The Gita within Walden
eBook - PDF

The Gita within Walden

  1. 174 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Gita within Walden

About this book

Looks at the connections between Thoreau's Walden and the work that influenced it, the Bhagavad-Gita.

This book explores and interprets the myriad connections between two spiritual classics, Henry David Thoreau's Walden and the Bhagavad-Gita. Evidence shows that Thoreau took the Gita with him when he moved to Walden Pond, and the books have much in common, touching on ultimate ethical and metaphysical questions. Paul Friedrich looks at how each work speaks to fundamental problems of good and evil, self and cosmos, duty and passion, reality and illusion, political engagement and philosophical meditation, sensuous wildness and ascetic devotion. His examination moves through several stages, from an analysis of key symbols, such as the upside-down tree, to an exposition of social, ethical, and metaphysical values, to a consideration of the many sources of these syncretic works. This book should be of lively interest to those concerned with the origins of Indian and American thought, activism, and poetry.

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Yes, you can access The Gita within Walden by Paul Friedrich in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Theology & Religion & Asian Literary Criticism. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. The Gita within Walden
  2. Contents
  3. Acknowledgments
  4. Introduction
  5. 1. "God"
  6. 2. Historical Retrospect
  7. 3. The Case for Shared Absolutes
  8. 4. Life SymbolsThat Essentialize
  9. 5. Social and Ethical Absolutes
  10. 6. Purity
  11. 7. Reality and Being
  12. 8. Three Ways to God
  13. 9. The Gita within Walden Expanded: A Poetics for Activism
  14. Conclusions
  15. References
  16. Index