-18_A Free Man^s Worship.htm Bertrand Russell A Free Man's Worship Introduction As mankind drew nearer the twentieth century, we find an atmosphere that called for total freedom of the mind and spirit. The age of religion seemed to be drawing to a close. Even the morality derived from religion seemed to be receding into the background. The achievements of modern science, that confirmed the validity of the methods of free inquiry and verification through experience, provided the needed, leverage for securing a freedom undreamt of when religion reigned supreme among men and society. In fact, the spirit of freedom had begun in the early seventeenth century to assert i

Sermon on the Mount Introduction Jesus Christ's1 personality is indescribable. One cannot but be deeply attracted to this enigmatic, gentle, yet powerful figure. In the past, questions were raised as to whether his life is not mainly a fiction, a legend constructed around a much lesser personality. But today there seems to be a consensus that Jesus not only existed, but that he was truly as great as the accounts of his life portray him. Jesus has been described variously as a "true man of God", as the "Son of God", and even as what in India is called an Avatar. Whether or not Christ was quite similar to the person represented in the Gospels is perh

The Aim of Life An Overview In the course of the history of human endeavour, there have emerged four main theories of the aim of life in accordance with four different conceptions of truth of existence. These may be called the supracosmic, the cosmic and terrestrial, the supraterrestrial or other-worldly, and the integral or synthetic or composite. Human tendencies are complex and move often in various directions simultaneously. This explains why different aims of life are frequently pursued in some kind of ordered or disordered combination. Genuine integration or synthesis is rather rare. I The supracosmic view

Swami Vivekananda Have You seen God ? Introduction Described as "the soul of puissance if ever there was one, a very lion among men" he who came to be known the world over as Swami Vivekananda lived for only 39 years. He was born on January 12, 1863, and named Narendra Nath. His father Vishwanath Datta, was a well-known Calcutta attorney, and his mother, Bhuvaneshwari, was known as a highly intelligent woman. Narendra Nath' s early years were spent in a home characterised by purity and truthfulness. In his boyhood Narendra showed remarkable capacities of intellect, powers of concentration and qualities of courage, self-confidence and resourcefulne

PREFACE There are states and states of consciousness; there are profundities and Widenesses; there are heights over heights. To discover them one has to enlarge and explore ever-widening possibilities of psychological experience. In the depths of the being we may begin to integrate the threads and complexities of what we are and can become. It is there, perhaps, rather than in books or preachings, that we may begin to perceive and live what precisely is our aim of life. Free from dogmas and fixed beliefs, in the purity of experience, we may hope to discover the answer to the all-important questions: what am I to do? What role do I have to play in the vast and mysterious universe?

The Mother The Ascent to Truth Introduction The Mother was born in Paris on February 21, 1878, in a very materialistic, upper middle class family. She completed a thorough education of music, painting and higher mathematics. A student of the French painter Gustave Moreau, she befriended the great Impressionist artists of the time. She later became acquainted with Max Theon, an enigmatic character with extraordinary occult powers who, for the first time, gave her a coherent explanation of the spontaneous experiences occurring since her childhood, and who taught her occultism during two long visits to his estate in Algeria. In 1914 she

HOME

The World as I see It Introduction The man who became a world-famous scientist during his own lifetime did not do well at school. Albert Einstein's teacher wrote that he "could not be expected to make a success of anything. "1 In fact, he was late in learning to walk and did not speak fluently until he was nine. He later wrote that at the age of five he had been stirred by the mystery of a compass and he said: At the age of twelve I experienced a second wonder of a totally different nature in a little book dealing with Euclidean plane geometry... Here were assertions, as for example, the intersection of the three altitudes of a triangle in

One of the first surah, or chapters, of the Koran in a manuscript produced in the 16th century Submission to the Will of the Supreme Introduction The Koran is a transcript of the messages revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel. These revelations were supernaturally received, in states of trance, over a considerable number of years intermittently, the first dating from about AD 610, and the last shortly before Muhammad's passing away in AD 632. The quintessence of Muhammad's teaching is that there is one God, who transcends the world, and that the aim of life is to commit oneself to Him and to submit t

Rene Descartes Proofs of the Existence of God and of the Human Soul Introduction Pursuit of truth is easily acknowledged to be an ideal for every thinking and living being. But what is truth and how can it be pursued? This has been debated through the centuries. What is claimed to be true by some is opposed by others. Some believe that truth is what our physical senses perceive; some others believe that truth is what our reasoning mind comes to conceive as real; some others believe that truth can be known neither by the senses nor by the reasoning intellect; according to them, truth is given to us through