Shakti Books

This is not an official Shakti Bookshop myspace, but a discussion of the subculture that gave birth to a unique Midwest business. Shakti Bookshop started in 1971 as a yoga co-op but was soon a privately owned business. The bookstore has its roots in the 1960s counterculture when there was a growing interest in Eastern mysticism and a spirituality that was inclusive of all faiths. (These beliefs were mirrored in the psychedelic movement.) The roots of these ideas can be traced back to the late 1800s when the mystic Ramakrishna taught that all religions could lead to enlightenment. Gandhi incorporated this belief and interfaith worship into his nonviolent political movement to liberate India from British rule. (Martin Luther King, Jr. would later adopt these ideas for the civil rights struggle in the U.S.) In the West, interest in Eastern mysticism began with the Transcendentalists in the early to mid 1800s. In the 1950s, another cultural breakthrough occurred when the Beat writers and others (especially Allen Ginsberg and Aldous Huxley) spread an interest in Buddhism, Hinduism, and meta-theologies such as The Perrenial Philosophy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophyStores). And in the 1960s, due to the influence of popular music culture, the floodgates were opened and a plethora of gurus, roshis and monks came to the West to find followers, teach new disciplines of meditation, and start spiritual communities. Christianity had its own renaissance through the writings of monks and theologians such as Thomas Merton, Anthony de Mello, Matthew Fox, and Bede Griffiths. Stores like Shakti were an antidote to the religious conformity and exclusivism found in mainstream religious bookstores that carried books about only one faith or one sectarian interpretation. These stores were set up for rigid indoctrination, while stores like Shakti were interested in interfaith dialogue and learning, and trusted the seeker to find his or her own unique path to divine realization. This is the most liberal approach to spirituality. This liberal approach is mirrored in many of the departments of Shakti books. For example, in the mythology section, Joseph Campbell, who taught that all myths shared a common origin, reigns supreme. In the arts section, mystical universalist Alex Grey is by far the most popular. One of his great paintings, "Praying", shows a person in prayer, but the aura that radiates from him contains the script of many languages and faiths indicating that all prayer goes to the same Divine Source. In the meditation section, a wide variety of faiths are represented. The 1960s/70s also witnessed an explosion in the environmental movement, experiments in alternative diets, vegetarianism, alternative health care, as well as the women's movement, the gay rights movement, and the civil rights movement for people of color. For people in the religious counterculture, who came of age during a time of liberal political influence, these movements were the logical conclusion of the realization that all living beings are souls in evolution and should be treated with compassion and justice.RAM DASS DISCUSSES THE AFTERLIFE AND REINCARNATION,AS WELL AS WHAT HIS GURU, MAHARAJI, REVEALED ABOUT HIS MOTHERHERE IS A PARTICIPANT IN THE 1960S MARSH CHAPEL EXPERIMENTS (CONDUCTED BY TIMOTHY LEARY) THAT EXPLORED THE ROLE OF PSYCHEDELICS IN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE........... I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4 ....