Samadhi: The Numinous And Cessative in Indo-tibetan Yoga

by Sarbacker, Stuart Ray

• ISBN13: 9780791465547
• ISBN10: 0791465543
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-01
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

A historical and comparative study grounded in clos readings of important works, this book explores the dynamics of the theory and practice of yoga in Hindu and Buddhist contexts. Author Stuart Ray Sarbacker explores the fascinating, contrasting perceptions that meditation leads to the attainment of divine, or numinous, power, and to complete escape from worldly existence, or cessation. Sarbacker demonstrates that these two dimensions of spiritual experience have affected the doctrine and cultural significance of yoga from its origins to its contemporary practice. He also integrates sociological and psychological perspectives on religious experience into a larger phenomenological model to address the multifaceted nature of religious experience. Speaking to a broad range of methodological and contextual issues, Samadhi provides numerous insights into the theory and practice of yoga that are relevant to both scholars of religious studies and practitioners of contemporary yoga and meditation traditions. Book jacket.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction: Method and the Study of Meditation	1	(12)
Sources and Definitions	13	(14)
Reinterpreting Religious Experience	27	(26)
Yoga, Shamanism, and Buddhism: A New Phenomenology	53	(22)
The Debate over Dialogue: Classical Yoga and Buddhism in Comparison	75	(36)
Traditions in Transition: Meditative Concepts in the Development of Tantric Sadhana	111	(16)
Conclusion: Meditation, Phenomenology, and the Concept of Samadhi	127	(10)
Notes	137	(26)
Bibliography	163	(16)
Index	179