Finding the On-Ramp to Your Spiritual Path
A Roadmap to Joy and Rejuvenation
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
True to the title, this guidebook directs beginners on the spiritual journey. Author Jan Phillips, reared Catholic, has traveled through Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim cultures merging dualities of East and West. A popular workshop leader for decades, she is a dynamic, upbeat, straight-talking, wise old woman in her own right, and her prose reflects her character. In warm, engaging language, she presents basic spiritual concepts and practices for the multitudes of Americans who have left traditional religion and are searching for a full-bodied, mind-expanding, convincing spirituality
The book consists of short essays and personal anecdotes. Each story incorporates the wisdom of various traditions, all suggesting the immanence of the Divine in our lives. Each chapter reframes the meaning of a typical road sign-such as YIELD for surrender, STOP for taking time for balance, LANE ENDS for giving up old notions. All in all, this lively book maps an adventurous trek from illusion to reality, fear to fulfillment, isolation to community. It invites us to go deeper and further, finding, at the end, that the journey is everything.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Recent decades have seen a steady rise in the number of individuals who have broken free from traditional religion and yet still want to live a life of faith. For those embarking on this quest, as well as those already on a spiritual journey, this book identifies the signposts of a spiritual path with a lucidity and succinctness rarely articulated by others. Interweaving story, poetry, and reflections on her own spiritual journey, Phillips elegantly answers the fundamental questions: what is the spiritual path? Who else is on it? And where does it lead? Road-sign metaphors such as "yield" (the surrender that yields fruit) or "curves ahead" (the spiritual path is never a straight road) provide familiar images for the core concepts of this "pilgrimage inward the destination is awareness." Seasoned seekers will recognize other common signs along the spiritual way: a daily commitment to peace, mystical paradox, self-forgiveness, compassion, harmonious relationships, and moments of enlightenment. And while the path itself is hardly new, this book provides an innovative and inspirational map of the landscape that typifies 21st-century spiritual consciousness.
