The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical foundations of three significant fields: New Religious Movements (NRMs) studies, New Age studies, and Western Esotericism. The author offers a historical overview of these domains, reconstructing the scholarly background and interdisciplinary context of their conceptual formation. It is argued that the primary obstacle to their...
Abstract This chapter chronicles a personal journey of transforming suffering (dukkha) into healing through the application of Buddhist-informed contemplative practice and pedagogical engagement. Following a period of the author’s personal hardship, this narrative explores how Buddhist teachings—particularly those of Thich Nhat Hanh on mindfulness and loving-kindness—became instrumental in his...
The Hindu bhakti traditions are traditionally significant psychological, social, and spiritual assets of the South Asian society. Over the past few decades, there has been an increase in academic interest in the connection between devotional practices and psychological well-being, especially regarding the topics of resilience, emotional regulation, coping, and meaning-making. This...
While contemporary psychology focuses on developing a cohesive self for wellbeing, Indian philosophical traditions such as Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism and the teachings of J. Krishnamurti provide a critique of the notion of a fixed self-identity. This conceptual paper compares them at a phenomenological and functional level and relates these comparisons to contemplative neuroscience, particularly...
This article traces the evolution of Indian philosophical thought across seven historically distinct turning points: the Rigvedic period's focus on cosmic consciousness (Purusha, Brahman, Agni); the Upanishadic revolution's inward turn and the emergence of Brahman-Atman identity; the Shramana revolt of the 6th century BCE in which Buddhism and Jainism redirected Indian thought toward physical...
According to the Idealistic school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Yogācāra, human existence is not as much the condition of a “being”, of an entity, but a mere experience projected by the cosmic consciousness, by the so-called “store-house consciousness” (ālayavijñāna). Nevertheless, human existence has some special features; it doesn’t represent a simple cosmic experience but rather an “alteration” of...
Yogācāra Buddhism, the idealistic branch of Mahāyāna, features a moderate ontology, more inclined to realism, which gives a certain degree of reality to manifestation. According to this ontology, Yogācāra's view of universal unity is organic-functional rather than substantial. The cosmos is unitary not because of an alleged ontological reduction to a single substance, as in primary Mahāyāna or...
Between roughly 500 BCE and the thirteenth century CE, the Indian philosophical traditions — Sāṃkhya-Yoga, Buddhist Abhidharma, and the various schools of Vedānta — developed a precise, multi-term vocabulary for what we should now call the empirical psychology of habit. Four terms carry the conceptual weight: saṃskāra, the discrete imprint left in the mind by each act; vāsanā, the accumulated...
Dr. Phani Mohanty's Ahalyā represents one of the most philosophically sophisticated achievements in modern Odia poetry. Although the poem has generally been interpreted as a feminist reinterpretation of the Ramayana myth or as an exploration of gendered suffering, such readings only partially illuminate its remarkable philosophical architecture. The present study argues that Ahalyā is...
This paper explores the interpretation of the Rosary through the philosophical thoughts of Simone Weil, highlighting its potential as a means of cultivating Weil’s living philosophy of “attention,” and by so presenting a spirituality of liberation that attempts to present in whole the twofold image of Weil as both a mystic and a radical. Through Weil’s theory of attention and her two-step...