Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

I read the initial parts of Pope Francis' newly released document, The Joy of the Gospel. Here's a news article on it, "Francis: This is how the joy of the Gospel can reform the Church", http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/francesco-francis-francisco-30114/ Though Pope Francis' words are directed to Catholics/Christians, I think many of his views apply to other faiths too with a replacement of the deity Christ, when mentioned, with that of another faith (or a formless God). I have put down some references to the document and some small extracts which I think may be of interest to non-Catholic/non-Christian readers too. The long document is available here: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html# I must also say that many of us may not agree with some approaches of the Roman Catholic Church - I am not so comfortable with the idea of ev...

I saw an interesting though perhaps over-dramatized video on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, "Secret Tibetan Book of the Dead | History Channel Documentary", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ermcc6iDqQA , 44 min 01 sec, with the transcript available [Transcript allows you to browse through the text of the video and choose to view only the parts you are interested in.] The video has input from some Western experts on the book including some professor(s). The experts comments are quite interesting and thought-provoking. There is a wikipedia page associated with it, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_Thodol . A few extracts: The Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State differentiates the intermediate state between lives into three bardos: The chikhai bardo or "bardo of the moment of death", which features the experience of the "clear light of reality", or at least the nearest approximation of which one is spiritually capable. The chonyi...