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The Secret of Secrets

The Secret of Secrets

Author: Osho

Publisher: National Geographic Books

ISBN: 9781780289977

Category: Body, Mind & Spirit

Page: 0

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Taoist teachings on life and existence—presented by one of the best-known and provocative spiritual teachers of our time In this unique series of discourses, Osho unravels The Secret of the Golden Flowers, an ancient text that he describes as the essence of Taoism. It is the core of all religions and spiritual paths, belonging to no one and belonging to all. More than 2,500 years old, this remarkable text continues to be as relevant today as it was to its contemporaries. Osho demystifies the important terms used by the Chinese mystic Lu Tsu and shares his meditation exercises. He also outlines the qualities of animus and anima—our male and female energies—as delineated by Lu Tsu, explaining the importance of their relationships inside each of us. He also provides many valuable techniques and gives specific instructions on the Taoist Golden Light Meditation, which involves harmonizing the male and female elements and transmuting sexual energy. A timeless collection of Osho’s talks on The Secret of the Golden Flower, this book will show you how to not remain a seed but to become what the Chinese called ‘a golden flower.’ Called the ‘one thousand-petaled lotus’ in India, the golden flower is a symbol that represents perfection, totality. It represents the actualization of potential—the beauty, the grandeur, and the splendor of being.

Religion, Learning and Science in the 'Abbasid Period

Religion, Learning and Science in the 'Abbasid Period

Author: M. J. L. Young

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 0521028876

Category: History

Page: 616

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The five centuries of the 'Abbasid period (eighth to thirteenth centuries AD) were the golden age of Arabic literature. They saw the appearance not only of poetry and belles-lettres (which are covered in a previous volume), but also of an extensive body of writings concerned with subjects ranging from theology and law to history and the natural sciences. This volume of The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature surveys the most important of these writings, including the literature of Sunnism and Shi'ism, Arabic philosophy, Sufism, Islamic law, grammar, lexicography, administration, historiography, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, geography, alchemy and medicine. It contains separate chapters on six of the greatest scholars of the Middle Ages, as well as on the Arabic literature of the Christians and Jews who lived under the rule of the 'Abbasid caliphate, and includes a study of one of the great cultural movements of the period, the translations from Greek into Arabic.

Covert Operations

Covert Operations

Author: Karma Lochrie

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

ISBN: 081220719X

Category: Law

Page: 306

View: 149

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Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Book In Covert Operations, Karma Lochrie brings the categories and cultural meanings of secrecy in the Middle Ages out into the open. Isolating five broad areas—confession, women's gossip, medieval science and medicine, marriage and the law, and sodomitic discourse—Lochrie examines various types of secrecy and the literary texts in which they are played out. She reads texts as central to Middle English studies as the "Parson's Tale," the "Miller's Tale," the Secretum Secretorum, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as well as a broad range of less familiar works, including a gynecological treatise and a little-known fifteenth-century parody in which gossip and confession become one. As she does so she reveals a great deal about the medieval past—and perhaps just as much about the early development of the concealments that shape the present day.

The Secret in Medieval Literature

The Secret in Medieval Literature

Author: Albrecht Classen

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

ISBN: 9781666917871

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 295

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The Secret in Medieval Literature explores the many secret agents, actions, creatures, and other beings influencing human existence. Medieval poets had a clear sense of the alternative dimension (the secret) and allowed it to enter quite frequently into their texts.

Franciscans and the Elixir of Life

Franciscans and the Elixir of Life

Author: Zachary A. Matus

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

ISBN: 9780812294064

Category: History

Page: 216

View: 159

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One of the major ambitions of medieval alchemists was to discover the elixir of life, a sovereign remedy capable not only of healing the body but of transforming it. Given the widespread belief that care for the body came at the cost of care for the soul, it might seem surprising that any Franciscan would pursue the elixir, but those who did were among its most outspoken and optimistic advocates. They believed they could distill a substance that would purify, transmute, and ennoble the human body as well as the soul. In an age when Christians across Europe were seeking material evidence for their faith and corporeal means of practicing their devotion, alchemy, and the elixir in particular, offered a way to bridge the terrestrial and the celestial. Framed as a history around science, Franciscans and the Elixir of Life focuses on alchemy as a material practice and investigates the Franciscan discourses and traditions that shaped the pursuit of the elixir, providing a rich examination of alchemy and religiosity. Zachary A. Matus makes new connections between alchemy, ritual life, apocalypticism, and the particular commitment of the Franciscan Order to the natural world, shedding new light on the question of why so many people claimed to have made, seen, or used alchemical compounds that could never have existed.

The Matter of Araby in Medieval England

The Matter of Araby in Medieval England

Author: Dorothee Metlitzki

Publisher: Yale University Press

ISBN: 0300114109

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 348

View: 590

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To understand the significance of Arabic material in medieval literature, we must recognize the concrete reality of Islam in the medieval European experience. Intimate contacts beginning with the Crusades yielded considerable knowledge about "Araby" beyond the merely stereotypical and propagandistic. Arabian culture was manifest in scientific and philosophical investigations; and the Arab presence pervaded medieval romance, where caricatures of Saracens were not merely a catering to popular taste but were a way of coping emotionally with a real threat. In England as well as in continental Europe, Islam figured in the best intellectual efforts of the age. Dorothee Metlitzki considers "Scientific and Philosophical Learning" in Part One of this book and discusses the transmission of Arabian culture, by way of the Crusades, and through the courts of Sicily and Spain. She sees the work of Latin translators from the Arabic in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as the background of a medieval heritage of learning that expressed itself in the subject matter, theme, and imagery not only of a scholar-poet like Chaucer but also of the poets of popular romance. In Part Two, "The Literary Heritage," Metlitzki deals with Arabian source books, with Araby in history and romance, and with Mandeville's Travels. She concludes with a general assessment of the cultural force of Araby in England during the middle Ages.

The Secret Life Of Secrets

The Secret Life Of Secrets

Author: Michael Slepian

Publisher: Hachette UK

ISBN: 9781472145130

Category: Psychology

Page: 256

View: 220

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'If you've ever wondered why we keep secrets and what motivates us to spill them, look no further' Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again An eye-opening look at why we keep the secrets we keep, how to better understand and cope with them, and when (and how) we should bring them to light. Think of a secret that you're keeping from others. It shouldn't take long. Psychologist Michael Slepian finds that, on average, we are keeping as many as thirteen secrets at any given time. His research, involving more than 50,000 participants from around the world, shows that we most frequently keep secrets about lies we've told, ambitions, addictions, mental health challenges, hidden relationships and financial struggles. Our secrets can weigh heavily upon us. Yet the burden of secrecy rarely stems from the work it takes to keep a secret hidden. Rather, the weight of our secrets comes from carrying them alone. Whether we are motivated to protect our reputation, a relationship, a loved one's feelings, or some personal or professional goal, one thing is clear: holding back some part of our inner world is often lonely and isolating. But it doesn't have to be. Filled with fresh insight into one of the most universal - yet least understood - aspects of human behaviour, The Secret Life of Secrets sheds fascinating new light on questions like: At what age do children develop the cognitive capacity for secrecy? Do all secrets come with the same mental load? How can we reconcile our secrets with our human desires to relate, connect and be known? When should we confess and to whom? And can keeping certain types of secrets actually enhance our well-being? Drawing on over a decade of original research, this book reveals the surprising ways in which secrets pervade our lives, and offers science-based strategies that make them easier to live with. The result is a rare window into the inner workings of our minds, our relationships and our sense of who we are.

The Likeness of the King

The Likeness of the King

Author: Stephen Perkinson

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

ISBN: 9780226658797

Category: Art

Page: 354

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Anyone who has strolled through the halls of a museum knows that portraits occupy a central place in the history of art. But did portraits, as such, exist in the medieval era? Stephen Perkinson's "The likeness of the king" challenges the canonical account of the invention of modern portrait practices, offering a case against the tendency of recent scholarship to identify likenesses of historical personages as "the first modern portraits". Focusing on the Valois court of France, he argues that local practice prompted shifts in the late medieval understanding of how images could represent individuals and prompted artists and patrons to deploy likeness in a variety of ways.

East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

Author: Albrecht Classen

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

ISBN: 9783110321517

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 827

View: 176

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This new volume explores the surprisingly intense and complex relationships between East and West during the Middle Ages and the early modern world, combining a large number of critical studies representing such diverse fields as literary (German, French, Italian, English, Spanish, and Arabic) and other subdisciplines of history, religion, anthropology, and linguistics. The differences between Islam and Christianity erected strong barriers separating two global cultures, but, as this volume indicates, despite many attempts to 'Other' the opposing side, the premodern world experienced an astonishing degree of contacts, meetings, exchanges, and influences. Scientists, travelers, authors, medical researchers, chroniclers, diplomats, and merchants criss-crossed the East and the West, or studied the sources produced by the other culture for many different reasons. As much as the theoretical concept of 'Orientalism' has been useful in sensitizing us to the fundamental tensions and conflicts separating both worlds at least since the eighteenth century, the premodern world did not quite yet operate in such an ideological framework. Even though the Crusades had violently pitted Christians against Muslims, there were countless contacts and a palpitable curiosity on both sides both before, during, and after those religious warfares.