Bøger af Jacob Needleman

"Demanding of the best in us while comprehending the pain and problems. So full of common sense." --Lawrence LeShan

Seeking to reconcile the split between our inner child and our adult self, eminent philosopher and religious scholar Jacob Needleman evokes the ancient spiritual tradition of a deep dialogue between a guiding wisdom figure and a seeker. The elder offers an initiation to a younger self, an initiation the author feels is missing from our culture. Rendered as a stage play, the conversation between the 80-year-old author and his younger selves unfolds, and an ambiguity emerges as to whether this is strictly the author’s internal dialogue or whether the younger self may be nurturing a rebirth of the author.  On one level, I Am Not I brings younger readers (teenagers and young adults) face to face with powerful spiritual and philosophical ideas. But as the book progresses, the dialogue delves into questions and insights that carry astonishing new hope and vision for every man and woman, challenging our culture’s accepted—and often toxic—ideas about humanity’s place in a living universe.

"This 449-page collection of essays on the life of the famous (or infamous?) George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff could serve as the definitive tome on the eccentric and enigmatic teacher."

An enthralling blend of sorcery, religion, and philosophy, from which Jacob Needleman creates a brilliant moral fable for our times

In his most intimate and revealing work, religious scholar Needleman cuts a clear path through today's clamorous debates over the existence of God, bringing an entirely new way of approaching the question of how to understand a higher power. In this new book, Jacob Needleman-whose voice and ideas have done so much to open the West to esoteric and Eastern religious ideas in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries-intimately considers humanity's most vital question: What is God?With rich, vivid examples from his experiences in the classroom and other walks of life, Needleman draws us closer to the meaning andnature of this question-and shows how our present confusion about the purpose of religion and the concept of God reflects a widespread psychological starvation for a specific quality of thought and experience. In varied detail, the book describes this inner experience, and how almost all of us-atheists and believers alike-actually have been visited by it, but without understanding what it means and why its intentional cultivation is necessary for the fullness of our existence.

If we understood the true role of money in our lives, writes philosopher Jacob Needleman, we would not think simply in terms of spending it or saving it. Money exerts a deep emotional influence on who we are and what we tell ourselves we can never have. Our long unwillingness to understand the emotional and spiritual effects of money on us is at the heart of why we have come to know the price of everything, and the value of nothing. Money has everything to do with the pursuit of an idealistic life, while at the same time, it is at the root of our daily frustrations. On a social level, money has a profound impact on the price of progress. Needleman shows how money slowly began to haunt us, from the invention of coins in Biblical times (when money was created to rescue the community good, not for self gain), through its hypnotic appeal in our money-obsessed era. This is a remarkable book that combines myth and psychology, the poetry of the Sufis and the wisdom of King Solomon, along with Jacob Needleman's searching of his own soul and his culture to explain how money can become a unique means of self-knowledge. As part of the Currency paperback line, it includes a "User's Guide" an introduction and discussion guide created for the paperback by the author -- to help readers make practical use of the book's ideas.