Essays

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What is Vedanta?

Introduction The ancient Indo-Aryan civilization sprung forth in the Indus valley region in modern day India and Pakistan (to the ancients Eastern Persia), and was the source of the “Vedas”, some of the oldest extant literature of mankind.…
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Vedic Cosmological Narratives (Part II)

The Hymn of Purusha: God Takes Shape[1] While the preceding passage from the Rig Veda contains some of the root kernel philosophical elements of Vedic philosophy, there is another passage from the same collection of hymns dating back to the…
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Vedic Creation Narratives and Philosophy: Brothers in Arms (Part I)

When looking at the Indo-Aryan tradition, given its age and maturity and its fundamental belief and faith in the unity of man and the universe from which he emerged (unique to the Eastern religious traditions in general), a line can be drawn…
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Creation Stories of the Ancient Egyptians: Order (Maat) from Chaos

Cultural Context As Charlie began to delve into the mythology of the Ancient Egyptians, and in particular their cosmology, or mythological description of the origins of the known universe, he found that a narrative of mythology or a book of…
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Creation Mythology in Antiquity: Order out of Chaos

Introduction: Creation Myths in Antiquity Any cursory study of Egyptian and Sumer-Babylonian creation mythology yielded parallels and similarities, but was much less clear and open to debate was whether or not these similarities, these mythemes…
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Kali’s Child: A Case Study in the Limits of Freudian Psychoanalysis

As reluctant as I am to offer off an opinion on a debate that has been bantered about by scholars much more learned and experienced than I in comparative religion and scholars familiar with the source texts in Bengali, most notably the Kathamrita…
Sanskrit symbol for "Aum"
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The Philosophy of the East: The Legacy of the Indo-Aryans

Introduction Throughout academic parlance in the Enlightenment Era intellectual and philosophical development throughout mankind’s history has been divided into Eastern and Western branches.  The Eastern branch of thought and development…
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Mapping the Mind: Freud vs. Jung

A Brief History of Psychology: The Study of the Soul It must be understood that psychology as a discipline, at least how we think of it today, did exist in antiquity.  There were fairly well thought systems of belief however that framed psychology,…
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Buddhism 101

Origins of Buddhism Buddhism originated out of the Hindu and Vedic culture just as Christianity emerged out of and in reaction to orthodox Judaism.  The historical figure we know today as Buddha was raised on the northern Indian/Nepal border…

The Origins and Philosophy of the Islamic Faith

Despite Charlie’s Jewish heritage, at least Jewish by blood, and his penchant for the less rigid and orthodox theological systems of the East, his knowledge of Islam began with a fundamental aversion for its fundamentalist interpretation…