Practice of Abstinence: Evaluating Gandhi in Retrospect

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Charu C Mishra
Keyword(s):  
International Seminar ◽  
Sexual Abstinence ◽  
Spiritual Discipline ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Normal Life ◽  
Psychological Mechanism ◽  
Unconscious State

(International Seminar on Making of Gandhi, 10-12 March 2011, Shivaji Univ. Kolhapur) Abstinence is a voluntary act of restraint from indulging in bodily activities that are widely experienced as giving pleasure. Most frequently, the term refers to Sexual abstinence or abstention from alcohol or food. The practice can arise from religious prohibitions or practical considerations. Abstinence has diverse forms. Commonly it refers to a temporary or partial abstinence from food, as in fasting. Because the regimen is intended to be a conscious act, freely chosen to enhance life, abstinence is sometimes distinguished from the psychological mechanism of repression. The latter is an unconscious state, having unhealthy consequences. Freud termed the channeling of sexual energies into other more culturally or socially acceptable activities through “sublimation”. Abstinence may also arise from an ascetic element, present in most faiths, or from a subjective need for spiritual discipline. In its religious context, abstinence is meant to elevate the believer beyond the normal life

Passive Facebook Use and Depression

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 165-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leman Pınar Tosun ◽  
Ezgi Kaşdarma
Keyword(s):  
Social Comparisons ◽  
Path Model ◽  
The Other ◽  
Facebook Use ◽  
Psychological Mechanism ◽  
Model Fits

Abstract. In the current study we examined a psychological mechanism linking Facebook use to depression. A survey was conducted with 319 undergraduates about their passive Facebook use, their frequency of making upward social comparisons on Facebook, the emotions evoked through these comparisons, and their levels of depression. Half of the participants were given questions about the Facebook comparisons they made with their close friends, while the other half were given questions about the Facebook comparisons they made with acquaintances. Analysis of the whole sample revealed that upward Facebook comparison elicited assimilative emotions (inspiration, optimism, and admiration) more than contrastive emotions did (envy and resentment). A path model was developed in which passive use of Facebook predicted the frequency of making upward social comparisons, and, in turn, the frequency of making upward Facebook comparisons predicted depression through two routes: one through contrastive emotions and other through assimilative emotions. The results suggested that the model fits the data. As expected, the frequency of upward Facebook comparisons was associated with the increases in frequency of both contrastive and assimilative emotions, and the associations of these two types of emotions with depression were in opposite directions: Depression increased as the frequency of contrastive emotions increased, and it decreased as the frequency of assimilative emotions increased. The strength of the latter aforementioned association was stronger when the comparison targets were acquaintances rather than close friends.

Stanislaw Sreniowski, From a Book of Madness And Atrocity

2008 ◽  
pp. 312-316
Author(s):  
Jacek Leociak
Keyword(s):  
Common Fate ◽  
Normal Life ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Town

The title of this text, From the Book of Madness and Atrocity, published here for the first time, indicates its generic and stylistic specificity, its fragmentary, incomplete character. It suggests that this text is part of a greater whole, still incomplete, or one that cannot be grasped. In this sense Śreniowski refers to the topos of inexpressibility of the Holocaust experience. The text is reflective in character, full of metaphor, and its modernist style does not shun pathos. Thus we have here meditations emanating a poetic aura, not a report or an account of events. The author emphasises the desperate loneliness of the dying, their solitude, the incommensurability of the ghetto experience and that of the occupation, and the lack of a common fate of the Jews and the Poles (“A Deserted Town in a Living Capital”; “A Town within a Town”; “And the Capital? A Capital, in which the town of a death is dying . . . ? Well, the Capital is living a normal life. Under the occupation, indeed . . . .”).

The Beginnings of Islam in Afghanistan

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arezou Azad
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Political System ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
History Of ◽  
Initial Conversion ◽  
The Way

Covering the period from 709 to 871, this chapter traces the initial conversion of Afghanistan from Zoroastrianism and Buddhism to Islam. Highlighting the differential developments in four regions of Afghanistan, it discusses the very earliest history of Afghan Islam both as a religion and as a political system in the form of a caliphate.  The chapter draws on under-utilized sources, such as fourth to eighth century Bactrian documents from Tukharistan and medieval Arabic and Persian histories of Balkh, Herat and Sistan. In so doing, it offers a paradigm shift in the way early Islam is understood by arguing that it did not arrive in Afghanistan as a finished product, but instead grew out of Afghanistan’s multi-religious context. Through fusions with Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, early Abrahamic traditions, and local cult practices, the Islam that resulted was less an Arab Islam that was imported wholesale than a patchwork of various cultural practices.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document