Having been raised as a Catholic and educated in the West, then trained as a monk in India since the 1980s, Canadian author Swami Muktananda of Rishikesh is uniquely positioned to bring the Eastern tradition of Vedanta to Western spiritual seekers. In Awakening to the Infinite, he answers the eternal, fundamental question posed by philosophical seekers, "Who am I?" with straightforward simplicity. Knowing who you are and adopting a spiritual outlook, he counsels, can help solve problems in daily life (...) to do with relationships, work, children, sexuality, illness, and social injustice. In answering the question "Who am I?," Swami Muktananda of Rishikesh draws on the ancient teachings of advaita or nonduality, the truth that there is no division between ourselves and others at a fundamental level. The book is drawn from the many conversations he has throughout the year meeting with individuals from different backgrounds, cultures, and walks of life, as well as public talks and question and answer sessions. Covering subjects ranging from the spiritual path to everyday problems, Muktananda addresses questions with simplicity and compassion, from the standpoint of someone who is anchored in the infinite but fully in touch with the world. His teaching follows the words of Christ and the Old Testament as well as those of the sages of India, who all proclaim a universal truth that transcends all religions: 'You are not the body; you are not the mind; you are the immortal, divine Self. Realize this and be free.'. (shrink)

Swami Satyananda Saraswati visited Australia several times from 1968 to 1984 and under his care and guidance the gift of yoga and spiritual life blossomed in the hearts and minds of the Australian people. This pictorial offers a glimpse into Sri Swaniji's Australian journeys, and includes a selection of his finest satsangs of that era.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:400 Feminist Studies 44, no. 2. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. L. Ayu Saraswati People, Professionalization, and Promises: Navigating the Politics of PhD Programs in Women’s Studies I have been housed at four different universities—all in women’s studies. My PhD is from the University of Maryland, College Park. I completed a postdoctoral program at Emory University. My first tenure track position was at the University of Kansas. (...) I am currently a tenured associate professor and graduate advisor at the University of Hawai’i. All of these places have strong women’s studies graduate programs. Yet, each program has its own vision of what a women’s studies doctoral program should look like. Some define their interdisciplinarity by asking students to master at least two disciplinary methods and methodologies as they focus on a particular major field; others offer “tracks” in other disciplines that the program has formally approved and collaborates with; and yet others ask students to credential themselves in two disciplines—the goal being students can then get hired in other disciplines, rather than simply banking only on getting a job in women ’s studies. Which model is best, one may ask? The answer, of course, depends on what one wants to do with a PhD in women’s studies. Hence, in what follows, I will lay out several factors to consider when deciding which program to choose. Then, I will share some challenges we have experienced as faculty members building women’s studies PhD programs so that university administrators can L. Ayu Saraswati 401 further build on and engage in this important conversation of shaping the future of women’s studies PhD programs. For Future PhDs: What I Have Learned as a Women’s Studies PhD Graduate The good news is that not all women’s studies PhD programs are the same. It is up to students to choose which one fits their goal. If students are wholly invested in being interdisciplinary scholars and willing to put all of their eggs in one women’s studies basket, then doctoral programs structured around areas of study or major fields may work better. The University of Maryland, for example, offers five major fields: Gender, Race, Racialization, and/or Diaspora Studies; Art, Culture, Technologies, and Social Change; Bodies, Gender and Sexualities; Gendered Labor, Households and Communities; and Women’s Movements, Global and Local. If none of these major fields fits perfectly—as the fields often reflect the faculty members’ expertise, students can create their own. After choosing or creating a major field, students will then take classes— in theories and methods—that will solidly ground their expertise in their chosen field. In this setup, students may take classes from many departments, such as history, anthropology, ethnic studies, and English, for example, that are centered around their field. The assumption (or the hope) is when students travel through and take these classes in different disciplinary locations, they will then synthesize and transform the knowledge they learn in each department to produce truly interdisciplinary knowledge. The drawback of this model, however, is that it may be harder for the students to land a job in a traditional discipline or in a discipline other than women’s studies. This may be because it is not uncommon that students end up crafting or adopting a more avantgarde method of analysis that does not simply sit neatly in one discipline, such as “literary ethnography,” for example. Many times, however, new and avant-garde methods that students design may not be perceived as innovative. Rather, they may be seen as incoherent. Indeed, as Mary Margaret Fonow and Sally Kitch argue in their article “Analyzing Women ’s Studies Dissertations: Methodologies, Epistemologies and Field Formation,” not devising and discussing a solid feminist methodology that would clearly link the argument and the evidence is one of the main 402 L. Ayu Saraswati problems found in many of these dissertations.1 Their suggestion, therefore, is to strengthen the “fundamentals of research design and writing.” (I will return to this issue later.) In cases where students would like to entertain the possibilities of securing a job in disciplines other than women’s studies, programs that offer concentrations based on... (shrink)

The date of Ādi Śaṅkarācārya has been one of the unsolved problems of Indian Philosophy. He is generally accepted to have lived from 788 to 820 CE and is thus assigned from the end of the eighth century to the beginning of the ninth century. So far scholars who have worked on this problem have consulted his hagiographies and his works to determine his date. However, they have not studied the date of Ādi Śaṅkarācārya by placing him in the context (...) of the development of religion in South India. Nor have they consulted South Indian sources, especially Tamiḻ texts, to see if there are any references to his philosophy. In this paper, I study the problem of the date of Ādi Śaṅkarācārya by consulting Tamiḻ sources and the hitherto less consulted epic Śivarahasya. I also connect his date with the emergence of Śaivism as a popular religion in South India. Based on my study, I place Ādi Śaṅkarācārya in the fifth century BCE and as a result, I emphasize the importance of redating Hindu scriptures, especially the Vedas, as Ādi Śaṅkarācārya is the earliest commentator. (shrink)

This article employs a thumbs and thumbnails analysis to analyze the 85 most viewed Asian online porn thumbnails, videos, and their audiences’ comments to argue that cyberspace functions as a space of “affective simulation,” rather than simply as a space of representation. For these online viewers, the performativity of pain by Asian women porn stars functions as an entry point to access and externalize their affective excess.

Analytical study of the philosophy of Vedanta as depicted in the verses of Kaivalyopaniṣad and Br̥hadāraṇyakopaniṣads.

This article examines how, through militarism, masculine imaginings of Indonesian nationalism construct a ‘national feminine’. Whether through popular song, national war heroines, or the institutionalization of feminine roles in the military, the positioning of the ‘national feminine’ is always contradictory. On the one hand, it is gendered and domesticized, while, on the other, it is employed as confirmation that Indonesia has already achieved gender equality. In most instances, once the national crisis is over, and before a new crisis emerges, both (...) the rhetoric of equality and the representation of the nation used to mobilize women's participation in the popular armed struggle are once again adjusted to fit the heterosexual familial model. However, in the Indonesian military, discursive constructions of the ‘national feminine’ are not enough; the military must further define the ‘national feminine’ through institutionalized practices. (shrink)

Discourses of Chandrasekharendra Saraswati, 1893-1994, Hindu religious leader on Hindu philosophy.

Discourses of Chandrasekharendra Saraswati, Jagatguru Sankaracharya of Kamakoti, 1893-1994 on Hinduism doctrines and Hindu philosophy.

Spiritual discourses by Swami Satchidanandendra Saraswati,, 1880-1975, chiefly on the Vedanta philosophy.

Commentary on Brahmasūtra of Bādarāyaṇa, work on Vedanta philosophy.