Yoga, meditation, and mysticism : contemplative universals and meditative landmarks / Kenneth Rose.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rose, Kenneth, 1951- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Meditation.

Contemplation.

Physical Description:

xiv, 245 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2016.

Summary:

Contemplative experience is central to Hindu yoga traditions, Buddhist meditation practices, and Catholic mystical theology, and, despite doctrinal differences, it expresses itself in suggestively similar meditative landmarks in each of these three meditative systems. In Yoga, Meditation and Mysticism, Kenneth Rose shifts the dominant focus of contemporary religious studies away from tradition-specific studies of individual religious traditions, communities, and practices to examine the 'contemplative universals' that arise globally in meditative experience. Through a comparative exploration of the itineraries detailed in the contemplative manuals of Theravada Buddhism, Patanjalian Yoga, and Catholic mystical theology, Rose identifies in each tradition a moment of sharply focused awareness that marks the threshold between immersion in mundane consciousness and contemplative insight. As concentration deepens, the meditator steps through this threshold onto a globally shared contemplative itinerary, which leads through a series of virtually identical stages to mental stillness and insight.

Contents:

A new comparative religion and the search for contemplative universals

Recovering the mystical in the reign of constructivism

Biological essentialism and the new sciences of religion

Charting the common itinerary of the contemplative experience

The concentrative itinerary of the Buddhist Jhonas

The concentrative itinerary of Yogic Samodhi

The concentrative itinerary of Catholic Unio Mystica.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Rose, Kenneth, 1951- author. Yoga, meditation, and mysticism.

ISBN:

9781472571687

1472571681

OCLC:

915495611