Unity & Oneness

The relentless search for high self-esteem has become a virtual religionbook-self-compassion.jpg; and a tyrannical one at that. Our competitive culture tells us we need to be special and above average to feel good about ourselves, but we can’t all be above average at the same time. There is always someone richer, more attractive, or successful than we are. And even when we do manage to feel self-esteem for one golden moment, we can’t hold on to it. Our sense of self-worth bounces around like a ping-pong ball, rising and falling in lock-step with our latest success or failure. Fortunately, there is an alternative to self-esteem that many psychologists believe is a better and more effective path to happiness: self-compassion. The research of Dr. Kristin Neff and others strongly suggests that people who are more self-compassionate lead healthier, more productive lives than those who are self-critical. And the feelings of security and self-worth provided by self-compassion are highly stable. Self-compassion steps in precisely when we fall down, allowing us to get up and try again. –

The Seat of the Soul> became a national bestseller when it was first publbook-seat-of-the-soul.jpgished, but more people are buying it now than ever before. Why is this? It is because a new species is being born. >The Seat of the Soul> is about this birth. This new species longs for harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for Life. It uses higher orders of logic and justice — those of the heart. The number of people who are becoming aware of this birth is growing very fast, because the new species is being born inside all of us. The Seat of the Soul> provides a vocabulary for this new species — a vocabulary of authentic power, the alignment of the personality with the soul. Human experience is exploding beyond the five senses, and >The Seat of the Soul> is about that, too. This is the most exciting time to be on Earth, and >The Seat of the Soul> describes

There are qualities we all yearn to experience in our lives—peace, simplicbook-radical-wholeness.jpgity, grace, connection, clarity. Yet these qualities evade us because each of them arises from an experience of wholeness, and we live in a culture that enforces divisions within each of us. In Radical Wholeness, Philip Shepherd shows the countless ways in which we are persuaded to separate from the body and live in the head. Disconnected from the body’s intelligence, we also disconnect from the wholeness of the present. This schism within us is the primary source of stress not just in our personal lives, but for the systems of the planet. Drawing from neuroscience, anthropology, physics, the arts, myth, personal stories and his experiences helping people around the world to experience wholeness, Philip Shepherd illuminates what true wholeness means and offers practices designed to help readers soften into the intelligence of the body. Radical Wholeness is a call to action: to recover wholeness and experience a new way of

In undertaking a spiritual life, we must make certain that our path is conbook-a-path-with-heart.jpgnected with our heart. Since 1974 (long before it gained popularity in the 1990s), Jack has been teaching westerners how to integrate Eastern teaching into their daily lives. Through generous storytelling and unmitigated warmth, Jack offers this guidebook on living with attentiveness, meditation, and full-tilt compassion. Part of what makes this book so accessible is Jack’s use of everyday metaphors to describe the elusive lessons of spiritual transformation. For example, he opens with “the one seat” lesson taught to him by his esteemed teacher. Literally it means sitting in the center of a room and not being swayed or moved by all the people and dramas happening around you. On a spiritual level it means sticking “with one practice and teacher among all of the possibilities,” he writes; “inwardly it means having the determination to stick with that practice through whatever difficulties and doubts arise until you have come to true clarity and understanding.” The same could be said for this “one book.” Among all the spiritual self-help books, this is a classic worth sticking with and returning to–a highly approachable teacher that can only lead to greater clarity and understanding. – Gail