Love and Devotion English 1996

Developed from Guru Nitya's talks given at the Stanford and Portland State Universities, the book represents a study in the universal force of love in two major examples of sacred and prophetic literature: Jayadeva's Gita Govindam and the poetry of St. John of the Cross. The foundation of Guru Nitya's approach lies in an exciting, at once original unification of Eastern meditation practices and Western humanistic psychological theory. The outcome is his Love and Devotion, highlighting how the erotic mysticism of Jayadeva and St. John of the Cross exemplify as the two different expressions of the perception of God. Unlike most works of literary criticism, Nitya's book presents a breadth of understanding that illuminates the text, and then extends the meaning of the text in terms of both personal and universal experience. It is essentially a poetic and spiritual treatment of poetic and spiritual themes, for Love and Devotion is itself a treatise on spirituality.