions and free of distractions from the materialistic plane of existence we call society. In essence, a popular belief about life becomes mainstream and therefore a new religion is created. I would argue that Buddhism is merely a way of approaching life from an uncharacteristic perspective. Therefore, I am suggesting that the Buddha created a philosophy and deserves a place among the great fathers of human thought such as Aristotle, Plato, and many others. Where Buddhism differentiates from the three major religions of the world, is the amazing techniques that Buddhists pursue every day to optimize their inner thinking within. The philosophies of Buddhism and new research in the scientific community surrounding techniques done by its followers, has created a growing interest in the way of life, especially in western culture. Going along, we will explore what makes this so.

Huston Smith, explores, the various processes in which man could transcend the austere and lucid form of being to a more enlightened one. Smith, explores this notion, in the context of religion, and mainly the various religious traditions and practices that attempt to enlighten and save one's soul from the allencompasing, worldly, goods and desires. Smith’s arguments, tremendously, revolve around the notion of ‘transcendence’ and the important role of religion in facilitating the enlightenment of the mind and soul. This notion of transcendence is evident in almost all religions (however, mainly South Asian) i.e. Hinduism (Moksha) and Buddhism (Nirvana) these form of transcendence do not only differ in terms of the linguistically, but most importantly, in the ways at which they can be achieved. I believe that Hinduism does in fact facilitated the move from imperfection to perfection, however I would like to emphasises the notion that various other forms religion may play a similar role in transforming one's soul for the better. Therefore, in this paper I will explore the inevitable and vital role of religion (hinduism) in transforming one's soul, whilst simultaneously providing that basis to other

" In other words, the insights we extract from his works are universal, and the universality of his works perpetually

Lecture 19, aptly titled ‘Other Characteristics’, deals with a wide variety of subject matter, including institutional religion, prayer and the relationship between religion and the subconscious. In terms of organized religion, James states that room must be given for personal religious experience, as it is insufficient to provide adequate converts on its own. Prayer is deemed a fundamental aspect of practice utilised by those throughout the centuries who have had direct religious experiences. In summarizing his series in the final lecture, James expressed the need for toleration of religious diversity and allowance for individuals to pursue their course: ‘some men have the completer experience and the higher vocation, here just as in the social world; but for each man to stay in his own experience, whate’er it be, and for others to tolerate him there, is surely best’. This is necessary because the intellectual underpinning is that there is something wrong with us and that this can be rectified by ‘making the proper connection with the higher powers’. For this reason, a higher value must be given to experience and feeling over thought. In terms of trying to make sense of how this union with God takes place in a scientific context, James argues that the subconscious serves as a conduit through which ‘the further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely “understandable” world’. For James, religious experiences are a reality although they cannot be satisfactorily explained in wholly philosophical or scientific terms: ‘The only thing that it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest

He states that existence comes before essence, meaning that man must exist before there is any conception of it. “We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards” (Sartre 28). This thought conveys that a human starts with nothing and will become nothing unless he wills himself to become something. Over time humans will begin to define who and what they are by their actions and choices.

Sri Aurobindo's life can be divided into two clear phases. The first relates to political activism and the second to spiritual activism.

Descartes and Augustine, in their respective examinations of the mind and God, come to the conclusion that the true understanding of all things derives from the withdrawal of the self from foreign influence and the necessity to look inward. Although each thinker’s journey or course of understanding was different, and at times rather contrasting, their ultimate realizations about knowledge are very coherent.