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Prison-Ashram Project
The Prison-Ashram Project, now administered by Human Kindness Foundation, was started in 1973 by Bo and Sita Lozoff, in cooperation with Ram Dass, to encourage convicts to use meditation and other spiritual teachings, turning their prison time into an ashram-like experience. "Ashram" is a Sanskrit word meaning "House of God". Bo and Sita Lozoff were the directors of Prison-Ashram Project for decades, giving workshops in prisons throughout the world and answering up to 100 letters per day. Bo retired from the project in 2011; Sita now leads the project, along with a board of directors. The Prison-Ashram Project has a sister project in England, The Prison Phoenix Trust, which offers yoga and meditation to prisoners in the UK and Ireland. See also *Prison contemplative programs *Prison reform * Prison religion *Religion in United States prisons Inmates incarcerated in the United States penal system practice a variety of religions. Their basic constitutional right to worship has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bo Lozoff
Bo Lozoff (January 10, 1947 – November 29, 2012) was an American writer and interfaith humanitarian. He co-founded several nonprofits, including the interfaith Human Kindness Foundation and its subsidiary Prison-Ashram Project, Carolina Biodiesel, and Kindness House. Many of Lozoff's nonprofit activities aim to improve the lives of prisoners and the previously incarcerated. Nonprofit work Lozoff, with his wife Sita Lozoff, founded the Human Kindness Foundation. He started the Prison-Ashram Project in 1973. The Prison-Ashram Project, operated by Human Kindness Foundation, sends free interfaith books, compact discs, and correspondence to prisoners around the world. Bo Lozoff retired from Human Kindness Foundation in 2011; Sita Lozoff and a small staff continue the work of Human Kindness Foundation. Lozoff also founded an environmental non-profit, Carolina Biodiesel, for the dual purposes of promoting biodiesel and creating jobs for ex-cons. Carolina Biodiesel received a larg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ram Dass
Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931 – December 22, 2019), also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and author. His best-selling 1971 book '' Be Here Now'', which has been described by multiple reviewers as "seminal", helped popularize Eastern spirituality and yoga in the West. He authored or co-authored twelve more books on spirituality over the next four decades, including ''Grist for the Mill'' (1977), ''How Can I Help?'' (1985), and ''Polishing the Mirror'' (2013). Ram Dass was personally and professionally associated with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s. Then known as Richard Alpert, he conducted research with Leary on the therapeutic effects of psychedelic drugs. In addition, Alpert assisted Harvard Divinity School graduate student Walter Pahnke in his 1962 " Good Friday Experiment" with theology students, the first controlled, double-blind study of drugs and the mystical experie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ashram
An ashram ( sa, आश्रम, ) is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ... in Indian religions. Etymology The Sanskrit noun is a thematic nominal derivative from the root 'toil' (< Proto-Indo-European, PIE *''ḱremh2'') with the prefix 'towards.' An ashram is a place where one strives towards a goal in a disciplined manner. Such a goal could be ascetic, spirituality, spiritual, yogic or any other. Overview 
An ashram wo ...
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Yoga Journal
''Yoga Journal'' is a website and digital journal, formerly a print magazine, on yoga as exercise founded in California in 1975 with the goal of combining the essence of traditional yoga with scientific understanding. It has produced live events and materials such as DVDs on yoga and related subjects. The magazine grew from the California Yoga Teachers Association's newsletter, which was called ''The Word''. ''Yoga Journal'' has repeatedly won Western Publications Association's Maggie Awards for "Best Health and Fitness Magazine". It has however been criticized for representing yoga as being intended for affluent white women; in 2019 it attempted to remedy this by choosing a wider variety of yoga models. Beginnings ''Yoga Journal'' was started in May 1975 by the California Yoga Teachers Association (CYTA), with Rama Jyoti Vernon as President, William Staniger as the founding editor, and Judith Lasater on the board and serving as copy editor. Their goal was to combine "the ess ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rig Veda, a colle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Prison Phoenix Trust
The Prison Phoenix Trust (PPT) is a charity registered in England in 1988 that offers help to prisoners through the disciplines of meditation and yoga, working with silence and the breath. The PPT encourages prisoners – and prison staff – to take up a daily practice and supports them with classes, free books and CDs, and personal correspondence. It also sends out quarterly newsletters, written mostly by inmates. The PPT is non - denominational and works with those of any religion or none. The Trust trains and supports qualified yoga teachers for work in prisons, where they run yoga and meditation classes through substance misuse anger management education programs, paid from prison budgets. There are 136 regular classes in 80 prisons in the UK and Ireland, 22 of them for staff. Training events for teachers are held several times a year, and on alternate years the PPT delivers a 5-day teacher, training module for the British Wheel of Yoga, called "Teaching Yoga in Prison." ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sunrise Magazine
The Theosophical Society (Pasadena) is a branch of Theosophy based in Pasadena, California. It claims to be the successor organization to the original Theosophical Society founded by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and others in 1875 in New York City. Currently is the second largest Theosophical group in members and international reach after the Theosophical Society Adyar. It traces its roots to the line of William Quan Judge established Leader in 1895 was recognized by a portion of The Society after Blavatsky's death due to a dispute surrounding Annie Besant regarding the existence of The Masters. The juxtaposed positions are put as this: he was either "faithful to the teachings of the Mahatmas" (the stance of the modern Pasadena organization) or as Besant claimed, had forged the letters claiming them to be from the Mahatmas (the stance of the modern Adyar organization). The corresponding faction led by Henry Steel Olcott and Annie Besant, whose organization, based in India, is known t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prison Contemplative Programs
Prison contemplative programs are classes or practices (which includes meditation, yoga, contemplative prayer or similar) that are offered at correctional institutions for inmates and prison staff. There are measured or anecdotally reported benefits from studies of these programs such a stress relief for inmates and staff.Bartollas (1985) p.141 These programs are gaining in acceptance in North America and Europe but are not mainstream. These rehabilitation programs may be part of prison religious offerings and ministry or may be wholly secular. Of those sponsored by religious organizations some are presented in non-sectarian or in non-religious formats. They have had increasing interest in North American and European prisons since the early 1970s. Contemplative practices in prison however date back at least to Pennsylvania prison reforms in the late 18th century [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prison Reform
Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, improve the effectiveness of a penal system, or implement alternatives to incarceration. It also focuses on ensuring the reinstatement of those whose lives are impacted by crimes. In modern times the idea of making living spaces safe and clean has spread from the civilian population to include prisons, on ethical grounds which honor that unsafe and unsanitary prisons violate constitutional (law) prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment. In recent times prison reform ideas include greater access to legal counsel and family, conjugal visits, proactive security against violence, and implementing house arrest with assistive technology. History Prisons have only been used as the primary punishment for criminal acts in the last few centuries. Far more common earlier were various types of corporal punishment, public humiliation, penal bondage, and banishment for more severe offenses, as well as capital puni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prison Religion
Prison religion includes the religious beliefs and practices of prison inmates, usually stemming from or including concepts surrounding their imprisonment and accompanying lifestyle. "Prison Ministry" is a larger concept, including the support of the spiritual and religious needs of prison guards and staff, whose work in an often demanding and brutal environment often creates a special need for pastoral care, similar to the care that is extended to the military, police officers and fire fighters. History Many religious groups often supply scripture and reading material, organize programs and worship, and train chaplains for work in prisons. Members of religious groups also engage in missionary activity, as there have been many instances of conversion throughout history. For instance, one of the earliest introductions of Islam into Eastern Europe was through the work of an early 11th-century Muslim prisoner who was captured by the Byzantines during their war against Muslims. The M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Religion In United States Prisons
Inmates incarcerated in the United States penal system practice a variety of religions. Their basic constitutional right to worship has been reinforced by decades of court decisions and more recently by the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. However, several of these court rulings have also set limitations on these rights when prisoner demands are seen to impede prison safety and function. Organizations and programs While inmates often worship as individuals they also frequently do so within the structure provided by the programs of religious groups and denominations tending to the incarcerated. Nearly all correctional facilities provide support for at least the Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Chaplains, volunteers and other representatives of these groups may organize religious services as often as daily in large prisons, while also providing pastoral care to inmates and staff. Contemplative programs Some U.S. prisons offer contemplat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Religious Prison-related Organizations
Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements; however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacred things, faith,Tillich, P. (1957) ''Dynamics of faith''. Harper Perennial; (p. 1). a supernatural being or supernatural beings or "some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life". Religious practices may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture. Religions have sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
