This study combines contributions of comparative religious studies, philosophical anthropology, and philosophy of art, to highlight some basic tenets and ideas: god (absent, and incarnated), progressive revelation, savior, redemption, destiny, feminine principle in religion, religious tolerance, and ethics; also, some human potentials and conditions: goodness, vileness, perfection, action, creativity, love, tenderness, longing, compassion, and death.
The introductory chapter ("Some Kind of Joy") uses as a motto one of Nietzsche¢s dictums in Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "As long as men have existed, man has enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brothers, is our original sin! And if we learn better to enjoy ourselves, we best unlearn how to do harm to others and to contrive harm." Joy is explained as a gift, and as a result of double action: of being-here in the world of every-day wonder, and running away from common madness and banality. Then joy may appear as for W. Blake:
"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour"
The second chapter ("Thousand Faces of Perfection") focuses on comparative religion, explaining the concept of incarnation, revelation, and savior, in various religions: Christianity, Buddhism, Vaishnavism... The concept of god (absent and incarnated is explained from the time of Ancient Egypt onwards. The chapter closes with an extensive section of religious tolerance, from the time of Ashoka up to modern times, explaining the activities of IARF, and WCRP.
The third chapter ("Destiny and Action") exposes modes of understanding destiny, predestination, and forecasting in ancient Greece, India, and China, relating these archaic responses to the situation of modern individual.
The fourth chapter ("The Golden Rule and the Way of Ethics" explains various forms of the Golden Rule (i.e. "That you want men to do to you, you must likewise do to them", Matthew, 7: 12), in Jewish, Christian, Confucian, and Buddhist tradition. Principles of love and compassion that go beyond the Golden Rule are explained in the context of various traditions. Through examples in works of art relatedness of sanctity and tenderness is explained. The origin of evil and different explanations of this problem are analyzed at the end of this chapter.
The fifth chapter ("Nausea and Kindness") is a Buddhist reading of the "Six o'clock in the evening" chapter in Sartre¢s Nausea. Deautomatization of perception is related to meditation, and to the "estrangement," as developed in the theory of Russian formalism. Calling upon Sartre, redemption is related to creativity.
The last chapter ("Love and Death") traces down the "emotional history of mankind" in search for the beginning of romantic love. Earliest sources (mostly poetry) are in Ancient Egypt (13 cent. BC), and later in India, China, Greece, Japan... At the end, longing is explained as an universal human drive, particularly challenging for the artist, and mystic, sometimes reaching beyond one life.