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This book is for anyone who now meditates regularly or who practiced meditation in the past. As we grow in our prayer life, John of the Cross is an excellent and encouraging guide to show us the way to the practice of contemplative prayer. Many of us learned about meditation from spiritual directors or books. We practiced a reliable form of meditation for some years with varying degrees of success. Over time, however, our prayer slowed down and became simplified. We didn't find many new ideas to occupy our intellect and our emotions quieted down. In time, many of us experienced a crisis in our prayer life; our prayer became so simple that it almost disappeared. We tried different forms of prayer, but we seemed to be reaching a dead end. Throughout all of this, we were never told that our prayer was developing naturally and positively. What we were experiencing was not a dead end but the threshold of a new way of prayer. What we needed was an experienced guide to show us the road ahead. Enter John of the Cross! He encourages us to see that the place we came to is a necessary state of our progress in prayer. John teaches us that we come to contemplation not by struggling harder to pray but by calming remaining quiet before God. He encourages us to realize that we have not come to the end of the road but are being made ready to be transported on a wonderful journey. There is no better or more encouraging guide for us on this journey than John of the Cross. The entire focus of this book is quite narrow; it concentrates on John's teaching about the beginning of contemplation.
This book clearly presents the deepest insights of western Christian tradition regarding the mystery of contemplation to aid you in responding more fully to God's love in your life. Not light reading, some technical language, but a helpful explanation of a difficult subject. Charismatic Renewal Services Turning mainly to John of the Cross for his wisdom, the authors have written a brief work which combines a profound appreciation for the charism of contemplation with great common sense. It is hard to imagine a better handbook. America
The first edition of this book was published in Arabic by the International Institute of Islamic thought in Cairo in 1991. Its introduction was written by His Eminence Shaykh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the President of the World Federation of Muslim Scholars. It was well received by Muslim scholars, psychologists and laymen since it succeeded in integrating Islamic spirituality and theology with modern psychology, linguistics, comparative religion and mental and physical health. It was reprinted in Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and used as a reference in Arabic Departments of psychology and education. Its second revised and updated edition was an English translation published by IIIT in London and printed by Cambridge University Press in the year 2000. The book generated highly thoughtful positive responses from reviewers. Some of them stated that reading it had greatly improved their ability to contemplate and had improved their practice of worshipping. Muslim scholars in different countries have stressed its value to non-English speaking Muslims and have obtained permission to translate it. The book is now published in different languages of the Islamic World such as Indonesian, Albanian and Malayalam.
Pioneered by spiritual master Eknath Easwaran, passage meditation consists of memorizing an inspirational spiritual passage and then sending it deep into consciousness through slow, sustained attention. It keeps meditation fresh and varied because readers can select the passages - from one tradition or many - that embody their chosen ideals. Many readers also enjoy the passages for their poetic and intellectual appeal. This form of meditation offers all the richness and depth of traditional wisdom, together with a practical method for bringing that wisdom into daily life. The book situates passage meditation as part of Easwaran's eight-point program that, based on traditional spiritual practices but adjusted for modern lifestyles, shows readers how to stay calm and focused at work and home. This edition includes a new preface of previously unpublished material by Easwaran and an epilogue that explains the story behind the book and invites new readers to join the author on this adventure in the ''world within.''
THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING and THE BOOK OF PRIVY COUNSELING are the first explorations in the English language of the soul’s quest for God. Written in Middle English by an unknown fourteenth-century mystic, THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING expresses with beauty a message that has inspired such great religious thinkers as St. John of the Cross and Teilhard de Chardin, as well as countless others in search of God. Offering a practical guide to the life of contemplation, the author explains that ordinary thoughts and earthly concepts must be buried beneath a “cloud of forgetting,” while our love must rise toward a God hidden in the “cloud of unknowing.” THE BOOK OF PRIVY COUNSELING, also included in this volume, is a short and moving text on the way to enlightenment through a total loss of self and a consciousness only of the divine. William Johnston, an authority on fourteenth-century mysticism and spirituality, provides an accessible discussion of the works, detailing what is known about the history of the texts and their author. In a new foreword, Huston Smith draws on his extensive knowledge of the varieties of religious experience to illuminate the relevance of these works for contemporary readers.
Inspired by Paul Brunton's years spent with sages in Asia, The Wisdom of the Overself and its companion volume The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga were written at the request of these remarkable teachers, who recognized that Brunton had a significant role to play in the transmission of traditional wisdom to the West. Here is a profound re-creation of these teachings, brought to life and made accessible by Brunton's insights. In print since the 1940s, Brunton's works are considered to be among the most comprehensive, clear, and practical guides on the path to enlightenment. Brunton unfolds the grand vision for human development by investigating consciousness as the source of all experience; how to move from ego-centered life to the transcendent reality; the interplay of karma, free will, and grace; the nature of evil and suffering; how to awaken intuition and penetrative insight; the passage through death to rebirth; and psychic experiences and mystic visions. He also provides seven ultramystic exercises to open the door to higher consciousness, including a healing meditation on the sun; practices for transforming the future, dream, and sleep; and a meditation on the timeless self. These techniques lead to the deepest spiritual realizations—to the true "Wisdom of the Overself." This new edition has been updated to incorporate Brunton's final revisions. It includes a new foreword plus supplementary reading material selected from the author's archives by the Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation. Contents Foreword by the Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation 1. Prefatory 2. The Meaning of Mentalism 3. The Birth of the Universe 4. Studies in Dreams 5. The Metaphysics of Sleep 6. The Secret of the "I" 7. The Scorpion of Death 8. The Immortal Overself 9. The Shadows of Evil and Suffering 10. The War and the World 11. The World-Mind 12. The Unveiling of Reality 13. Initiation into Mystical Experience 14. The Yoga of the Discerning Mind 15. The Mystical Phenomena of Meditation 16. Some Fruits of Philosophy Appendix: Additional Resources from The Notebooks of Paul Brunton, Compiled by the Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation Editors
This book is the fruit of Fr. Dubay's many years of study and experience in spiritual direction and in it he synthesizes the teachings on prayer of the two great doctors of the Church on prayer--St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila--and the teaching of Sacred Scripture. But the teaching that Fr. Dubay synthesized is not collected from Teresa and John for contemplatives alone. It is meant for every Christian and is based on the Gospel imperative of personal prayer and the call to holiness. All the major elements of these great teachers are ordered, commented on and put in the context of their scriptural foundations. Here is an outstanding book on prayer and the spiritual life written by one of the best spiritual directors and retreat masters of our time, and based on the writings of the Church's two greatest mystical doctors.