Love as a Cosmological Force

PROFESSOR RAVI RAVINDRA

Tuesday 5 September

The sages in all the great traditions have said in many ways that Love is a fundamental quality of the cosmos. Not only a quality but a basic constituent of Ultimate Reality. The Rig Veda (X, 129.4) says, ‘In the Beginning arose Love, which was the primal germ cell of the mind.’ And the New Testament affirms: ‘God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.’ (1 John 4:16). The search for this great Love at the very heart of the cosmos is both the beginning and the end of the spiritual paths. In this presentation we will explore in two important spiritual texts, the Bhagavad Gita and the Gospel of John, the place of a searcher’s love for the Divine and more importantly the call to the searcher to be loveable by the Divine. 

RAVI RAVINDRA is a Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he served as a professor in the departments of Comparative Religion, Philosophy, and Physics. He was a member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, a fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla, and the founding director of the Threshold Award for Integrative Knowledge. Among the books he has authored are Whispers from the Other Shore: Spiritual Search – East and West; The Yoga of the Christ ; Science and the Sacred; Krishnamurti: Two Birds on One Tree; Heart Without Measure:  Gurdjieff Work with Madame de Salzmann;  The Bhagavad Gita: A Guide to Navigating the Battle of Life; and Blessed by Mysterious Grace: The Journey of a Pilgrim.

Venue and Timing

TEMENOS ACADEMY
The Royal Asiatic Society, 
14 Stephenson Way, London, 
NW1 2HD
Nearest Underground - Euston Square
Door Open 6.10pm
Lecture begins 6.30pm

Admission

£8 or £5 Members of the Temenos Academy/Concessions
FREE for full-time students with ID card
E temenosacademy@myfastmail.com T 07513 883 335