The Fifth Dimension

Introduction - the big picture: alternative pictures; the fifth dimension of our nature; the axial age; sin or false consciousness?; guilt or "dukkha" as the problem?; transcategorical reality. Part 1 Drawing the picture: where do we start today? - the naturalistic assumption - naturalism, an ambiguous universe, science versus religion - a false opposition; naturalism as bad news for the many - hard and soft naturalism, no hope for the many; windows on the transcendent - windows in the physical sciences, windows in the social sciences, windows in the natural world, windows in human life; the key to understanding -perception as interpretation, cognitive freedom ... in religious awareness; turning the critical realist key - the transformation of information, critical realism. Part 2 The meaning of life: the religious meaning of life - practical meaning, religious meaning, cosmic optimism; cosmic optimism in the East - in Hinduism, in Buddhism; and in the West - in Judaism, in Christianity, in Islam. Part 3 The gods and absolutes as manifestations of the real: the real experienced as God - the pluralist hypothesis, pseudo-Dionysius, Dionysius' dilemma, Meister Eckhart and others; the real experienced as the absolute - in Hinduism, in Buddhism. Part 4 Religious experience and mysticism: altered states of consciousness - some distinctions, atered states, drugs and altered states, self-transcendence, the influence of set and setting; religious experience - preliminary distinctions, the sense of presence, some examples; visions - a case study of Julian of Norwich - the emergence of women visionaries, Julian herself, the historical setting, the visions; Lady Julian's fruitful heresies - the fall-redemption model, the lord-servant parable, the godly will within us, universal salvation?; unitive mysticism - literal unity - literal or metaphorical?, Advaita Vedanta, an epistemological problem, neoplatonism; unitive mysticism -metaphorical unity - Christian neoplatonism, pseudo-Dionysius, deification, the love poetry of the mystics, the Jewish Kabbala, the Sufis of Islam; the dark side - the dark side of the cults, the dark side of the great religions, harmless eccentricities; the criterion - the fruits in human life - operating the criterion, trusting religious experience. Part 5 The saints come marching in: one living saint is worth ten dead ones - saints, mahatmas and others, the founders, living saints, the profile of the saint, modern political saints; Gandhi - a case study - my life is my message, a very human saint, a rock-like integrity; the politics of truth - God is truth, truth is God, a Hindu critic of Hinduism, non-violence; Gandhi's truth for us today - non-violent conflict resolution, green thinking, the position of women, religious pluralism; an activist and a contemplative - Kushdeva Singh, Nyanaponika Mahathera. Part 6 Time present and time future: what we don't need to know - the beginning and the end, the Buddha's "unanswered questions",