About this Website

"My profession is to always be on the alert to find God in nature--to know his lurking places." --Henry David Thoreau, Journal 1851


“…If one were to turn a colt loose in a green meadow that was entirely smooth and level…it would be the horse’s nature to let himself go with all his strength in galloping about the meadow—he would enjoy it for it is his nature. In just the same way, God rejoices, pouring out all His nature and His being into His likeness, for He is Himself this likeness!”  --Meister Eckhart, Sermon 57             

                                                                     
This Web site, Religious Scholar, explores common themes and images in world religions and spiritual traditions. The site has two primary goals: to advocate for tolerance and appreciation of the many ways of thinking about and expressing spiritual understanding throughout history and the world; and to celebrate the role of Nature in opening doors to spiritual understanding.

Examples of commonalities among spiritual traditions include :

  • Visual metaphors in ancient Tibetan mandalas (religious images) and the illuminations of the 12th century theologian, composer and scientist, Hildegard of Bingen;
  • Ideas of love, work and detachment in both the Bhagavad Gita--often called the gospel of Hinduism--and the sermons and discourses of Meister Eckhart, a 14th century Dominican master;
  • The spiritual path of ascent in Yoga's chakra theory and the book, Interior Castle, by St. Teresa of Avila.

Religious Scholar believes that studying and using the structures of different faiths to reexamine what we know and believe in our own traditions can be an invigorating experience for mind and spirit. Rather than detract from the integrity of our own beliefs, such study will expand our understanding of religious and spiritual truth and the global community we live in.

Religious Scholar also believes, with H.D. Thoreau, that in wildness--the natural environment around us--is the salvation of the world.

About the Website Author

Linda Brown Holt is an independent scholar in the field of comparative religious literature; serves as graduate faculty mentor and capstone coordinator with Thomas Edison State College; and teaches Humanities courses with Southern New Hampshire University. Author of the book Viewing Meister Eckhart through the Bhagavad Gita, Holt has written articles that appeared in The New York Times, Qi Journal, Yoga Journal, Liberal Education, The Empty Vessel and other publications. She is the author of chapters in the books Letting Go: Living without a Net and Seeing through Symbols: Insights into Spirit, both published by Swedenborg Foundation Publishers. She has lectured on distance learning and communicating with adult students at the University of Vienna, Charles University in Prague and the University of Innsbruck. Author of The Lilac Thief, a collection of poetry, she has published two novels under a penname, one of which has been translated into Spanish (search "Tigre Blanco") and published by Ediciones La Llave (http://www.edicioneslallave.com/).  She holds an earned Doctor of Letters degree focusing on comparative religious literature from Drew University, an M.A. from California State University-Dominguez Hills and a B.A. with honors from Rider University. Recent presentations include a talk on publishing at a Princeton Research Forum workshop in May 2010 and a paper with PowerPoint on "The Zen Drawings of H.D.Thoreau" at the 2010 Thoreau Society's Annual Gathering in Concord, MA. She is a liberal Christian by religion, a Western Daoist by inclination and a student of classical Yoga and Vedanta for more than 40 years, and is a huge fan of H.D. Thoreau.

E-mail:

ReligiousScholar@hotmail.com