An elaborate spiritual handbook that intriguingly builds upon multiple traditions.
A spiritual guidebook based on the principles of the mystic trinity.
In his inspirational debut work, Pi reminds his readers at the outset that mankind has been inventing ideologies of the trinity for thousands of years. “It is called Middle Path in Confucian culture, the Kybalion in ancient Egyptian myth, and the Middle View in traditional Buddhism,” he writes. “In Tibetan Buddhism, it is called the Great Zeal as well as the Great Enlightenment under different traditional lineages.” Of course, in addition to these, there is the trinity with which most of Pi’s readers will be familiar: the Christian concept of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Pi maintains that “[t]o know God is to know life,” and he explores in his book’s opening sections the ways in which a tripartite philosophical outlook facilitates what he views as the ultimate goal of any spiritual system: the closer interrelation of “the absolute and the relative.” In prose that manages to explain a great many complex philosophical concepts without oversimplifying, Pi pieces together a fusion of Eastern and Western religious traditions in an extremely well-designed argument. Concepts of karma and meditation appear side by side with frequent, apposite quotations from the Old Testament and New Testament, all of it designed to convey a unified framework that answers what Pi considers to be the basic question of human life: “[I]s there really any purpose behind all forms of manifestation and existence?” In Pi’s view, the closer humans can come to achieving “absolute perspective,” the closer they come to glimpsing “ultimate truth”—though the tripartite view of existence is the only way to that perspective, “the only means to unfold the overall and ultimate reality of God.” The book’s assured, readable combination of Zen mysticism, ancient Chinese philosophy, traditional Christian teachings and the author’s own observations on the nature of life make the book pleasingly unpredictable and ultimately quite thought-provoking. The end goals of all this theorizing are refreshingly practical: Pi is offering a kind of blueprint for re-engineering an individual’s life. “We transform all negative conscious energies into positive and productive ones,” he insists.
An elaborate spiritual handbook that intriguingly builds upon multiple traditions.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4922-0075-8
Page Count: 340
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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