B. Joyce Peter

You Are Infinitely Precious: Essays on God B. Joyce Peter

This absorbing collection of essays arises from the teachings of MahaGuruJi, a Brahmin priest born in India, who came to the U. S. and in 1960 founded the Vedic Society of America in California. His lectures, known as ?Soul Seminar Classes,? focused not only on classical Hindu epics, Vedic literature, and the Upanishads, but also on the words and writings of philosophers, mystics, and theologians spanning different religions, time periods, and geographical and cultural boundaries. The essays assembled in this volume take MahaGuruJi?s lectures as their impetus, drawing on some two decades of notes, reflections, and observations. For the uninitiated, these pages offer a bountiful catalogue of deep and profound thought that is reflexive, poetic, instinctive, and mysterious. For previous students of Eastern traditions and mystical beliefs, this collection affords a meditative consideration of timeless ideas, set in striking counterpoint to the words of other kindred philosophers and thinkers. The Rig Veda, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad-Gita, and other stories drawn from the Mahabharata are brought into illumination and clarity, with more contemporary writers, ranging from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Jefferson to Rabindranath Tagore and T. S. Eliot, echoing these foundational words of inspiration. The Vedas, recorded by Brahmin priests more than 3,000 years ago, address universal questions: Why are we here? Whence did we come from? What are we to do here? Whither do we go from here? The essays in this volume offer a point of departure for further study in one?s search for divinity, and provide a sustaining source of contemplative thoughts on God. The key point to these teachings is that one must continually study, seek, and expand one?s intellectual learning and contemplate one?s own spiritual values. These essays and the wisdom they contain will serve as a guide and source of inspiration as one goes forward on the path in this cosmic journey to reach eventual salvation.