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Literature & Spirituality

Literature is defined as "imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value." Spirituality is defined as "the quality or state of being concerned with religion or religious matters." The purpose of this podcast is to examine how these two subjects intersect with one another and how they relate to our lives.
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Now displaying: May, 2015
May 26, 2015

Our passage from the Word of God today is Deuteronomy 31:24 which reads: "And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished."

Our quote today is from Boris Pasternak. She said: "Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary."

In this podcast, we are using as our texts: "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt, and "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. If you enjoy this podcast, please feel free to purchase any one of these books from our website.

Our first topic for today is "Spirituality as Quest, Part 3 - Buddha" from the book, "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt.

Here is our second selection from Buddha's Dhammapada.

Chapter XIII (13) - THE WORLD.

Do not follow the evil law! Do not live on in thoughtlessness! Do not follow false doctrine! Be not a friend of the world.

Rouse thyself! do not be idle! Follow the law of virtue! The virtuous rests in bliss in this world and in the next.

Follow the law of virtue; do not follow that of sin. The virtuous rests in bliss in this world and in the next.

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Our second topic for today is "Reading a Story, Part 7" from the book, "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.

Bidpai

The Panchatantra, a collection of beast fables from India, is attributed to its narrator, a sage named Bidpai, a legendary figure about whom almost nothing is known for certain.

We are so accustomed to the phrase Aesop's fables that we might almost start to think the two words inseparable, but in fact there have been fabulists (creators or writers of fables) in virtually every culture throughout recorded history. The Panchatantra, which means "The Five Chapters" in Sanskrit, is based on earlier oral folklore. The collection was composed some time between 100 B. C. and 500 A. D. in a Sanskrit original now lost, and is primarily known through an Arabic version of the eighth century and a twelfth-century Hebrew translation. The stories are didactic, teaching niti, the wise conduct of life, and artha, practical wisdom that stresses cleverness and self-reliance above more altruistic virtues.

Now here is one of Bidpai's fables called "The Tortoise and the Geese."

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May 11, 2015

Our passage from the Word of God today is Psalm 45:1 which reads: "My heart is overflowing with a good theme; I recite my composition concerning the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer."

Our quote today is from Helen Keller. She said: "Literature is my Utopia."

In this podcast, we are using as our texts: "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt, and "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. If you enjoy this podcast, please feel free to purchase any one of these books from our website.

Our first topic for today is "Spirituality as Quest, Part 2 - Buddha" from the book, "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt.

Here is our first selection from Buddha's Dhammapada.

Chapter XII (12) - SELF.

If a man hold himself dear, let him watch himself carefully; during one at least out of the three watches a wise man should be watchful.

Let each man direct himself first to what is proper, then let him teach others; thus a wise man will not suffer.

If a man make himself as he teaches others to be, then, being himself well subdued, he may subdue (others); one's own self is indeed difficult to subdue.

Self is the lord of self, who else could be the lord? With self well subdued, a man finds a lord such as few can find.

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Our second topic for today is "Reading a Story, Part 6" from the book, "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.

Very little is known with certainty about the man called Aesop, but several accounts and many traditions survive from antiquity. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Aesop was a slave on the island of Samos. He gained great fame from his fables, but he somehow met his death at the hands of the people of Delphi. According to one tradition, Aesop was an ugly and misshapen man who charmed and amused people with his stories. No one knows if Aesop himself wrote down any of his fables, but they circulated widely in ancient Greece and were praised by Plato, Aristotle, and many other authors. His short and witty tales with their incisive morals have remained constantly popular and influenced innumerable later writers.

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May 5, 2015

Our passage from the Word of God today is 1 Kings 11:41 which reads: "Now the rest of the acts of Solomon and whatever he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon?"

Our quote today is from C. S. Lewis. He said: "Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life, and you will save it."

In this podcast, we are using as our texts: "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt, and "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. If you enjoy this podcast, please feel free to purchase any one of these books from our website.

Our first topic for today is "Spirituality as Quest, Part 1 - Buddha" from the book, "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt.

Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, or the Enlightened One, is the founder of the Buddhist religion. Buddha lived in India about twenty-five hundred years ago. There are many legends about his life, but it his teachings that are most important and most interesting. Among the records of Buddha's teaching is Dhammapada, which is a collection of 423 verses organized into 26 topics (or chapters). Dhammapada refers to the path to virtue or the path of correct living. This collection gives a general sense of Buddhism, but there is much more to this tradition.

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Our second topic for today is "Reading a Story, Part 5" from the book, "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.

Elements of Fable: The brief story of "The Appointment in Samarra", which I read in podcast episode #4, seems practically all skin and bones; that is, it contains little decoration. For in a fable everything leads directly to the moral, or message, sometimes stated at the end (an example moral is: "Haste makes waste"). In "The Appointment in Samarra" the moral isn't stated outright, it is merely implied.

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