Songs Of Ecstasy

This book offers the first English translation of a body of highly esoteric, mystical poetry and songs associated with the Khartabhajas, a Bengali sect devoted to Tantrism. The period from the late 18th to the early 19th century, during which these lyrics were written, was an era of change, experimentation, and transition from the older medieval styles to the new literary forms of "modern" Bengal. The highly original songs presented here are an important part of this transitional period, reflecting the search for new literary forms and experimentation in new poetic styles.

At the evolution of music and introduces surprising new concepts of memory and perception, knowledge and attention, motion and emotion, all at work as music takes hold of us. Along the way, a fascinating cast of characters brings Jourdain's narrative to vivid life: "idiots savants" who absorb whole pieces on a single hearing, composers who hallucinate entire compositions, a psychic who claimed to take dictation from long-dead composers, and victims of brain damage who.

"Harvey B. Milkman and Stanley Sunderwirth have written a tour de force. Craving for Ecstasy and Natural Highs: A Positive Approach to Mood Alteration . . . is a beautifully written and organized book . . . a thrill ride through the most innovative and insightful perspectives that science and clinical experience have to offer . . . hip and artistic, reflecting a deep understanding of addiction . . . a major contribution to the field; it is must reading." - Howard J. Shaffer, PhD, CAS Editor, Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School Director, Division on Addictions, Cambridge Health Alliance "Reading this book is in itself and ecstatic experience! . . . a fascinating journey that explores the benefits and risks of pleasure and the universal desire to feel good . . . It's quite a trip." - G. Alan Marlatt, PhD, University of Washington People from all walks of life often lose themselves in pursuing counterfeit pleasures--cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, thrill seeking, sex, food, gambling, and on-line fantasies to name just a few. How does the pursuit of pleasure result in compulsion and loss of control? Craving for Ecstasy and Natural Highs addresses this fundamental question and then explores positive ways to achieve lasting happiness and fulfillment. Readers will gain important insight on how to improve their own quality of life and will learn how to offer support to clients, students, family, and friends whose lives may be compromised by hedonic dependencies. Students of addictive behaviors and anyone interested in discovering healthy means to satisfy the drive to alter consciousness will find this book compelling. Reviews of previous work: "The chemistry and psychology of addiction are described with considerable insight. . . . These authors know their stuff and make a compelling case." - The Los Angeles Times "The authors provide a valuable service by placing into perspective a large array of behaviors that could be considered addictive." - JAMA

Talks on Adi Shankara’s Bhaj Govindam “Shankara is a unique person. And it is very easy to misunderstand the unique person because he is beyond your common understanding. It seemed to people that he was a logician, a great logician. But can a great logician say, ‘Sing! Dance! Sing the song of the divine’? It is just not possible for him to say so. Such words can be spoken only by a lover of the divine from the depths of his heart.” —OSHO The eighth-century enlightened mystic, Adi Shankaracharya, traveled across India arguing, debating and defeating all the renowned scholars, theologians and religious leaders of the time, but at the same time he never forgot to sing his song of ecstasy and live his joy in life. Shankara is a man close to Osho’s heart – a man who has an enlightened consciousness, a towering intellect, but who also came to understand, from his own experience, the opportunities for awareness and self-understanding that living each moment “in the marketplace” can give. As he comments on Shankara’s Bhaj Govindam, his song of ecstasy, and responds to related questions, Osho introduces his vision of the New Man, the whole man – joyous, silent, ecstatic; repressing nothing, delighting in and watching everything.

This book presents a thematic analysis of various aspects of solitude, silence and loneliness, from the ancient world to the present day, explored thematically with consideration to the links between aloneness to other social and political issues. The themes include exile (expulsion from a community), ecstasy (getting 'out of oneself') and enstasy (being comfortable within oneself), to the Romantic idea of the artist as solitary. There is work on aloneness in and through nature, especially the importance of natural settings for positive experiences of solitude. A central theme is alienation and its emotions, with the idea of loneliness and the rejected self being a more modern experience. The book explores modernism and postmodernism as presenting new forms of solitude in the twentieth century, and how, more recently, there have been attempts to 'recover' the self, through therapeutic uses of the arts. All of these types and experiences of aloneness are described through the lenses of artistic, literary and musical forms of expression, as aloneness is not only explored and articulated through these art forms, but is in many ways created through these art forms.

Love is such a unique journey for all of us. It teaches us so many things. It teaches us who we are, who we are not, who we want to be, what we want and do not want. It teaches us about joy, pain, pleasure and compromise. It stretches us to our limits and takes us to places we had not been before "love" came along. It can sweep you away. It can warm your heart. It can make you want to run away and it can make you want to stay. Through love's journey in my life and writing about it I have become more intimate with myself learning much along the way about myself, others, life, compassion, empathy. It has brought me to a whole new depth with my own being.