Seeing God Everywhere: Essays on Nature and the Sacred (Perennial Philosophy)

This anthology, combining articles by Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, Jewish, and Native American scholar, looks at the environmental crisis through a spiritual lens. Throughout the centuries and across many religious traditions, we have sought the presence of the Real in wilderness landscapes. Whether this Reality was referred to as God, Brahman, Allah, Wakan Tanka, Shunyamurti, Tao, or by some other name, every branch of human society has, without doubt, seen traces of the One in the many wonders of nature. Deserts, forests, mountains, and oceans are all places where the eye of the heart has opened and we have caught a glimpse of the beauty and majesty of the Divine. This collection of essays on the relationship between nature and the sacred reflects the thought of some of the most important religious authorities and scholars from Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, Jewish, and Native American traditions. It covers subjects as diverse as flower viewing in Japan and the spiritual dimension of the environmental crisis. In style, it ranges from simple and poetic meditations to richly layered metaphysical studies concerning the divine root of creation. Following each essay is a short poem echoing the underlying theme of the book, drawn from various traditions of spiritual poetry. The most important and urgent message of this anthology is that our current environmental crisis results from a loss of our spiritual center and that the physical world cannot be separated from the metaphysical without suffering potentially disastrous consequences. Its fundamental thesis is that our continuing physical and spiritual well-being is ultimately linked with our ability to "see God everywhere" and to "remember Him in all things." Whether this view is theistic, according to Western and Native American traditions, or non-theistic, according to the Buddhist perspective, it demands that we recognize and embrace the interdependence of all things in the unity of the Real and extend our definition of the spiritual into the ecological. This vision of the immanence of God in nature is the most radical of all ecological perspectives because it points to the Origin of all that is. He is a published poet and has edited Every Branch in Me: Essays on the Meaning of Man, in the Perennial Philosophy series and is in the process of editing, with Patrick Laude, Music of the Sky: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, scheduled for publication in the Fall of 2003 in the Treasures of the World's Religions Series. His writing style combines the lyrical beauty of a poet, the penetrating metaphysical understanding of a scholar, and the personal insights of a spiritual seeker. Throughout the centuries, and across many religious traditions, we have sought the presence of the Real in wilderness landscapes. Whether this Reality was referred to as God, Brahman, Allah, Wakan Tanka, Shunyamurti, Tao, or by some other name, every branch of human society has, without doubt, seen traces of the One in the many wonders of nature. Deserts, forests, mountains and oceans are all places where the eye of the heart has opened and we have caught a glimpse of the beauty and majesty of the Divine. Immersed in the silence of the great forest cathedrals or listening to the pure song of a mountain stream, we have come to know the inner man who has always lived upon the threshold of Heaven.This collection of essays on the relationship between nature and the sacred reflects the thought of some of the most important religious authorities and scholars from Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, Jewish and Native American traditions. Covering subjects ranging from flower viewing in Japan to the spiritual dimension of the environmental crisis, some of these articles are simple and poetic meditations while others are richly layered metaphysical studies concerning the divine root of creation. Following each essay is a short poem, echoing the underlying theme of the book, and which is drawn from various traditions of spiritual poetry.The most important and urgent message of this anthology is that our current environmental crisis results from a loss of our spiritual center and that the physical world cannot be separated from the metaphysical without suffering potentially disastrous consequences. Its fundamental thesis is that our continuing physical and spiritual well being is ultimately linked with our ability to “see God everywhere” and to “remember Him in all things.” Whether this view is theistic, according to Western and Native American traditions, or non-theistic, according to the Buddhist perspective, all of the essays in this collection underline our need to recognize and embrace the interdependence of all things in the unity of the Real and to extend our definition of the spiritual into the ecological. This vision of the immanence of God in nature is the most radical of all ecological perspectives because it points to the Origin of all that is. Seeing God everywhere / Frithjof Schuon A Tibetan Buddhist perspective on spirit in nature / Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama The firmament sheweth his handiwork : re-awakening a religious sense of the natural order / Harry Oldmeadow Christianity and the survival of creation / Wendell Berry The spiritual and religious dimensions of the environmental crisis / Seyyed Hossein Nasr Our mother earth / Oren Lyons The desanctification of nature / Philip Sherrard O hanami : flower viewing / Hari Prasad Shastri Creation according to Ibn ʻArabî / Toshihiko Izutsu Of metaphysics and Polynesian navigation / James Barr The underlying order : nature and the imagination / Kathleen Raine Hierophanic nature / Arthur Versluis The symbolism of water / Titus Burckhardt Divine beatitude : supreme archetype of aesthetic experience / Reza Shah-Kazemi The yin and the yang in nature / J.C. Cooper Creation, the image of God / Leo Schaya The world of the icon and creation : an Orthodox perspective on ecology and pneumatology / John Chryssavgis Becoming part of it / Joseph Epes Brown Flowers / Lord Northbourne. How do people sense God's presence in created things?Seeing God Everywhere is an anthology of essays on nature and the sacred which address that question. Written by an impressive list of spiritual leaders and thinkers, these essays explore the question from many different perspectives. Reading these essays enriches our inner lives and enlivens our contemplative imaginations. Surely, this is the'deepest'ecology possible! As a special bonus, at the end of each essay is a short poem on nature and the sacred, taken from various traditions. "How do people sense God's presence in created things? Seeing God Everywhere is an anthology of essays on nature and the sacred which address that question. Written by an impressive list of spiritual leaders and thinkers, these essays explore the questions from many different perspectives. As a special bonus, at the end of each essay is a short poem on nature and the sacred, taken from various traditions."--BOOK JACKET