General Eastern Religions category: 553 books

This comprehensive volume brings together a distinguished editorial team, including some of the field’s pioneers, to explore the aims, practice, and historical context of interfaith collaboration. Explores in full the background, history, objectives, and discourse between the leaders and practitioners...

Shamans throughout much of Asia are regarded as having the power to control and coerce spirits. Many Asians today still turn to shamans to communicate with the world of the dead, heal the sick, and explain enigmatic events. To understand Asian religions, therefore, a knowledge of shamanism is essential. Shamans...

In the religions of the world, there is strong emphasis on the practice of "purification" for the religious transformation of mind and body in connection with achieving such ultimate objectives as enlightenment and salvation. The contributors discuss the great diversity of forms and meanings...

Pequeño pero impactante, Reflexiones de Idries Shah es una colección de fábulas, aforismos y afirmaciones que desafían a la mente condicionada. El libro confronta al lector con perspectivas e ideas inusuales, en un intento de liberar la mente para ver las cosas como realmente son. El...

Small in size, but with a powerful punch, Idries Shah's Reflections is a collection of fables, aphorisms, and statements that challenge the conditioned mind. The book confronts the reader with unaccustomed perspectives and ideas, in an attempt to set the mind free, to see how things really are. As the...

In Idries Shah's Wisdom of the Idiots, the 'idiots' are Sufis, called this because their wisdom penetrates to a depth which renders it inaccessible to the merely intelligent or academically-knowledgeable. The exercise-stories of the Sufis are tools prepared for a specific purpose.On this level the movements...

In a darkened room a group of men once sought to examine an elephant.Taking hold of a different part - an ear, a leg, the tail - each one mistook his particular part for the whole. In the darkness, each of the men became convinced that the elephant was the object he himself had felt - a fan, a rope,...

Sufi Thought and ActionPreviously published only as separate essays, Sufi Thought and Action - assembled and introduced by Idries Shah - covers an extraordinary diversity of Sufi ideas and activities in many countries and cultures. Included in the volume are papers on Sufi Principles and Learning Methods;...

Special Illumination is a term used by the great poet and mystic Jalaluddin Rumi to stress the importance of humor in metaphysical experience. Of it, Idries Shah says, 'Rumi directly contradicts such numerous sour-faced religionists as, in all persuasions, find that humor disturbs the indoctrination which is all that they usually have to offer.'

A treasure house of teaching materials, assembled in the Sufi manner. Seeker after Truth contains both traditional tales and stories gleaned from contemporary sources, and snippets of table talk, discussions and teachings, letters and lectures by Idries Shah. Taken together, it constitutes a handbook of materials designed to provoke a different kind of thought.

Although enormously attractive as sheer entertainment, Dervish tales were never presented merely on the level of a fable, legend or folklore. They stand comparison in wit, construction and piquancy with the finest stories of any culture, yet their true function as Sufi teaching stories is so little-known...

The Way of the Sufi presents an unparalleled cross-section of material from Sufi schools, teachings and classical writings, as a basic course of Sufi study. The author begins with the outward aspects of the teaching most likely to puzzle the student coming fresh to the subject. He considers various attitudes...

Written with reader accessibility in mind, this comprehensive handbook of symbolism in Chinese art and culture will be an invaluable resource for any student of Eastern art history, Chinese arts and crafts, and anyone interested in commonly held Chinese beliefs and their origins. In Chinese...

Traditionally known as The Hundred Tales of Wisdom, this collection comprises excerpts from the life, teachings and miracles of the Sufi teacher Jalaluddin Rumi, together with certain important stories from his works. As well as being part of the bedrock of classical Persian literature, these...