The Inner Eye Of Love

The Inner Eye of Love offers a contemporary theology of mysticism that locates it at the very center of authentic religious experience. It provides as well a practical guide for meditation even as it maps out the oceanic experience toward which meditation points.

Examines the roots, origins, and biblical significance of the mystical tradition, presents a practical guide to meditation, and formulates a contemporary theology of mysticism that embraces both the Christian and Oriental religious experience

In The Relevance of Bernard Lonergan's Notion of Self-Appropriation to a Mystical-Political Theology, Ian Bell takes on the issue of the separation of the interior and exterior lives that has come to dominate mystical theology over the years. The mystical life, he claims, is necessarily involved in the establishment of social structures and institutions that govern human living, and the work of Bernard Lonergan on the human subject provides a means by which the connection between the interior and exterior lives may be established. Because human persons operate in a consistent pattern regardless of a given moment's particularities, mystical experience is no longer relegated to so-called spiritual matters, and the insights of mystics may be applied to the Christian call to live as agents of love. With this connection in place, mystical theology and political theology come together in a theology that is both mystical and political.

This four-part book deals with perception, design, technique, and experimentation and is directed at releasing the artist's inner self to gain a deeper, more personal perception of the physical world. 350 illustrations, 300 in full color.

Founded around 1700 by a group of German Lutherans known as Pietists, the Halle Orphanage became the institutional headquarters of a universal seminar that still stands largely intact today. It was the base of an educational, charitable, and scientific community and consisted of an elite school for the sons of noblemen; schools for the sons of artisans, soldiers, and preachers; a hospital; an apothecary; a bookshop; a botanical garden; and a cabinet of curiosity containing architectural models, naturalia, and scientific instruments. Yet, its reputation as a Pietist enclave inhabited largely by young people has prevented the organization from being taken seriously as a kind of scientific academy—even though, Kelly Joan Whitmer shows, this is precisely what it was. The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community calls into question a long-standing tendency to view German Pietists as anti-science and anti-Enlightenment, arguing that these tendencies have drawn attention away from what was actually going on inside the orphanage. Whitmer shows how the orphanage’s identity as a scientific community hinged on its promotion of philosophical eclecticism as a tool for assimilating perspectives and observations and working to perfect one’s abilities to observe methodically. Because of the link between eclecticism and observation, Whitmer reveals, those teaching and training in Halle’s Orphanage contributed to the transformation of scientific observation and its related activities in this period.

Satyajit Ray's work put India on the map of world cinema and led Akira Kurosawa to say of him: "Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon." Beginning with Pather Panchali, released fifty years ago this year, Ray won almost every major prize, including an Oscar for lifetime achievement. What makes him unparalleled in cinema is that he was personally responsible for all aspects of his films-from script to music. Published as a lavish album, the hundreds of illustrations in this book include drawings by Ray, film stills and photographs by Nemai Ghosh, who accompanied Ray and observed his work for nearly twenty-five years.

Love is the only hope. It is only because of love that man finds it possible to reach god. If there were no love there would be no religion, no prayer. If there were no love there would be no creativity, no music, no dance, no art, no poetry. If there were no love there would be no beauty, no friendship, no happiness, no intimacy. All that is valuable in life comes through love. Love is the source of all that is nourishing and fulfilling. Love is the only heavenly phenomenon on this earth. Everything else is earthly; therefore it is only through love that one can reach to god and heavenly states of being. Without love, life becomes dull, repetitive and unfulfilling. Love: The Most Precious Gift of Life shows us that we must live with love, because that is the only way to really live. The deeper and realer your love is, the deeper and more meaningful your life is. We must think of love and life as being the same and synonymous. If love has so many blessings, why do many couples struggle and face so many difficulties in their relationships? In the second part of Love: The Most Precious Gift of Life, the root social and psychological causes of these conflicts are uncovered, and a solution for solving each problem is also presented. And in doing so it helps us to keep our relationships healthy and intimate, and enable us to embrace love, and through love, reach to our highest potential which is self-realization and enlightenment.