The Dream Of Enlightenment

Anthony Gottlieb’s landmark The Dream of Reason and its sequel challenge Bertrand Russell’s classic as the definitive history of Western philosophy. Western philosophy is now two and a half millennia old, but much of it came in just two staccato bursts, each lasting only about 150 years. In his landmark survey of Western philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance, The Dream of Reason, Anthony Gottlieb documented the first burst, which came in the Athens of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Now, in his sequel, The Dream of Enlightenment, Gottlieb expertly navigates a second great explosion of thought, taking us to northern Europe in the wake of its wars of religion and the rise of Galilean science. In a relatively short period—from the early 1640s to the eve of the French Revolution—Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume all made their mark. The Dream of Enlightenment tells their story and that of the birth of modern philosophy. As Gottlieb explains, all these men were amateurs: none had much to do with any university. They tried to fathom the implications of the new science and of religious upheaval, which led them to question traditional teachings and attitudes. What does the advance of science entail for our understanding of ourselves and for our ideas of God? How should a government deal with religious diversity—and what, actually, is government for? Such questions remain our questions, which is why Descartes, Hobbes, and the others are still pondered today. Yet it is because we still want to hear them that we can easily get these philosophers wrong. It is tempting to think they speak our language and live in our world; but to understand them properly, we must step back into their shoes. Gottlieb puts readers in the minds of these frequently misinterpreted figures, elucidating the history of their times and the development of scientific ideas while engagingly explaining their arguments and assessing their legacy in lively prose. With chapters focusing on Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Pierre Bayle, Leibniz, Hume, Rousseau, and Voltaire—and many walk-on parts—The Dream of Enlightenment creates a sweeping account of what the Enlightenment amounted to, and why we are still in its debt.

'This is a blast of fresh air' Jonathan Clark, TLS 'Thank goodness for Gottlieb' Daily Telegraph 'A joy to read' Economist The author of the celebrated The Dream of Reason vividly explains the rise of modern thought from Descartes to Rousseau Western philosophy is now two and a half millennia old, but much of it came in just two staccato bursts, each lasting only about 150 years. In his landmark survey of Western philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance, The Dream of Reason, Anthony Gottlieb documented the first of these, which came in the Athens of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Now, in The Dream of Enlightenment, Gottlieb expertly navigates the second great explosion of thought, taking us to northern Europe in the wake of its wars of religion and the rise of Galilean science. In a relatively short period - from the early 1640s to the eve of the French Revolution - Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume all made their mark. The Dream of Enlightenment tells their story and that of the birth of modern philosophy. As Gottlieb explains, all these men were amateurs: none had much to do with any university. They tried to fathom the implications of the new science and of religious upheaval, which led them to question traditional teachings and attitudes. What does the advance of science entail for our understanding of ourselves and for our ideas of God? How should a government deal with religious diversity - and what is government actually for? Such questions remain our questions. Yet it is because we still want to hear them that we can easily get these philosophers wrong. It is tempting to think they speak our language and live in our world; but to understand them properly, we must step back into their shoes. Gottlieb puts readers in the minds of these frequently misinterpreted figures, elucidating the history of their times while engagingly explaining their arguments and assessing their legacy. The Dream of Enlightenment creates a sweeping account of what they amounted to, and why we are still in their debt.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The seeds of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment were sown in the seventeenth century, when some people began to think that history was the wrong way round. It was not Plato and Aristotle who were the ancients to be revered, but the admirable ancients are us. #2 Bacon was an advocate of careful and systematic observation, and he adopted as the mascot of the Royal Society of London, one of Europe’s first clubs of scientific investigators. #3 Descartes was a particularly knowledgeable man, but he is more famous for what he claimed to doubt than what he actually knew. He asked how he could be certain that he was not dreaming, and how he could be certain that some deceitful demon was not filling his head with falsehoods. #4 Descartes was able to speak with authority about the new science, as he was one of its principal authors. He built a unified account of nature that was as all-encompassing as Aristotle’s, but based on the un-Aristotelian mechanical principle that physical phenomena are to be explained in terms of contact between moving bodies and the motions and shapes of their parts.

"His book...supplant[s] all others, even the immensely successful History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell."—A. C. Grayling Already a classic, this landmark study of early Western thought now appears in a new edition with expanded coverage of the Middle Ages. This landmark study of Western thought takes a fresh look at the writings of the great thinkers of classic philosophy and questions many pieces of conventional wisdom. The book invites comparison with Bertrand Russell's monumental History of Western Philosophy, "but Gottlieb's book is less idiosyncratic and based on more recent scholarship" (Colin McGinn, Los Angeles Times). A New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Best Book, and a Times Literary Supplement Best Book of 2001.

Dirty Enlightenment is a stripped-down, radical presentation of the Nature of Reality and your spiritual place in it. In actuality, you are a miraculously present infinite field of transcendental being presenting itself to itself as subtle radiant energy of pure intelligence. This truth is consonant with the view of Dzogchen, Kashmir Shaivism, Kundalini Yoga, primal Buddhism, and with all radical spiritual traditions. Since this is already and eternally the sole condition, the spiritual challenge is merely to recognize that this is the case. With the simple recognition of the nature of your actual condition, you are freed from the confused implications of any misinterpretations of what your condition is, that you may have been laboring under. The apparent "imperfection" that you may believe your life to be, is in fact already and inherently an entirely transcendental, miraculous eternal perfection, and it can be easy to discover this fact with self-verifying certainty.

Eihei Dogen, the founder of the Japanese branch of the Soto Zen Buddhist school, is considered one of the world's most remarkable religious philosophers. Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist is a comprehensive introduction to the genius of this brilliant thinker. This thirteenth-century figure has much to teach us all and the questions that drove him have always been at the heart of Buddhist practice. At the age of seven, in 1207, Dogen lost his mother, who at her death earnestly asked him to become a monastic to seek the truth of Buddhism. We are told that in the midst of profound grief, Dogen experienced the impermanence of all things as he watched the incense smoke ascending at his mother's funeral service. This left an indelible impression upon the young Dogen; later, he would emphasize time and again the intimate relationship between the desire for enlightenment and the awareness of impermanence. His way of life would not be a sentimental flight from, but a compassionate understanding of, the intolerable reality of existence. At age 13, Dogen received ordination at Mt. Hiei. And yet, a question arose: "As I study both the exoteric and the esoteric schools of Buddhism, they maintain that human beings are endowed with Dharma-nature by birth. If this is the case, why did the buddhas of all ages - undoubtedly in possession of enlightenment - find it necessary to seek enlightenment and engage in spiritual practice?" When it became clear that no one on Mt. Hiei could give a satisfactory answer to this spiritual problem, he sought elsewhere, eventually making the treacherous journey to China. This was the true beginning of a life of relentless questioning, practice, and teaching - an immensely inspiring contribution to the Buddhadharma. As you might imagine, a book as ambitious as Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist has to be both academically rigorous and eminently readable to succeed. Professor Hee-Jim Kim's work is indeed both.

This work represents both an ending and a beginning and that is much the way life is....endings and beginnings. Dreams begin and end. Lives begin and end. There is one thing, however, that has no end and that is our Consciousness. Within this work I explore Life in the context of a Dream and the impact of our eventual awakening within that Dream. We all carry the seeds of awakening within us and at just that right moment, we will all awaken from The Dream.

Today, the long-assumed belief in the permanence of an enlightened world is suddenly open to challenge. Human rights, participatory government, and social justice are losing global influence, and the world of ordinary people is pushing back against Enlightenment conceits. Accumulated anger links Taliban, Tea Party, and Trump, threatening women's rights, social justice, and democracy. To understand and counteract the threat to these ideas, we must set aside embedded explanations and embrace a new frame of observation and tolerance grounded in the power of belief, legend, and tradition. In Rebuilding an Enlightened World, Bill Ivey explores how folklore offers a unique and compelling new way to understand the underlying forces disrupting the world today. If we are to salvage the best of the Enlightenment dream and build a better future, we must begin to listen, patiently and inquisitively, in order to interpret the customs, norms, and traditional practices that shape all human behavior.

Romantic Motives explores a topic that has been underemphasized in the historiography of anthropology. Tracking the Romantic strains in the the writings of Rousseau, Herder, Cushing, Sapir, Benedict, Redfield, Mead, Lévi-Strauss, and others, these essays show Romanticism as a permanent and recurrent tendency within the anthropological tradition.

A MASTERPIECE of illuminative writing, Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing is mandatory reading for anyone following a spiritual path. Part exposé and part how-to manual, this is the first book to explain why failure seems to be the rule in the search for enlightenment, and how the rule can be broken. :: Book One of Jed McKenna's Enlightenment Trilogy. Contains Bonus Material.

"His book...supplant[s] all others, even the immensely successful History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell."—A. C. Grayling Already a classic, this landmark study of early Western thought now appears in a new edition with expanded coverage of the Middle Ages. This landmark study of Western thought takes a fresh look at the writings of the great thinkers of classic philosophy and questions many pieces of conventional wisdom. The book invites comparison with Bertrand Russell's monumental History of Western Philosophy, "but Gottlieb's book is less idiosyncratic and based on more recent scholarship" (Colin McGinn, Los Angeles Times). A New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Best Book, and a Times Literary Supplement Best Book of 2001.

“Goes through the entire gamut of topics covered by the Vedas, making use of yoga, detachment, the ego, karma, dharma, love, meditation and much more.” —East and West Magazine This complete guide to enlightenment presents the wisdom of the ancient science of self-inquiry, a time-tested means for achieving spiritual freedom. The author discusses the purpose of self-inquiry, the quest for lasting happiness, issues of identity and transcendence, the role of wisdom and action, and the subconscious obstacles to freedom. He convincingly refutes the popular view that enlightenment is a unique state of consciousness and debunks a host of other enlightenment myths. In his straightforward style he reveals proven methods for purifying the mind, and includes chapters on love, the science of energy transformation and meditation. He takes the reader from the beginning to the end of the spiritual path, patiently unfolding the logic of self-inquiry. “Vedanta is the original systemized enlightenment teaching, and James does an extraordinary job of extracting the essential nectar of the teachings from its dusty, ancient, Sanskrit origins and elucidating it with utmost clarity. One review cannot do this teaching, with its rich history and depth, even a modicum of justice. James’s book is the best introduction there is to this subject.” —Consciousness Junkie “Explains methods of Vedanta in his survey of spiritual techniques, pairing theory with practice and explaining the myths and realities behind an enlightened state. From reflections on moving to a larger living space and clutter to assimilating experiences, How to Attain Enlightenment is a powerful survey any new age library needs.” —The Bookwatch

Complete Enlightenment is the first authoritative translation and commentary on The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, a central text that shaped the development of East Asian Buddhism and Ch'an (Chinese Zen). The text is set in the form of a transcription of discussions between the Buddha and the twelve enlightened beings(bodhisattvas), who question him on all aspects of spiritual practice. This new translation preserves all the liveliness and nuance of the text in the original Chinese. The sutra's ancient wisdom is brought to life by the commentaries of Master Sheng Yen, one of the most revered living Buddhist masters in the Ch'an lineage. This is truly a manual for the spiritual journey toward complete enlightenment, providing the key to the deep, poetic, and practical meanings of the scripture.

Can you be on a spiritual path and run a money-making business? Yes! When you align your business with your purpose, it’s easy to pursue both. Irina Mihaela’s Entrepreneur Enlightenment philosophy combines practical business strategies with spiritual principles and personal transformation, teaching you how to transcend your ego and fears and do business with love. Find out how you can achieve enlightenment through entrepreneurship: • Discover your life’s purpose and turn it into a successful business • Develop your marketing and sales materials and get clients • Release the fears of receiving money and set your prices right • Relieve financial pressures to change your energy • Establish yourself as a leader for yourself and your clients From clarifying your purpose to defining your niche and learning to love marketing and sales, this book is a unique take on creating a thriving business.

Are you seeking Enlightenment? Can you be Enlightened? Is Enlightenment a gift for a select few - for intellectual saints and sages? No, we have been gifted with a human birth so that we all can attain Enlightenment. Unfortunately we are not able to be enlightened because we are living with the myth and we do not Realize the Truth. To Realize the Truth, to be Enlightened, we have to unlearn the lies and bust the myth that we have lived with. This book will help you be enlightened with the Truth as it discriminates the Truth from the Myth associated with life, religion, God and spirituality.

What is truth? That question is difficult to answer unless we know our own truths, how our minds work, and why we feel the way we do about the world we live in. With that in mind, Henry Rathbun combines personal anecdotes with hypnosis methodologies, meditation, and ancient teachings in order to encourage others to embrace a simpler way to experience life. As a former professional hypnotist, Rathbun learned much living between two worlds: the subconscious minds of others and his own reality. While providing a glimpse into his personal experiences during a time when he faced many challenges, Rathbun shares life lessons that reveal fresh insights and spiritual and revelatory concepts that point to profound truths about the human mind, reality, and a deeper meaning of life. Guided by an unseen force “Hank” leads others down a rugged path to self-enlightenment in his simple and honest way, leaning on the trained stillness in his own mind. Living with Enlightenment is an inspirational story of one man’s journey into the truth of God, the dualism of mind, and the burden of human suffering.

BOOK DESCRIPTION Although dreams have been studied in great depth about this most influential classic Chinese fiction, the study of all the dreams as a sequence and in relation to their structural functions in the allegory is undertaken for the first time in this book. Major topics include: Dream Sequence as the Narrative Framework; The Co-existence of Dream and Reality; Discourse on Love: Daguanyuan and Its Literary Lineage; Medieval Allegory: Its Origin and Its Representation; Dream as Representation of Allegory: The Roman de la Rose and Honglou meng. THE AUTHOR Jeannie Jinsheng Yi earned her Ph.D. degree in Asian Studies from Washington University. Author of several books in both English and Chinese, she has been writing extensively on topics related to China and Asia.

Lucid dreaming like you've never seen before.The complete alchemical elixir: Transform Lucid Dreaming into Non-dual Dream Yoga Lucid dreaming is an ancient art that has been practiced for over two millennia. However, throughout the eons, the essence of lucid dreaming seems to have been forgotten. Instead of being a path toward self-transcendence, lucid dreaming became the goal-and its biggest treasure was lost. A plague of thoughts and conceptual analysis posing as "genuine knowledge"; an entanglement in old dogmatic traditions and lineages filled with rhetoric that reinforces the ego narrative and sense of separation; or a general lack of an enlightenment-oriented non-dual perspective-these are common symptoms in many lucid dreaming books and teachings. But this work is not a common lucid dreaming book; it is for those on the path to enlightenment-it elevates this ancient art into its rightful place. What you will find in the book: Rare Lucid Dreaming and Dream Yoga wisdom and insights not found anywhere else. Instructions on how to have and induce a lucid dream. Practices on how to purify and reprogram your subconscious mind through Lucid Dreaming. Learning how to interact with dream characters and archetypal figures and how they can help you in your spiritual path. The knowledge of how to transform nightmares into illuminating dreams. Learning how to perform any type of spiritual practice within the dream state. Teachings on how to elevate the practice of lucid dreaming into non-dual Dream Yoga to realize your true nature (enlightenment). Revealing how to awaken and become lucid in the dream of "real life." The Transcendence of the post-death Bardo state. Unforgettable vivid dreams and the increased chance of experiencing spontaneous lucid dreams, as your mind soaks in this book's wisdom and energy. And much more. More than being just a guide to discover lucid dreaming, this book is a guide to discover and transcend the lucid dreamer-a guide to Self-discovery and Self-realization. Every night you are resuscitated from the darkness of sleep by the light of dreams. Will you continue to neglect this other facet of your existence and sleep through them with ignorance, or will you awaken to the infinite potential that the dream state can bring-an awakening into the eternal state of unfathomable bliss? Only you can decide. The opportunity? It is in your hands, right here, right now.

Against the backdrop of ever-increasing nationalist violence during the last decade of the twentieth century, this book challenges standard analyses of nation formation by elaborating on the nation's dream-like hold over the modern social imagination. Stathis Gourgouris argues that the national fantasy lies at the core of the Enlightenment imaginary, embodying its central paradox: the intertwining of anthropological universality with the primacy of a cultural ideal. Crucial to the operation of this paradox and fundamental in its ambiguity is the figure of Greece, the universal alibi and cultural predicate behind national-cultural consolidation throughout colonialist Europe. The largely unpredictable institution of a modern Greek nation in 1830 undoes the interweaving of Enlightenment and Philhellenism, whose centrifugal strands continue to unravel the certainty of European history, down to the internal predicaments of the European Union or the tragedy of the Balkan conflicts. This 25th Anniversary edition of the book includes a new preface by the author in which he situates the book's original insights in retrospect against the newer developments in the social and political conditions of a now globalized world: the neocolonial resurgence of nationalism and racism, the failure of social democratic institutions, the crisis of sovereignty and citizenship, and the brutal conditions of stateless peoples.