Bettina Baumer
Mysticism in Shaivism and Christianity
If mysticism is hard to define, what is it then ? Or, why have mystics often spoken about what they have realized - notwithstanding the 'unspeakability' of a spiritual experience ? And, yet more significantly, how can a meeting point of different religious traditions be discovered at the mystical level ? Focussing on these and other related questions, eminent scholars from varying religious traditions here explore the nature of mystical experience in two of the world's major traditions: Hinduism and Christianity.
Abhinavagupta’s Hermeneutics of the Absolute Anuttaraprakriya
This study by Bettina Baumer is important and welcome because it deals with what may well be considered as the very core-metaphysically and mystically-of Abhinavagupta's teaching, and of what he still can tell and teach us. Its importance is, of course and foremost, due to the fact that it deals with a work by Abhinavagupta who-as Bettina Baumer forcefully says in her introduction-is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable.