Gifts, Weapons, and Values

Central Americans from a variety of religious traditions and social classes speak freely of lo espiritual, or “that which is spiritual,” but they do so in widely diverging ways. This chapter attempts to make sense of the vast and varied ways in which Central Americans reference spirituality by describing four common threads of usage. Evangelical-Pentecostal pastors sometimes frame social problems like gang violence as having both spiritual causes and spiritual solutions. Other Central Americans use the term “spiritual” to describe supernatural entities with a strong bearing on political structures. Meanwhile, some Central Americans have come to use the term “spirituality” to refer to beliefs and practices with roots in precolonial Mayan narratives. A fourth means of utilizing the language of spirituality is as a catch-all term for quasi-religious meditative practices and prosocial values formation. In conclusion, religious background and social class influence how people define and conceive of “the spiritual.”

MÉTODOS DE REALIZACIÓN ESPIRITUAL EN EL SUFISMO

Resumen: A diferencia de otras formas de conocimiento que conforman las disciplinas del saber de la tradición islámica, el sufismo no se limita a la especulación teórica, sino que comprende una serie de métodos rigurosos de realización interior, en tanto que vía iniciática. El más conocido de estos métodos es el ḏikr, la repetición o invocación de los Nombres Divinos, práctica que puede ir acompañada de una diversidad de ejercicios contemplativos, que pueden incluir el control de la respiración, posturas corporales y la meditación por medio de visualizaciones. El objetivo de este artículo es explorar con cierto grado de minuciosidad los aspectos más relevantes de estas prácticas, y muy particularmente la noción de murāqaba o contemplación, considerada por algunas escuelas de sufismo como la forma más directa y eficaz de realizar el conocimiento de lo divino. Abstract: In contrast to the array of intellectual disciplines within traditional Islam, the Sufi path of knowledge is not limited to mere theoretical speculation. Rather, it entails a series of rigorous methods of inner realisation as part of its iniciatic teachings. Among these, the most effective and known methods is ḏikr, the invocation or remembrance of the Divine Names, a method of spiritual realisation that often goes hand in hand with various meditative practices that include breath control, specific body postures and visualizations. This article aims at exploring, with a certain degree of detail, the most relevant aspects pertaining to these practices, and in particular the notion of murāqaba – or contemplation – deemed by some school of Sufism as the most direct and effective way to reach the Divine. Abstract: In contrast to the array of intellectual disciplines within traditional Islam, the Sufi path of knowledge is not limited to mere theoretical speculation. Rather, it entails a series of rigorous methods of inner realisation as part of its iniciatic teachings. Among these, the most effective and known methods is ḏikr, the invocation or remembrance of the Divine Names, a method of spiritual realisation that often goes hand in hand with various meditative practices that include breath control, specific body postures and visualizations. This article aims at exploring, with a certain degree of detail, the most relevant aspects pertaining to these practices, and in particular the notion of murāqaba – or contemplation – deemed by some school of Sufism as the most direct and effective way to reach the Divine.

Coping With Uncertainty: Use of Contemplative Practices Amid a Pandemic

Contemplative practices have been used as coping resources to reduce the negative influences of adverse life situations on mental health. The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted older adults, causing immense uncertainty, stress, and anxiety. By using data from our “Coping with Pandemic” nationwide web-based survey (n=1861), we examine the utilization of practices such as meditation, prayer, and yoga across social, economic, and health status during the pandemic. Consistent with studies conducted before the pandemic, we find significantly greater utilization of meditation and yoga among women and higher educated individuals. Findings showed significantly greater usage of prayer among women and Blacks. Unlike previous studies, we documented greater usage of meditative practices among Blacks than Whites. Older adults with higher anxiety were significantly more likely to practice meditation and yoga. Our study offers much needed guidance for future intervention studies aimed at improving mental health among diverse groups of older adults.

Toward a Peircean logic of meditation

Peirce’s philosophy, to a great extent, continues to be neglected as a potentially valuable resource for theologians and scholars of religion. This essay represents an attempt to rectify that state of affairs, albeit focused narrowly on how some of Peirce’s ideas might help to illuminate the role that attention plays in transforming consciousness and shaping certain meditative practices. Such practices display a logic consistent with the one that Peirce described in the process of developing his semiotic theory and his theory of inquiry. While his writings on logic are voluminous, Peirce produced only a very few scattered remarks about the “logic of meditation,” broadly conceived. One purpose of this essay is to collect and to examine carefully those remarks. Another is to evaluate their significance for contemporary philosophers of religion who are invested in the task of trying to understand the nature and purpose of meditation, not as a single type of exercise, but in its various forms and manifestations.

‘Soother of mind’ – meditation in psychiatric disorders: a narrative review

SUMMARY Meditation, a component of ashtanga yoga, is an act of inward contemplation in which the mind fluctuates between a state of attention to a stimulus and complete absorption in it. Some forms of meditation have been found to be useful for people with psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, depression and substance use disorder. Evidence for usefulness of meditation for people with psychotic disorders is mixed, with reported improvements in negative symptoms but the emergence/precipitation of psychotic symptoms. This article narrates the benefits of meditation in psychiatric disorders, understanding meditation from the yoga perspective, biological aspects of meditation and practical tips for the practice of meditation. We also explain possible ways of modifying meditative practices to make them safe and useful for the patient population and useful overall as a society-level intervention.

When the Poison Is the Cure—Healing and Embodiment in Contemporary Śrividyā Tantra of the Lalitāmbikā Temple

This paper discusses the healing practices of samayācāra Śrīvidyā, a Hindu Tantric tradition. This study is based on field research conducted in the Śrī Lalitāmbikā temple in Coimbatore, India. The tradition not only advocates inner ritualism, but also focuses on healing practices derived from Tantric sources. By using both emic and etic approaches, this paper attempts to show how the rituals and Śrīvidyā meditative practices became incorporated into this system of healing and well-being. A further aim of this paper is to indicate how various forms of embodiment and healing define the spiritual practice of Lalitāmbikā Śrīvidyā.

'Devi Needs those Rituals!' Ontological Considerations on Ritual Transformations in a Contemporary South Indian Srividya Tradition

Negotiations between continuity and discontinuity have characterized Srividya traditions for centuries; these are primarily studied through texts or the juxtaposition of textual prescriptions with observed practices, leaving the process of how Srividya practitioners negotiate esoteric and orthodox tendencies unexplored. Building on extensive fieldwork among practitioners of a contemporary South Indian Srividya tradition, I present the dynamics animating such transformations. Focusing on kalavahana, one of the tradition's central rituals aimed at identifying with Devi, I trace the underlying forces that gradually replace its most esoteric aspects (centred around the body and pleasure) with conventional worship (external or meditative practices), refashioning the tradition as part of mainstream Saktism. While some practitioners conform to the new canon, others, for whom the changes diminish ritual efficacy, secretly continue embodied practices. Through a Foucauldian archaeologico-genealogical analysis, I investigate which regimes of truth and ontological coordinates allow the ritual to change, and which diminish its efficacy. While at first negotiations between continuity and discontinuity appear driven by socio-political motives, ultimately they are governed and legitimized by fundamentally diverging modes of being. A pre-objectified worldview demands embodied experiences (including unconventional practices invoking pleasure) while a dualistic framework endorses representational practices (such as meditation and idol-worship).