Showing results by publisher "Audio Connoisseur" in Religion & Spirituality

It is an undoubted fact that the message of Vivekananda has influenced, inspired, and transformed thousands of lives. Here are some quotations from the great spiritual leader for the benefit of those who do not have time to go through his voluminous writings and speeches so that they may get at least a partial glimpse of the strength and sublimity of his teachings. Listeners should be aware that Vivekananda spoke to a wide variety of students and followers, whose religions, cultures, and national origins differed widely.

One of the most remarkable historical works of the 19th century came from the pen of French historian Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, a native of Paris. This amazing analysis of family and religious life among the ancient Greeks and Romans is the key to understanding ancient Mediterranean civilizations. The story begins in the misty period of the Bronze Age as the Indo-Europeans began to filter down into the Italian and Greek peninsulas. They brought with them a patriarchy that was based on ancestor worship and the veneration of hearth gods.

Dante's Divine Comedy is considered to be not only the most important epic poem in Italian literature, but also one of the greatest poems ever written. It consists of 100 cantos, and (after an introductory canto) they are divided into three sections. Each section is 33 cantos in length, and they describe how Dante and a guide travel through Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.

The Gospel of John is the fourth of the four gospels in the New Testament which describe the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It begins with the witness and affirmation by John the Baptist and concludes with the death, burial, Resurrection, and post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus. Of all the books in the New Testament, John is the most popular.

Although theologians are apt to explain away these teachings in various ways, the Vedantists believe Christ meant what he said. Listen to this remarkable recording and discover how Vedanta goes to the very heart of Christ's teaching.Vedanta came to the West in the late 19th century, not to supplant any religion, but to bring a more tangible spirituality to those who seek it. Its goal has never been to proselytize, but to help man realize the divinity within him.

The story of Muhammad is extremely fascinating, and leaves us wondering where the boundaries exist between reality and myth. All of the world's great religions have this trait in common, without exception. But Muhammad's life has a whiff of the fabulist about it that reminds us of the great literary traditions of Islam, more especially of the style of the tales in the Arabian Nights. Everything about Muhammad, from his birth to his death, displays an aura of inevitability and dramatic tension.

The Book of Psalms is a book in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles consisting of 150 poems originally written to be chanted or sung and accompanied by musical instruments. In fact, the word "psalm" comes from the Greek word "psalmoi", meaning "songs sung to a harp". In content they express virtually the entire range of the Jewish religious experience and faith.

In Waking Up, Swami Yogeshananda takes on some of the most profound questions that mankind has ever thought to ask. Using Vedanta, a spiritual philosophy that harmonizes the basic tenets of all the world's religions, Yogeshananda seeks to broaden one's faith, whatever it may be, and exapnd the world's capacity for compassion. This is a far-reaching book with infinite spiritual possibilities.

At the beginning of the 16th century, a religious revolution shattered the outward appearance of conformity among Europe's Roman Catholics...a conformity that had been the basis of Western European unity for over a thousand years. Why did it happen? In this brilliant history, Professor Mosse exposes the crisis of the Papacy in preceeding centuries and shows how the need for reform was continually being delayed until it was simply too late.