We are happy to share with our readers two new pages introducing the Bardo Thodol or “Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State”, often known as the Tibetan Book of the Dead. We present a Commentary showing the relevance of these teachings to our daily deaths and rebirths, and two recordings of “The Precious Garland” in our Sacred Audio Collection.

Bar means ‘in between’, and do means ‘island’ or ‘mark’; a sort of landmark which stands between two things. It is rather like an island in the midst of a lake. The concept of bardo is based on the period between sanity and insanity, or the period between confusion and the confusion just about to be transformed into wisdom; and of course it could be said of the experience which stands between death and birth.

• In his article “Perennial Philosophy and the Recovery of a Theophanic View of Nature”, Jeremy Naydler explores the roots and considers the redressal of our broken relation to nature and the environment.

The perennial philosophy reminds us that our fundamental orientation as human beings should be towards spirit, that we should revere the natural world as the manifestation of the divine, and that we should affirm the possibility of an ever more conscious union between ourselves and the spiritual source of existence.

• To conclude with another new addition to our Sacred Audio Collection, we present a selection of recordings of the last 30th of the Qur’an, Juz’ ‘Amma, including some of the most evocative and majestic short chapters of the Islamic revelation.