Showing results by author "David Lane"

I recently came upon an old book entitled Famous Men in Science by Sarah Knowles Bolton that was first published in 1889. In her enjoyable and easy to read text, Bolton provides a glimpse of 14 distinguished thinkers, ranging from such luminaries as Carl Linnaeus to Louis Agassiz. Since the book is not readily available, here at the MSAC Philosophy Group we thought it might be helpful to select four biographies from Famous Men in Science and republish them in a new and readable format.

This book describes the life and work of eight Indian mystics, including Ramana Maharshi, Sawan Singh, Paramahansa Yogananda, Baba Faqir Chand, Sushil Kumar, Tripta Devi, and Pratap Singh. Includes the author's personal interaction with several of them, as well as a detailed account of shabd yoga and the inner journey that occurs during meditation.

This is an abridged edition of a classic text on Rumi and Sufism which was first published in London in 1920 under the title The Persian Mystics and authored by F. Hadland Davis. This special edition contains selections from the poetry of Rumi. Also included is an analysis of Sufism and the concept of love. Edited by Professor David Christopher Lane, PhD.

I first critiqued Ken Wilber on his misunderstanding of evolution back in 1996, right after his book A Brief History of Everything was published. It has now been 18 years and if anything, Wilber has become even more firmly entrenched in his new brand of creationism, which ironically mimics much of what Christian fundamentalists object to about Darwinianism.

This book covers four distinct areas concerning the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Taken as a whole, it provides a new way of looking at Jesus and early Christianity.

One of the most significant discoveries of modern science is that the world we perceive around us is not as it appears. Rather, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and quantum physics have demonstrated that our day-to-day reality is a relative construct, built upon a scaffolding of information bits that betray their real origin and causation.  

The MSAC Philosophy Group is pleased to announce a new edition of that timeless classic in spiritual literature, The Dhammapada. Attributed to Buddha, this early text in Buddhism sheds a clear light on the teachings of the four noble truths and the eightfold path. This translation is from Max Mueller, the famous 19th century Indologist.

This book is an abbreviated selection from the original 1910 book, The Master as I Saw Him, written by Bhagini ("Sister") Nivedita. Although there are now a number of newer publications of this classic (due to the fact it is now in the public domain), I thought it might be helpful to come out with an abbreviated edition, which focuses on the first quarter of the book. It is my hope that this short volume may serve as but an introductory glimpse into the life and work of one of the truly outstanding exponents of Indian philosophy and spirituality. 

Sri Ramakrishna is one of the most thoroughly studied saints in the last 150 years. He is by any measure one of the most extraordinary mystics to have emerged from India. Ramakrishna has impacted the lives of millions around the world and he continues to intrigue and puzzle spiritual seekers and scholars alike. After reading many of Sri Ramakrishna’s wonderful sayings, filled with such rich and earthly analogies, I thought it would be instructive to choose 88 of his insights and put them in a short, introductory book.

Although there is now a plethora of books by and about Rumi, I thought it might be instructive to republish a small portion of Edward Henry Whinfield's English translation of Rumi's Persian masterpiece. I think it is vitally important in today's social climate to focus on those aspects of Islam which elevate humankind and I can think of no better place to start than with the Sufi mystics of Islam, of which Rumi is the most famous (and perhaps finest) example.

The idea that the world is an illusion that betrays its real origin has a long tradition and can be found in the writings of Hindu rishis, early Greek philosophers, and Christian Gnostics. What is perhaps surprising is to find such a rich literature on the subject in neuroscience and quantum physics. The latest, and perhaps most provocative, idea to gain some currency in varying scientific disciplines is the hypothesis that the universe is the result of a computational simulation....

Was Sathya Sai Baba, the world-famous guru from India who just recently died, really an avatar of God, or was he merely a sleight-of-hand magician who deceived millions with his tricks? This critical study provides overwhelming evidence to suggest that Sai Baba was not what he claimed to be.

Surprisingly, one of the more lucid insights on the philosophy of the Tibetan Book of the Dead comes from a Hindu mystic, named Baba Faqir Chand, who apparently was not familiar with the original Tibetan text or its English translation. Although Faqir was not conversant with the Bardo Thotrol, he was nevertheless steeped in its philosophy as taught to him by his guru, Shiv Brat Lal of Gopiganj. Faqir Chand, like his lama counterparts, spent much of his life in meditation, attempting to consciously go through the dying process in order to prepare himself for his final exit.

Samuel Butler, although an evolutionist (but not of the Darwinian kind), postulated a radical theory about God as both known and unknown, suggesting a kind of creative energy throughout the universe. His ideas are somewhat gnostic, though they don't fall into any one camp. Here is Butler's book, God Known and God Unknown in a new format, with an astute review of Butler's God that was written after Butler's death and published in 1918.

According to Littlewood's Law of Miracles (based on the theory of large numbers and probability), you should expect something truly unusual to happen every 35 days - so strange, in fact, that it will look like a miracle. This book explains how the improbable is probable by focusing on desultory decussation (where two random events from an interesting intersection - a synchronicity) and Littlewood's work in number theory at Cambridge University in the last century. Also explains such concepts as apohenia and patternicity.

According to Steven Pinker in his new book, Enlightenment Now, the best time is precisely now. The only thing holding us back is waking up to it. Lest we forget, we are the lucky 8 billion who have been favored to be born human. We are, in sum, winners in the Darwinian lottery of life. This audiobook provides an illustrated glimpse into Pinker's idea that things have gotten better on planet Earth. Also provides new insights into a concept called "The Meta-Person Project".

The moral imperative behind vegetarianism is precisely this: to imagine the pain of an animal and then to ask yourself one straightforward question: Do I need to kill it in order to live? And, if you do not need to eat animals to live a good life, then ask yourself the following, and perhaps more pertinent, questions: Is slaughtering a cow, beheading a chicken, or hooking a fish necessary? Is my palate the driving force behind my ethical values?

Perhaps the study of consciousness has an inherent limitation, similar in import to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics or Gödel’s incompleteness theorem in mathematics. Perhaps we are like seasoned travelers on a Mobius strip in quest of the “other” side of the band who after long and arduous circular travels come to realize that no matter what route we take we will always only be touching the same surface.

This book contains brief stories about famous Hindu myths, including Ganesha, Garuda, and Rama. It also includes two pertinent excerpts on advaita vedanta or non-dualist thinking from one of its earliest exponents and one from a famous modern sage, Ramana Maharshi.

It is not too often that a brilliant scientist is also a wonderfully gifted writer. Sir Arthur Eddington was both. Brought up as a Quaker (he was a pacifist during World War One), Eddington was by all accounts a brilliant mathematician and physicist, who eventually became a professor of astronomy at Cambridge University. Sir Arthur Eddington is perhaps most famous for partially confirming Albert Einstein's theory of relativity back in 1919.