Yoga and The Teaching of Krishna- Essays on The Indian Spiritual Traditions

This is a compilation of some of the essays which Ravi Ravindra, a scientist-philosopher has written over more than a quarter of a century. These essays have been published in a variety of journals and magazines some of which are not now easily accessible. Brief excerpts from some of his books. Whispers from the Other Shore, Science and Spirit, the Yoga of the Christ and Krishnamurti: two birds on One Tree, are also included in the collection.

. Each of the selections here is influenced by yoga and the teaching of Krishna; all of them speak of and are related to the wisdom of the spiritual traditions of India. They range from an exploration of Rita in the Rig Veda and its relation to Yajna and dharma in the subsequent tradition on contemporary spiritual masters such as J. Krishnamurti. G.I. Gurdjieff Some of the essays deal exclusively with the great texts of India, such as the Yoga Sutra and the Bhagavad Gita, while some deal with the parallels which can be found with texts from other traditions, such as The Enneads of Plotinus and the Gospel according to Saint John.

. Others essays discuss the interaction of modern science and the spiritual traditions if India and their impact on the life of humanity. Ravindra is at home in the East and in the west; he understand hymns in Vedic Sanskrit and nuances of relativistic cosmology, and he brings insights from both sources. He shares his passionate inquiry about the meaning and purpose of human life and of the cosmos that we might discover if we could hear more subtly and see more deeply. In this he exhibits a remarkable impartiality which searches for and delights in truths and wisdom wherever they can be found, without an argument for or an exclusive interest in any sect, religion or tradition.

.

RAVI RAVINDRA was born in India in 1939. He moved to Canada in 1966. He has a B.Sc. and a Master of Technology degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, a Master of Science* and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Toronto, and a Master of Arts in Philosophy from Dalhousie University. He held post-doctoral fellowships in Physics (University of Toronto), History and Philosophy of Science (Princeton University) and Religion (Columbia University).

. He was a Member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton 1977 in the School of Natural Sciences, and a Member of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study at Simla in1978. He is to be a member of the Simla Institute for 1998 also. He was the Founding Director of the Threshold Award for integrative knowledge, and Chair of its international and interdisciplinary selection committees in 1979 and 1980.

. Recipient of several awards and research grants, he is the author of more than a hundred papers in Physics, Philosophy and Religion, and of the following books: Theory of Seismic Head Waves (with V. Cerveny; translated into Russian); Whispers from the Other Shore (translated into Portuguese); Science and Spirit (editor and principal author); Krishnamurti: Two Birds on One Tree; and The Yoga of the Christ (translated into French, Portuguese, Greek and German).

. One of the courses of Ravi Ravindra, Mystical Consciousness and Modern Science, was selected by the Templeton Foundation for an award in their Science-Religion Courses Programme in 1996.

. At present Ravi Ravindra is the Professor and Chair of Comparative Religion, Professor of International Development Studies and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

. **Contents and Sample Pages**

.