Mysticism in India is a complete and informative description of the teachings, works, and lives of the great poet-saints of Maharashtra written by a scholar and professor who was also a mystic. Jnaneshwar, Namadev, Tukaram, Eknath, Ramdas, and the other saints discussed belonged to the great devotional religious movement that spread through medieval India. With the exception of Ramdas, they all belonged to the tradition of the Varkaris, the most popular sect in contemporary Maharashtra. Their compositions exemplify the universality of their faith and practice, and are recognized as literary treasures. Ranade was primarily interested in the poet-saints as mystics--teachers of the perennial philosophy--whose experiences have general metaphysical and religious implications. At the heart of his classic is a comprehensive, objective presentation of the thought of these saints, augmented by a deep appreciation of their value and relevance to present-day scholars and seekers. Mysticism in India is the only major study in English of medieval Indian religious literature. The book's enduring value has been enhanced by the addition of a foreword by a scholar currently working in Marathi literature, and a preface by a present-day poet-saint of Maharashtra.

Celebrated as a theatre of geo-economic connectivity typified by the ‘Act East’ policy, India’s near east is key not only to its great-power rivalry with China, which first boiled over in the 1962 war, but to the idea(s) of India itself. It is also one of the most intricately partitioned lands anywhere on Earth. Rent by communal and class violence, the region has birthed extreme forms of religious and ethnic nationalisms and communist movements. The Indian state’s survival instinct and pursuit of regional hegemony have only accentuated such extremes. This book scripts a new history of India’s eastward-looking diplomacy and statecraft. Narrated against the backdrop of separatist resistance within India’s own northeastern states, as well as rivalry with Beijing and Islamabad in Myanmar and Bangladesh, it offers a simple but compelling argument. The aspirations of ‘Act East’ mask an uncomfortable truth: India privileges political stability over economic opportunity in this region. In his chronicle of a state’s struggle to overcome war, displacement and interventionism, Avinash Paliwal lays bare the limits of independent India’s influence in its near east.

The second volume of 'From Darkness to Light' is a compilation of articles penned by the editors of Prabuddha Bharata, the English journal of the Ramakrishna Order started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896. The articles of the first editor B R Rajam Iyer(1896) to the thirty-sixth editor Swami Narasimhananda (2014) make up this volume. In these writings the readers get a glimpse into the various issues that have been the point of focus right from the early days of the journal in 1896 up to the recent times, how there has been a central idea consistently running through all of them, the idea of the spiritual awakening of humanity and India, and yet how the style of presentation has undergone change over a period of time with the change of editors. This makes for a fascinating reading & study. Published by Advaita Ashrama, a publication house of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math, India.

In an awakened life, our hearts are open, steady and purposeful. Most people today have a greater income, as well as more goods and labour - saving devices, than any other generation in history. Yet stress, discontent, personal and social problems abound. Drawing on the deepest discoveries of the Buddhist tradition, well-known retreat master, Christopher Titmuss, suggests we spend far too much time in superficial preoccupaions and not enough in looking deeply into things. He urges us to fearlessly transform the forces of desire and dissatisfaction that haunt our daily lives - and to awaken to the Immeasurable. Inspired by the 20th Century classic, Zend Mind, Beginner's mind, he gives practical advice on such subjects as: understanding our feelings , taking risks, becomming more detached and rediscovering our true selves. And he shows us how to have free, fulfilled and uninhibited lives amidst the frenzy of everyday activity.

How effective is the Indian polity in making laws and policies to address changing ground realities? How do its gears work? Which stakeholder groups are more successful in bringing about policy change, through what methods, and in what contexts? Seeking to answer these questions, Shaping Policy in India takes a close look at nine landmark Indian laws and legislative attempts to reveal the sociopolitical process of policy formulation in the world’s largest democracy. Offering in-depth accounts of the evolution of these nine major legislations, this book interrogates the suitability of existing political theories to explain the policy development process in an emerging economy like India. It covers recent events in the 1999–2014 period that have underlined the role of non-government players in law-making in India, as well as long-standing movements like right to information, right to education, and food security. Case studies have been used to assess the complexity against the relief of existing political theories, invariably developed in the West and to identify gaps in current political theory in understanding the nature of issue-based political movements, advocacy, and activism. The book then takes a few initial steps towards suggesting a paradigm based on complexity theory that may better serve to illuminate this critical part of the political process.