Wide Awake Living Newsletter

The books are ready to go!

Life Beyond Belief, excerpts

below & now on the web.

From the Introduction:

"Past generations of people seeking to penetrate the secrets of spiritual identity and the source of human suffering have isolated themselves from the world in order to pursue this work, creating an environment of peace within which to uncover the spiritual treasure of their inner beings. We also see many modern people relating to religion and spirituality in superficial ways by simply paying tribute to the divine once a week, on special occasions or when problems occur, not knowing how to connect with this source of divine nourishment more fully in the midst of their frenetically busy modern lives. In either solution, people can often find themselves tightly held within strict systems of beliefs that allow them to feel that their way is right and that the results are good enough or are all that is possible.

"Inspired spiritual teachers have been telling us in so many different ways that we are not who we thought we were. We are not the bundle of ideas and beliefs that we hold in relation to ourselves. We are being told that we are something quite else, something wonderfully beyond our old beliefs, something free and vital and awake. Perhaps we may know this first hand in our personal experience or maybe we simply hear it and can feel its truth resonate within us. In either case, we often find ourselves inexplicably wanting the full experience of this more than anything. We want so much to connect with this deeper source of nourishment in life. The real possibility of awakening seems to be available to normal everyday people now, and in greater numbers than ever before. I am an example of that. A door is open now that has before been closed. Perhaps we owe a debt to the work of all of the previous generations for this happy circumstance. For whatever reason, we seem to now have a double opportunity available to us that has not been as accessible to people in the past: to simultaneously be accessing our deeply spiritual nature and also be living active lives in the world.

"Not only is spiritual enlightenment, as Eckhart Tolle would call it, now a possibility for people involved in worldly life but it actually seems that now it is advantageous to our spiritual lives to be active in the world. To retreat to a mountain-top, either real or proverbial, would be to avoid our deepest and most critical work: that of becoming a clean, clear vehicle for the divine energy to use as a portal through which to enter into the world in a new way. Our worldly circumstances now are supporting us in allowing ourselves to be used by life in a way that retreating to a mountaintop would prevent. This book uses my own experience as an entryway into the subject, because of course it was my entryway, but then goes on to inquire into what the implications of this might be for all of our lives. The full answer to that inquiry lies entirely with you and your willingness to also explore."

From Chapter 4:

"Do we actually need to live in rarified spiritual environments in order to be good spiritual people? Do we need to only work in certain kinds of jobs, or have certain kinds of spouses or families? Look into it for yourself but, for me, the answer that has come out of this investigation is no. The essential breakthrough that is the culmination of what we call the spiritual life is to realize that what we are is already 100% with us and available, no matter what the circumstances that we are living in. From that knowing, personality still has its preferences, but it lightens up about having to get things entirely its way all the time. The mind-made self is finding its place in a very different configuration about how life works. As it finds that place, it finds that its job is much easier and much more doable than it ever was when it was trying to control things all the time. Now mind can just rest when it is not being useful doing the kinds of things that it really is good at.

"As our awakening process unfolds, we find ourselves able to stay aware of the opportunities that come to us through our uncomfortable moments, and to welcome with honesty and openness all that life sends our way. The dualities of good and bad, spiritual and non-spiritual, black and white, high and low, open or shut, all are still visible. They keep giving richness and texture to the world we experience, but we are less affected by their changeable nature because our attention is more and more on that which does not change. In seeing the world in this way and letting what we see penetrate us fully, the opposites are found to contain each other, and then even the preferences soften. We find ourselves to be the one that contains both sides of all of the dualities, the one where they meet and find peace with each other."

More excerpts available on the web at Awake Publishing/Excerpts
Orders can be placed directly at Awake Publishing
Thank you for your support! Special thanks to those who already ordered for helping me figure out how to do the paperwork. I have successfully learned Quickbooks in the last month!

Self-Publishing:

A New Book Model

for Better Support of

Our Creativity

So many people have a book in them! I find that aside from interest in the content of Life Beyond Belief there are a lot of people hungry for information about how to publish their own book.

So many of us have something that needs to be said, and the old way of "getting published" just isn't serving people very well any more. It's next to impossible to get a good deal with a regular publisher in todays marketplace as a first-time author. This is where self-publishing gives new authors an ability to creatively speak their piece. But "what about marketing?" people ask. Publishers don't do that for you anyway-there is no substitute for author involvement in marketing. As a self-published author there are some standard things to do, like get endorsed and reviewed, but because of the incredible interconnectedness of our modern communications, a good book can become well known just by word of mouth. That is what happened with Eckhart's first book, The Power of Now. People were simply telling each other about it because they were moved by it. The way our modern communication networks keep us connected, the news of a good book that people think has value can circulate more quickly and efficiently today than at in any other time in our history. The old way of publishing is not serving new authors/not serving creativity itself, so a new way is naturally opening up.

So, especially now, as one of the early readers of Life Beyond Belief, if you like the book, let the people in your personal networks know about it. There won't be any big media campaign for Life Beyond Belief, - no movies are planned :-) but if the message is worth sharing we can all help bring attention to the book just by letting others know about it.

Are there friends or colleagues who might be inspired by this newsletter? Share the inspiration! Click to Send this newsletter to a spiritually oriented friend in any tradition

Subscription Management: Subscribe | Cancel | Update