Samsara: The Wheel of Birth, Death and Rebirth: A journey through spirituality, religion and Asia

Samsara - The Wheel of Birth, Death and Rebirth takes the reader on a journey of discovery through the fascinating cultures of India, Nepal, Bali and Cambodia, exploring challenging ideas that will get you thinking about your own life and death and where those might fit into the bigger picture. Belief in samsara as an endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth is accepted by over a billion people and lies at the heart of Hinduism and Buddhism.

It's a dynamic mix of personal travel yarn and commentary on the vibrant cultures, architecture, history, art, ways of life, beliefs and religious traditions of India, Nepal, Bali and Cambodia alongside an in-depth well researched exploration of spirituality, reincarnation (nonfiction), karma, science and the nature of consciousness, exploring questions such as:

• Why do we suffer? What happens when we die?
• What is consciousness, does it end with death or is reincarnation or an afterlife possible?
• Does our life, the things that happen to us, and our death, have any meaning?
• Can samsara, the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, and karma, shed any light on these age old questions?
• Do spiritual dimensions exist or do we live in a purely material universe?
• What, if anything, might spirituality mean in an unpredictable 21st century?
• Is spirituality without religion possible?
• Do Indian spiritual philosophy, mysticism, mystics and gurus offer worthwhile spiritual insights?
• Are spiritual teachings compatible with new scientific understandings of the nature of reality and consciousness and what light can science shed on those?
• Can parapsychology, tantra, psychedelics such ayahuasca, psilocybin and DMT, or quantum physics offer any clues?

As an examination of reincarnation - nonfiction - this book asks what ideas such as samsara and karma can reveal about our lives, our consciousness and the possibility of life after death. Part spiritual journey, part exploration of religion and culture, part personal travel memoir about places of astonishing diversity that confront the outsider with many questions, Samsara - The Wheel of Birth, Death and Rebirth will entertain, inform and provoke you.

Print length

323 pagesLanguage

1. English