Search Results

This chapter asserts that traditional American Natives believed that the earth is the residing place of narrative, and that people, earth, and narrative are different manifestations of the same creative force. It contends that Native-like land narratives, which offer commentary on the cardinal directions, the winds, vegetation, and sacred places, are present in the Bradford history and operate there in much the same way they as function in Native sacred texts. Furthermore, Algonquians, according to Charles Leland and Evan T. Pritchard, like Navajos, believed in the concept of inner forms as detailed by Susan Scarberry-Garcia in Landmarks of Healing, since they believed that their sacred places either contained the spirits of their old gods, such as Glooskap, or called up likenesses of former leaders, such as the rock formation in the Assonets which resembled the Massasoit Osamequin.

Gurus as authoritative teachers have long played important roles in Hindu traditions, but in an increasingly globalized world these roles have taken some new turns. Modern transport and communications have let some gurus gain very large followings in India and abroad, which necessarily affects their relationships with individual disciples. Even while adapting to new situations, however, most still draw on specific religious traditions, which give them distinct identities and differentiate the teachings and practices they offer. Although they all tend to use a language of truth and knowledge to refer to spiritual reality, the quality of the reality to which each points seems to vary, coloured by different experiences of divine love and power. The guru’s often powerful presence, moreover, may be given different roles in any practical techniques they offer. This chapter examines three contemporary traditions of practice that highlight the figure of the guru in different ways.

In this chapter the focus turns from God’s call to human beings to human beings calling upon God in prayer. This is especially exemplified in the practice of hesychasm or calling on the name of Jesus. This practice stimulated a series of philosophical and theological approaches to language among early twentieth century Russian thinkers: Pavel Florensky, Sergius Bulgakov, A. S. Losev, and Gustav Shpet. Despite significant differences these converge on the fundamental importance of the personal name as the core of human beings’ capacity for language. These thinkers also share an emphasis on the social concreteness of language, a focus further developed in Bakhtin’s dialogism. Bakhtin shows how the prosaic everyday world can become a milieu in which to seek and express authentic personal being and therewith a spiritual life in the condition of secularity.