Exquisite Love: Reflections on the Spiritual Life Based on Narada's Bhakti Sutra

by William K. Mahony

Overview

The Bhakti Sūtra attributed to Nārada is a collection of 84 aphoristic statements in Sanskrit, dating to the tenth to eleventh centuries in India, on the nature of love for Divinity, which the text describes as the highest, most exquisite form of love. Translating, explaining and interpreting 21 of those statements, William K. Mahony brings these teachings into our contemporary world through his thoughtful and articulate extended reflections on the qualities of this love and on the contours of a life oriented toward strengthening, refining and elevating it. The book also includes Mahony's translation of Nārada's Bhakti Sūtra in its entirety.

Basing his reflections on the understanding that God is absolute Love, Mahony speaks of a divine Heart present in our own human sentiments and expressions of love in all its modes, directions and degrees of intensity. He offers readers guidance into ways a Heart-centered spiritual life can open them ever more fully to the reality of Love itself.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940046502879
Publisher:	William K. Mahony
Publication date:	12/15/2014
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

William K. Mahony, PhD, is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Religion at Davidson College. Holding academic degrees from Williams College, Yale University and the University of Chicago, he served as one of the editors of the first edition of the 16-volume Encyclopedia of Religion and as President of the Muktabodha Indological Research Institute. The recipient of several teaching awards and of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, his research and teaching center on the contemplative and devotional dimensions of religions arising in India. His publications include The Artful Universe: An Introduction to the Vedic Religious Imagination, published by State University of New York Press. Readers of Exquisite Love will see that he integrates his scholarship with sensibilities and perspectives informed by his own spiritual practice. In addition to his academic work, he leads workshops and retreats on the philosophy of yoga as presented in texts from India and on the cultivation and refinement of the yogic life.