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STEM Education in Poverty: Insights from Zimbabwe and Beyond
by Brantina Chirinda Gladys Sunzuma Perkins MuredziThis book is about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in poverty and the lessons we learn from Zimbabwe. The world is driving towards the fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), where economic growth has been attributed to STEM education. STEM education is vital in this era, where both developed and developing countries are undergo rapid changes. Globally, STEM education has been practised differently in schools and universities. University programs, new school curricula, instructional methods, extracurricular programs, and professional development programs for in-service teachers have been created to cater to STEM subjects. STEM education is envisioned to produce critical thinkers, inventors, creators, problem solvers, innovators, and professionals who will solve the world’s ever-changing challenges, including inequity, food insecurity, climate change, inequality, and poverty. STEM is essential to modern education. Zimbabwe has faced significant economic challenges but has made remarkable strides in STEM education. By examining the successes and challenges of STEM education in Zimbabwe, we can learn valuable lessons about improving STEM education in underserved communities. This book contributes to the international debate surrounding the optimal STEM education for students in underserved schools. It incorporates detailed accounts of STEM education in Zimbabwe schools, shedding light on the challenges students and educators face in impoverished areas. In Zimbabwe, STEM education faces significant challenges such as materials and facilities, pedagogy, policy reform, access, and relevance. Some of the main issues highlighted in this book are the need for more resources, including funding, teaching materials, and adequate laboratories. Effective STEM pedagogy is hampered by an education system that emphasises the curriculum and teacher-centred focus instead of focusing on how students can be taught or learn. Research has shown that in Zimbabwe, STEM teachers must apply inventive pedagogies and suitable learner-centred STEM teaching approaches. As a result, there is a need for more STEM-related programs and courses in schools and universities to improve the opportunities for students to pursue careers in these fields. Another challenge is the need for more awareness about the opportunities and importance of STEM education and interest in STEM subjects among students, which can be attributed to a lack of exposure and understanding of the relevance and importance of these fields in today's world. While lack of resources and other challenges hinder effectiveness, opportunity lies in promising pathways of policy and practice. In Zimbabwe, there is a varying degree of success in the implemented competence-based curriculum, which emphasises inquiry-based learning and STEM education. Finally, there is a need for early exposure to STEM-based career opportunities and for more collaboration between the government, private sector, and educational institutions to address these challenges and promote STEM education in Zimbabwe. This book uses Zimbabwe as an example to explore STEM education in poverty. By examining the successes and challenges of STEM education in Zimbabwe, this book offers valuable insights into how STEM education can be integrated into the curriculum in countries with developing and emerging economies. This book is an essential resource for anyone interested in improving STEM education in underserved communities.
STEM for humanities scholars: Natural sciences for humanities scholars
by Walter HehlThe beginnings of natural sciences and humanities in antiquity were shared, but by the end of the 19th century, the natural sciences had developed dominantly through their successes. In response to this dominance, the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey coined the term Geisteswissenschaften (humanities) in 1883. On the other hand, it was clear in the natural sciences that entire areas of the mind were inaccessible to them, such as sensory experiences and consciousness. This book attempts to show that this sharp divide has softened. Physics has become more intellectual, and the technology of the mind has developed: fundamentally, this is information technology. Physics for the inanimate and computer science (with a physical basis) for all living things and for the computer together explain the world. With mathematics as its foundation and tool, this results in STEM (MINT in German: Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaft, Technik). An intellectual worldview without STEM is not possible with dignity. There are several STEM fields that are directly useful to the humanities. Examples include the principle of the laser and the concept of entropy. A third intellectual domain remains outside: art. But art and STEM are not opposites.
STEM, Social Mobility and Equality: Avenues for Widening Access
by Kate Hoskins Bernard BarkerThis book examines the role of the family in intra and inter-generational social movement. The authors take a genealogical approach to researching social mobility, using a university chemistry department as a case study to explore participants’ motives for pursuing a STEM undergraduate degree and the influences that have shaped them. Assessing the roles of genealogy, family and higher education in shaping their aspirations and careers, the authors examine the contributions of these variables to the students aspirations. With a wealth of empirically rich qualitative data, the authors identify areas where work is required to achieve greater equality of access to high performing chemistry departments and enhance career outcomes, which could be applied more widely. This book will appeal to scholars of educational inequalities and widening access, particularly in terms of STEM education.
Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism
by Regina SchwartzSacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism asks what happened when the world was shaken by challenges to the sacred order as people had known it, an order that regulated both their actions and beliefs. When Reformers gave up the doctrine of transubstantiation (even as they held onto revised forms of the Eucharist), they lost a doctrine that infuses all materiality, spirituality, and signification with the presence of God. That presence guaranteed the cleansing of human fault, the establishment of justice, the success of communication, the possibility of union with God and another, and love. These longings were not lost but displaced, Schwartz argues, onto other cultural forms in a movement from ritual to the arts, from the sacrament to the sacramental. Investigating the relationship of the arts to the sacred, Schwartz returns to the primary meaning of "sacramental" as "sign making," noting that because the sign always points beyond itself, it participates in transcendence, and this evocation of transcendence, of mystery, is the work of a sacramental poetics.
Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology
by Michael FishbaneContemporary theology -- and Jewish theology in particular -- Michael Fishbane asserts, now lies fallow, beset by strong critiques from within and without. For Jewish reality, a coherent and wide-ranging response in thoroughly modern terms is needed. "Sacred Attunement" is Fishbane's attempt to renew Jewish theology for our time, in the larger context of modern and postmodern challenges to theology and theological thought in the broadest sense. The first part of the book re-grounds theology in this setting and opens up new pathways through nature, art, and the theological dimension as a whole. In the second section, Fishbane introduces his hermeneutical theology -- one grounded in the interpretation of scripture as a distinctly Jewish practice. The third section focuses on modes of self-cultivation for awakening and sustaining a covenant theology. The final section takes up questions of scripture, authority, belief, despair, and obligation as theological topics in their own right. The first full-scale Jewish theology in America since Abraham J. Heschel's "God in Search of Man" and the first comprehensive Jewish philosophical theology since Franz Rosenzweig's "Star of Redemption"; "Sacred Attunement" is a work of uncommon personal integrity and originality from one of the most distinguished scholars of Judaica in our time.
Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror
by Michael BurleighBeginning with the chaotic post-World War I landscape, in which religious belief was one way of reordering a world knocked off its axis, Sacred Causes is a penetrating critique of how religion has often been camouflaged by politics. All the bloody regimes and movements of the twentieth century are masterfully captured here, from Stalin's Soviet Union, Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Franco's Spain through to the modern scourge of terrorism. Eloquently and persuasively combining an authoritative survey of history with a timely reminder of the dangers of radical secularism, Burleigh asks why no one foresaw the religious implications of massive Third World immigration, and he deftly investigates what are now driving calls for a civic religion to counter the terrorist threats that have so shocked the West.
Sacred Exchanges: Images in Global Context (Columbia Themes in Philosophy, Social Criticism, and the Arts)
by Robyn FerrellAs the international art market globalizes the indigenous image, it changes its identity, status, value, and purpose in local and larger contexts. Focusing on a school of Australian Aboriginal painting that has become popular in the contemporary art world, Robyn Ferrell traces the influence of cultural exchanges on art, the self, and attitudes toward the other.Aboriginal acrylic painting, produced by indigenous women artists of the Australian Desert, bears a superficial resemblance to abstract expressionism and is often read as such by viewers. Yet to see this art only through a Western lens is to miss its unique ontology, logics of sensation, and rich politics and religion. Ferrell explores the culture that produces these paintings and connects its aesthetic to the brutal environmental and economic realities of its people. From here, she travels to urban locales, observing museums and department stores as they traffic interchangeably in art and commodities. Ferrell ties the history of these desert works to global acts of genocide and dispossession. Rethinking the value of the artistic image in the global market and different interpretations of the sacred, she considers photojournalism, ecotourism, and other sacred sites of the western subject, investigating the intersection of modern art and postmodern culture. She ultimately challenges the primacy of the "European gaze" and its fascination with sacred cultures, constructing a more balanced intercultural dialogue that deemphasizes the aesthetic of the real championed by western philosophy.
Sacred Jewels of Yoga: Wisdom from India's Beloved Scriptures, Teachers, Masters, and Monks
by Dave DeLucaMillions of Americans today practice the asanas, or postures, of yoga, but many are unaware of the profound spiritual teachings at the heart of yoga’s ancient source scriptures. In this remarkable anthology, acclaimed Vedanta teacher Dave DeLuca presents 166 sacred passages from some of India’s most revered yoga scriptures — the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras, the Bhakti Sutras, the Astavakra Samhita, and the Srimad Bhagavatam — along with teachings by two of the most beloved yoga masters of the modern era, Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. This combination of ancient wisdom and modern commentary makes Sacred Jewels of Yoga an invaluable introduction to the scriptural treasures of ancient India and a priceless resource for inspiration, illumination, and guidance.
Sacred Kingship in World History: Between Immanence and Transcendence
by Moin, A. Azfar; Strathern, AlanSacred kingship has been the core political form, in small-scale societies and in vast empires, for much of world history. This collaborative and interdisciplinary book recasts the relationship between religion and politics by exploring this institution in long-term and global comparative perspective.Editors A. Azfar Moin and Alan Strathern present a theoretical framework for understanding sacred kingship, which leading scholars reflect on and respond to in a series of essays. They distinguish between two separate but complementary religious tendencies, immanentism and transcendentalism, which mold kings into divinized or righteous rulers, respectively. Whereas immanence demands priestly and cosmic rites from kings to sustain the flourishing of life, transcendence turns the focus to salvation and subordinates rulers to higher ethical objectives. Secular modernity does not end the struggle between immanence and transcendence—flourishing and righteousness—but only displaces it from kings onto nations and individuals. After an essay by Marshall Sahlins that ranges from the Pacific to the Arctic, the book contains chapters on religion and kingship in settings as far-flung as ancient Egypt, classical Greece, medieval Islam, Mughal India, modern European drama, and ISIS. Sacred Kingship in World History sheds new light on how religion has constructed rulership, with implications spanning global history, religious studies, political theory, and anthropology.
Sacred Meditations
by Francis BaconFrancis Bacon, 1st Viscount St. Alban(s), was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. He was extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution. Francis Bacon's Philosophy is displayed in the vast and varied writings he left, which might be divided in three great branches: Scientifical works - in which his ideas for a universal reform of knowledge, scientific method, and the improvement of mankind's state are presented. Religious/literary works - in which he presents his moral philosophy and theological meditations. Juridical works - in which his reforms in Law are proposed.
Sacred Meditations
by Francis BaconFrancis Bacon, 1st Viscount St. Alban(s), was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. He was extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution. Francis Bacon's Philosophy is displayed in the vast and varied writings he left, which might be divided in three great branches: Scientifical works - in which his ideas for an universal reform of knowledge, scientific method and the improvement of mankind's state are presented. Religious/literary works - in which he presents his moral philosophy and theological meditations. Juridical works - in which his reforms in Law are proposed.
Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World
by Karen ArmstrongFrom one of the most original thinkers on the role of religion in the modern world, a profound exploration of the spiritual power of nature—and an urgent call to reclaim that power in everyday life. "Much has been written on the scientific and technological aspects of climate change.... But Armstrong&’s book is both more personal and more profound. Its urgent message is that hearts and minds need to change if we are to once more learn to revere our beautiful and fragile planet." —The GuardianSince the beginning of time, humankind has looked upon nature and seen the divine. In the writings of the great thinkers across religions, the natural world inspires everything from fear, to awe, to tranquil contemplation; God, or however one defined the sublime, was present in everything. Yet today, even as we admire a tree or take in a striking landscape, we rarely see nature as sacred.In this short but deeply powerful book, the best-selling historian of religion Karen Armstrong re-sacralizes nature for modern times. Drawing on her vast knowledge of the world&’s religious traditions, she vividly describes nature&’s central place in spirituality across the centuries. In bringing this age-old wisdom to life, Armstrong shows modern readers how to rediscover nature&’s potency and form a connection to something greater than ourselves.
Sacred Places, Sacred Teachings: Following the Footsteps of the Buddha
by Khenchen Konchog GyaltshenA guide to following the footsteps of the Buddha—for the pilgrim in India and at home.The holy sites of India—Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, Shravasti, and others— became holy because the Buddha blessed them by performing his enlightened activities there. When we become holy through our practice of the Buddha&’s instructions, then the places we go will be made holy, too. Through meditation practice, we can realize and capture what the Buddha described as the profundity of the mind, which is completely peaceful, free from elaboration, luminous, and uncompounded. In this wise, heartfelt, and indispensable guide, Khenchen Konchog Gyaltshen takes us on a journey through the major holy sites for Buddhist pilgrimage by offering profound teachings related to each of the sacred places. In Bodh Gaya, the site of the Bodhi tree and the Buddha&’s enlightenment, we learn of how the Buddha became enlightened and what it means to take refuge in him; we uncover the profundity of emptiness at the site where the Buddha expounded the Heart Sutra; at the place of the Buddha&’s passing, we learn that the legacy of his vast teachings came about through his perfection of bodhicitta—a core quality we can master, too. In chapters based on these and other sacred places, we find that the wisdom the Buddha uncovered is available to us all. The Buddha discovered total satisfaction, the ultimate achievement, and left instructions on how we, too, can achieve the same. We already have this great path; we just have to follow it. In that way, we experience the joy of following the footsteps of the Buddha.
Sacred Science: Person-Centred Inquiry into the Spiritual and the Subtle
by John HeronThis book breaks new ground in transpersonal pscyhology. It argues for a people-based, person-centred religion which hold that spiritual authority is wihtin each individual, and that spiritual initiation is a path of lived inquiry, for which all traditional systems are a secondary resource. Sacred Science will be of interest to all those who believe in the emergence of the self-determining human spirit within the field of religious belief and practice. It is written for the general reader, yet specialists in transpersonal studies will find that it addresses critical issues at a sophisticated level.
Sacred Science: Understanding Divine Creation
by William H. WestIf you review of the impulses that created the universe, directed the unfolding of life, and empowered human consciousness you reach an undeniable conclusion: an omnipotent Creator supervised the unfolding of our universe.From the moment of creation to the emergence of a planet tailor-made for life, from the journey of multi-million species to the development of an upright creature hungry for God, science tells a sacred story: a superintelligent Creator used His mathematical genius to convert lifeless equations into galaxies, planets, and people. His love has been visible throughout the process. Could our journey reflect thousands of random accidents with no divine guidance? Creation delivered impulses that filled the universe with galaxies and stars. Eliminate any one of those blueprints and the universe would have been stillborn. Stars produced a perfect mix of elements to bring the universe to life. Without a robust ensemble of gene and protein sequences, life might still be living at the bottom of the sea. Hundreds of human genes convert the neurons of a human infant into trillions of networks in an adult brain. Without those God-given genes, a dangerous world may have left us trapped in the treetops with no interest in science at all. But God shared His mind and triggered the emergence of human consciousness. Where do we find ourselves after centuries of that scientific searching? We see that science reflets its source. Science is a gift of God&’s creative love, and is nothing less than sacred!
Sacred Selves, Sacred Settings: Reflecting Hans Mol
by Adam J. Powell Douglas J. DaviesSignificantly influencing the sociological study of religion, Hans Mol developed ideas of identity which remain thought-provoking for analyses of how religion operates within contemporary societies. Sacred Selves, Sacred Settings brings current social-religious topics into sharp focus: international scholars analyse, challenge, and apply Mol’s theoretical assertions. This book introduces the unique story of Hans Mol, who survived Nazi imprisonment and proceeded to brush shoulders with formidable intellectuals of the twentieth century, such as Robert Merton, Talcott Parsons, and Reinhold Niebuhr. Offering a fresh perspective on popular subjects such as secularization, pluralism, and the place of religion in the public sphere, this book sets case studies within an intellectual biography which describes Mol’s key influences and reveals the continuing import of Hans Mol’s work applied to recent data and within a contemporary context.
Sacred Time and the Search for Meaning
by Gary EberleIn Sacred Time and the Search for Meaning, author Gary Eberle contemplates how humans' view of time has evolved throughout history, how we came to measure time, and why we feel especially starved for it now. Eberle seeks to rediscover a renewed sense of meaning in life through looking for ways to enter the realm of sacred time or "sabbath time"--where we can reconnect with the slower, deeper rhythms of life that have traditionally been experienced through worship, prayer, and the observance of holy days. Drawing from the work of Western philosophers from Aristotle to Heidegger, and on theorists from Jung to Foucault, he presents both an intellectual history of time and a personal account of his own search for sacred time. Along the way he formulates an insightful analysis of our culture's obsession with speed and efficiency, and he offers guidance for slowing down to savor life outside of schedules and routines, showing the way toward finding fulfillment in this increasingly accelerated world.
Sacred Trickery and the Way of Kindness: The Radical Wisdom of Jodo
by Alejandro Jodorowsky Gilles FarcetEnter the mind of Jodo and follow his initiatory saga from Zen disciple to revolutionary filmmaker to spiritual teacher• Explores the sacred trickery of shamans he encountered, including Carlos Castaneda, and how intention and action matter more than notions of “true” and “false”• Explains the Way of Kindness and how small acts of generosity and goodness can have a profound effect on your spirit, infusing life with a wealth of happiness• Includes contributions from friends and students of Jodorowsky on their experiences with him, including his son Adan Jodorowsky Known for his surrealist films, his unique approach to tarot, his symbolic comics, and his shamanic therapeutic method of psychomagic, Alejandro Jodorowsky has accomplished an extraordinary amount in his more than 80 years. In this book, we get an intimate look into the inner workings of the cult figure of Jodo. What is revealed is a man who has evolved since his groundbreaking films of the 1970s, El Topo and The Holy Mountain, a man who has grown from a sacred trickster, a shaman of psychomagic, into a brilliant spiritual maverick of the 21st century. We get to see Jodo’s own reflections on the rich tapestry of his remarkable life, including the initiatory failure of the Dune film project, which combined the talents of a multitude of creative greats, including Moebius, Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, and H. R. Giger. We learn about Jodo’s years with Marcel Marceau and with great masters such as Ejo Takata, whose Zen training featured strenuous physical and mental ordeals; the sorceress Pachita, who performed psychic surgery on Jodo; and the mysterious Carlos Castaneda, whose sacred trickery reveals how intentions matter more than notions of “true” and “false.” Discussing the Way of Kindness that he now follows, Jodo reveals how intentionally practicing small acts of generosity and goodness can have a profound effect on your spirit, infusing life with a wealth of happiness. From sacred trickery to the path of kindness, Jodo’s radical wisdom discerns the timeless within the immediate and gauges the everyday by the measure of eternity.
Sacred Violence: Torture, Terror, and Sovereignty
by Paul W. KahnInSacred Violence, the distinguished political and legal theorist Paul W. Kahn investigates the reasons for the resort to violence characteristic of premodern states. In a startling argument, he contends that law will never offer an adequate account of political violence. Instead, we must turn to political theology, which reveals that torture and terror are, essentially, forms of sacrifice. Kahn forces us to acknowledge what we don't want to see: that we remain deeply committed to a violent politics beyond law. Paul W. Kahn is Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and the Humanities at Yale Law School and Director of the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights. Cover Illustration: "Abu Ghraib 67, 2005" by Fernando Botero. Courtesy of the artist and the American University Museum.
Sacrifice in the Post-Kantian Tradition: Perspectivism, Intersubjectivity, and Recognition (SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy)
by Paolo Diego BubbioIn this book, Paolo Diego Bubbio offers an alternative to standard philosophical accounts of the notion of sacrifice, which generally begin with the hermeneutic and postmodern traditions of the twentieth century, starting instead with the post-Kantian tradition of the nineteenth century. He restructures the historical development of the concept of sacrifice through a study of Kant, Solger, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, and shows how each is indebted to Kant and has more in common with him than is generally acknowledged. Bubbio argues that although Kant sought to free philosophical thought from religious foundations, he did not thereby render the role of religious claims philosophically useless. This makes it possible to consider sacrifice as a regulative and symbolic notion, and leads to an unorthodox idea of sacrifice: not the destruction of something for the sake of something else, but rather a kenotic emptying, conceived as a withdrawal or a "making room" for others.
Sacrificial Logics: Feminist Theory and the Critique of Identity (Thinking Gender)
by Allison WeirAllison Weir sets forth a concept of identity which depends on an acceptance of nonidentity, difference, and connection to others, defined as a capacity to participate in a social world. Weir argues that the equation of identity with repression and domination links "relational feminists" like Nancy Chodorow, who equate self-identity with the repression of connection to others, and poststructuralist feminists like Judith Butler, who view any identity as a repression of nonidentity or difference. Weir traces this conception of identity as domination back to Simone de Beauvoir's theories of the relation of self and other.
Sad Love: Romance and the Search for Meaning
by Carrie JenkinsAs a woman with a husband and other partners, philosopher Carrie Jenkins knows that love is complicated. Love is most often associated with happiness, satisfaction and pleasure. But it has a darker side we ignore at our peril. Love is often an uncomfortable and difficult feeling. The people we love can let us down badly. And the ways we love are often quite different to the romantic ideals society foists upon us. Since we are inevitably disappointed by love, wouldn’t we be better off without it? No, says Carrie Jenkins. Instead, we need a new philosophy of love, one that recognizes that the pain and suffering love causes are a natural, even a good part of what makes love worthwhile. What Jenkins calls “sad love” offers no bogus “happy ever afters”. Rather, it tries to find a way properly to integrate heartbreak and disappointment into the lived experience of love. It’s time we liberated love.
Sad Planets
by Eugene Thacker Dominic Pettman“Everything is sad,” wrote the Ancient poets. But is this sadness merely a human experience, projected onto the world, or is there a gloom attributable to the world itself? Could the universe be forever weeping the “tears of things”? In this series of meditations, Dominic Pettman and Eugene Thacker explore some of the key “negative affects” – both eternal and emergent – associated with climate change, environmental destruction, and cosmic solitude. In so doing they unearth something so obvious that it has gone largely unnoticed: the question of how we should feel about climate change. Between the information gathered by planetary sensors and the simple act of breathing the air, new unsettling moods are produced for which we currently lack an adequate language. Should we feel grief over the loss of our planet? Or is the strange feeling of witnessing mass extinction an indicator that the planet was never “ours” to begin with? Sad Planets explores this relationship between our all-too-human melancholia and a more impersonal sorrow, nestled in the heart of the cosmic elements.Spanning a wide range of topics – from the history of cosmology to the “existential threat” of climate change – this book is a reckoning with the limits of human existence and comprehension. As Pettman and Thacker observe, never before have we known so much about the planet and the cosmos, and yet never before have we felt so estranged from that same planet, to say nothing of the stars beyond.
Sade’s Philosophical System in its Enlightenment Context
by Henry Martyn LloydThis book connects the philosophy of the Marquis de Sade—one of the most notorious, iconic, and yet poorly-understood figures within the history of European thought—with the broader themes of the Enlightenment. Rather than seeing himself as a mere pornographer, Sade understood himself as continuing the progressive tradition of French Enlightenment philosophy. Sade aspired to be a philosophe. This book uses intellectual history and the history of philosophy to reconstruct Sade’s philosophical ‘system’ and its historical context. Within the period’s discourse of sensibility Sade draws on the philosophical and the literary to form a relatively sophisticated ‘system’ which he deploys to critically engage with the two major strands of eighteenth-century ethical theory: the moral sense and natural law traditions. This work is of interest to: ‘Continental’ Philosophy, Critical Theory, French Studies, the History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, Literary Studies, the History of Moral Philosophy, and Enlightenment Studies.
Sadguru: सद्गुरु
by Arundhathi Subramaniamयह पुस्तक सद्गुरु की प्रेरणागाथा है- वह असाधारण दिव्यपुरुष; जो युवावस्था में ही ईश्वर को जानने के लिए तत्पर हो उठे; मोटरसाइकिलों का शौकीन; जो जीवन के रहस्य खोजने के लिए उद्यत हो उठे; संशयवादी होने के बावजूद आध्यात्मिक सत्पुरुष बन गए। बाल्यकाल में जग्गी वासुदेव (जो अब सद्गुरु के नाम से वियात हैं) उच्छृंखल स्वभाव के थे; कक्षा छोड़कर भाग जाना; हुड़दंग करना; चुहलबाजी करना उनकी प्रकृति में था; बाद में उन्हें मोटरसाइकिल और रेसिंग गाडि़यों का शौक हो गया। उनकी आध्यात्मिक यात्रा में इस तेजी और तत्परता को सहज ही अनुभव किया जा सकता है। ऐतिहासिक ‘ध्यानलिंग’ की स्थापना किसी जिद्दी; हठधर्मी व्यति के द्वारा ही किया जाना संभव था; और सद्गुरु ने वह कर दिखाया। सद्गुरु का विश्वास है कि आस्था; आध्यात्मिकता और विज्ञान एक-दूसरे से जुडे़ हैं। इनके समन्वय मात्र से ही मानव का कल्याण होगा; सद्गुणों के विकास के लिए प्रत्येक व्यति को सतत सक्रिय होना होगा। सद्गुरु के साथ लंबी बातचीत और उनके अनुयायियों तथा शिष्यों के साथ साक्षात्कारों के आधार पर अरुंधती सुब्रह्मण्यम द्वारा तैयार की गई यह पुस्तक एक जीवंत किंवदंती ‘सद्गुरु’ का जीवनवृ प्रस्तुत करती है। सद्गुरु की त्वरित मेधा; अद्भुत वाक्पटुता और आधुनिक शद-संपदा से सज्जित यह पुस्तक आपके आध्यात्मिक उन्नयन का मार्ग प्रशस्त करेगी और आपके जीवन की दिशा बदल देगी।