Customer Reviews

Religions of the World

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I thought this was going to be only an audio reading of Huston Smith's classic, The World's Religions, which I would have been very happy with. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that these tapes have new material by Professor Smith. This could have been another version of the classic book.

many of us have tasted comparative religion studies in the past and
many of us also have experienced huston smith's writings. however, when i
first heard these tapes several years ago, i knew there was something very
special, almost mystical, about them. it is as if one can listen with the
ears of one's heart, as if one can hear the deeper truths that lie beneath
the surface expressions of faith. one hears the bells, the chants, the
drums, the hymns being prayed by the persons for whom they bring meaning.
one hears the poetry and the music in the text. there is something rich and
connective in these tapes....connective to God, connective to self, and
especially connective to others with whom we usually cannot get past the
different way we look.

in seeking understanding, i have often been distracted by such surface
clutter and illusion...gods and goddesses, rules and rituals and the like,
and been unable to find the essence lying underneath. with these abbreviated
tapes, it is as if smith takes you directly to the source, to that
underground river from which all springs emerge. perhaps it is his emphasis
on the mystical aspects of the various religions, the followers in each
religion who most often directly experience the Love at the root and the
destination of a path. perhaps it is his insistence that he not speak for
any religion until he lived it himself, so that he could understand what it
means to the follower.

smith is a seeker of wisdom and of truth and so he immersed himself in the
communities he wished to understand. he explains how one comes to be
familiar with and then to understand and then to experience and feel and
finally to be transformed by a religion. he likens the movement of
understanding and compassion as a movement through the pronouns one uses
when speaking about a religion. first, one talks about the other as a 'they'
(they believe, they feel, etc)...soon it becomes a 'you' as the other
becomes one you relate to face to face, intimately; then, as you begin to
connect within yourself, you begin to use the pronoun 'i'; and finally a
'we'....

these tapes are very accessible to the average person. one need not be a
mystic or a poet or a saint (although i believe we all are all of the
above). their magic is perhaps in their brevity...not enough time to get
caught up in the details.

these tapes are universal in scope and have the potential to heal much of that which has been torn apart in this world...if we could only learn to listen to the story beneath the stories that each of us claim as truth..

Ten cassettes, ten hours of lectures by the renown Huston Smith covering the role of religion is humankind's history, specifically covering Hinduism, Buddhism, Confusionism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam plus the "primal religions" of "primitive" humans. I wish I'd had a professor like Huston Smith!