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HOT BOOKS
Reviews and exerpts from fascinating books in dutch and english. Send us your book reviews and tips.

"Wisdom is not knowledge. Knowledge is borrowed; wisdom is yours. Knowledge
can be gathered from a library; you can contain the whole library in your
mind. Still you will remain as ignorant as before; in fact, you will be far
more ignorant than before because now the load is bigger. Wisdom comes from
your own heart; it is the voice of our own inner being. It happens in
meditation: when you are silent you start hearing the still, small voice
within. That is wisdom."
OSHO

Nederlandstalige Hot Books klik hier

Adyashanti   - Dancing emptiness
Amber Terrell
- Surprised by Grace
Arjuna - How about now?
Arjuna - Relaxing into clear seeing
Aziz Kristof - The Human Buddha
C
hristin Weber - The Awakening of Byron Katie
David Deida - Naked Buddhism
                     - Instant Enlightenment

Eckhart Tolle -The Power of Now/De kracht van het nu
Gangaji - You are That
Isaac Shapiro - Outbreak of Peace
Isaac Shapiro - It Happens by Itself
Jack Kornfield - After the Ectasy, the Laundry
Lynn Marie Lumiere - The Awakening West
Maitreya Ishwara - The New Dawn
and more on the next page among else:

Osho - Vedanta
Osho - Enligtenment, the only revolution
Paul Lowe - In Each Moment
Ralph Bakker - Shiva Advaita en Kashmir Saivisme
Satyam Nadeen - From Onions to Pearls
Satyam Nadeen - From Seekers to Finders
Suzanne Segal - Collision with the Infinite
Tathagata -   Being
                   -  Given
Vartman - Unreasonable happiness
Paul Ferrini - Silence of the heart
Paul Ferrini - Miracle of love
Byron Katie - A brief anthology
Vijai Shankar- The illusions of life

 Surprised by Grace - Amber Terrell
 A journey beyond personal enlightenment

Amber began her spiritual quest as a young college student in the late sixties. After a quarter century of meditation, yoga, and intense seeking that took her all over the world it became obvious that enlightenment had remained a dream, a concept existing in the mind only.
Into the darkest and most frustrated point of her spiritual yearning came a transmission of Grace so powerful that it not only stopped the search but revealed the searcher to be an illusion.

This transmission took the form of an American teacher named Gangaji, from the lineage of one of the most respected sages of this century Sri Ramana Maharshi. Surprised By Grace is not the story of a spiritual quest, but of how the Quest finally came to an end.

True Light Publishing. ISBN 0965667004. 250 pages $ 14,50

 Adyashanti - Dancing emptiness

In recent years, the bold new teacher known as Adyashanti has dared hundreds of students across North America to ask,"What is ultimately behind this set of eyes?" For it is in the process of this inquiry that we let go of who we think we are, and begin to understand what we are. With "Emptiness Dancing," readers will explore these subtle differences and many other human perceptions-and misconceptions-that we live by.

"The funny thing about enlightenment, or awakening, is that we miss it even though it's not hidden," Adyashanti teaches. "It is hard to find because it is right here." Destined to become a spiritual classic, "Emptiness Dancing" brings readers Adyashanti's quintessential teachings in a mind-to-mind transmission from this gifted teacher.

Adyashanti began teaching in 1996 after a series of transformative spiritual awakenings, at the request of his Zen teacher with whom he had been studying for 14 years. Adyashanti's teachings have been compared to some of the early Ch'an (Zen) masters of China as well as teachers of Advaita Vedanta in India.

"Emptiness Dancing" (Sounds True, ISBN 1-59179-459-5, 240 pages, softcover, $18.95)

5

 The Human Buddha
 
Enlightenment for the new millenium - Aziz Kristof

Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 8120817540

Excerpt from The Human Buddha


In ancient times, a few thousands years ago, the first awakened beings made an attempt to explain the truth of Enlightenment within the context of human life. It was a difficult task because the basic conceptual tools which could build the frame of understanding, were not yet created.

It took the effort of many generations to crystallise a fundamental structure of philosophical, ethical and mystical models for spiritual realisation, which could reflect in a safisfactory way the reality of Enlightenment. There was, however, a danger that the natural reality of awakening could become distorted by the intervention of the human mind, which always has a tendency to impose on reality a certain linear and simplistic logic, a tendency to be extreme and dogmatic. And this is what has happened: the myth of Enlightenment replaced the reality of Enlightenment.

 A Cry in the Desert - Christin Lore Weber
The Awakening of Byron Katie

byron katie
'Out of hopeless into the whole universe!'

This book contains the life story of Byron Katie. It contains her message too. Katie is a woman in her sixties who knows the extent of suffering, she went thru all of it herself.
She woke up in a house for alcoholics at a time when life had become unbearable and started living in the reality of joy. She developed a simple proces which everybody can apply to come at peace with the people around you.
This proces is called 'The Work." Katie travels a lot around the world, teaches this method and trains people in it.
The book is a cry from the heart inviting us into truth.

Publisher: The Work Foundation ISBN 1890246026 . 211 pages $14.95

5

 How about now? Satsang with Arjuna

satsang with arjuna
This book contains the teaching from Arjuna, transcripts from satsangs and dialogues with visitors.
Arjuna has the gift of articulateness, he is very capable of expressing the unexpressable in words and directly guiding people into direct experience of 'who it is who is reading this text right now'.

Arjuna goes many steps further than many satsang teachers. What when you have seen what you true nature is, how do you go on from there? How can you live it in your daily live?
In the satsangs he also pays attention to the shift in consciousness that is happening on our planet. The book is pure gold, very much recommended (Prembuddha)

Publisher: SelfXpress. ISBN 1-890909-63-7. 175 pages.

5

 

Relaxing into clear seeing - Nick Ardagh

 

 

Interactive tools in the service of Self-awakening
by Arjuna Nick Ardagh

Publisher: SelfXpress. ISBN 1-890909-15-7. 365 pages. $ 18.95

 5

  David Deida - Naked Buddhism
 
39 ways to free your heart and awaken to now

Naked Buddhism is not about Buddhism as you might expect from its title but about opening to 'What is' and living totally. About living and embracing your sexuality, your relationships .
Each of the 39 chapters presents a way to awaken 'as the bare openness that you are, moment by moment , while you feast on erotic pleasure or endure bodily pain, while you are immersed in jealousy or cherishing your child's smile. Every moment is a workable revelation of love's relaxed yes relaxed yes, a languid exposure of you heart's light, awake.'
In his books Deida shows a whole new way of relating and sexuality.


Exerpt. See also: Three stages of relating.

Publisher: Plexus. ISBN1889762199 $ 16.95

 

 

david deidaDavid Deida - Instant Enligtenment, fast, deep, and sexy

The title says it all, another Deida that takes your breath away.
An unconventional approach towards enlightenment in pocket format.
Does enlightenment have a dark side? It does, explains David Deida, "but instead of closing to what seems unloving, we can learn to open as what we would rather avoid." In Instant Enlightenment, this maverick author and teacher offers a "rude awakening" through a collection of daring exercises and practices intended to provoke, challenge, and immediately reveal the ever-present "love that lives all things."

What's the filthiest thing you can say that still feels like, "I love you"? Can you "wear" the mood and shape of everyone and everything around you without fear or reservation? Which imagined action-sleeping, sexing, or dying to save another-most feels like liberation and unbound love? These are just some of the unconventional questions raised in Instant Enlightenment. Each pithy chapter encourages readers to blast the light of consciousness on the taboos we hide in shadow, from our ideas about sex and money to emotions and spirituality.

"The secret to gifting your life's deepest purpose is to open through what you most resist, so your love's mission can bless the world," writes David Deida. Instant Enlightenment will surprise and possibly offend you-but it will lead you "fast and suddenly" to the realization of the sacred entirety of your experience.

ISBN 978-1-59179-560-5
U.S>A> $12,95 Sounds True Publications

5

The Power of Now 

Review by: Patricia Gordon.

 If I were allotted only one book, I would choose Eckhart Tolle's
 THE POWER OF NOW: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment.
 Because this book emanates a spirit of love, not only through its words,
but in the spaces between the words. No book has touched me, nor emaced
 me as this one has.
 Perhaps it was its rhythm - the moving back and forth
 from simple to complex, from question to answer, from form to spirit, from  dysfunction to divinity - which I found so comforting.
Perhaps it was the author's authenticity as he spoke the unspeakable - of  homosexuality, menses, patriarchy, and rape - which opened my consciousness.

This book is for all of us sleepwalking travelers in time - philosophers or kings, young women or terminally ill, gays or feminists, religiously inclined or scientifically motivated - who are willing to take the pilgrimage to wakefulness, from worry to peace, from unhappiness to joy. Tolle provokes us through an uneasy questioning that rocks us back and forth, between discomfort and solace, as he pokes at our handed-down unexamined beliefs then soothes with an offering of truth.
Eckhart begins by introducing us to his story - a story of early despair. For a moment, we are touched by compassion as we release from our belief in separation and connect in our shared mortality. In chapter one we learn of enlightenment and its greatest obstacle - us. Next Tolle awakens us to our role as the creator of our pain, of our attachment to pain, and our identification with pain. In the third chapter we find we can create a pain-free identity by living in the present. Tolle flips us back and forth 'time and time again' between the past and the future, between pain and pleasure, between unhappiness and happiness. As we experience the futility of duality and the emptiness of living in the past or future we access the fullness of living in the Power of Now.
In chapter four we plummet from the fantasy of living consciously in the Now to the reality of being lost in unconscious living. Eckhart then raises us in the next chapter to the glory of "waiting," to the sacredness of stillness, to the purity of consciousness, and finally - to the reality of our divinity.
In chapter six we shift from the mind to the inner body only to discover that all feeling and emotion are produced from thought. When we understand we are greater than thought, we are free - we are free to access our self behind the thought. We are the unmanifest and when we tap into our source we may consciously create our own destiny.
Chapter seven provides portals to the unmanifest which lay in space and silence, both within and without, in chi, and even in conscious death.
A complex portal to consciousness is presented in chapter eight - relationships. We are guided and supported in our passage from unconscious romantic love to the wonder of a conscious love where opposites do not reside. In chapter nine we learn to 'give up' negativity, judgment, drama and our belief in impermanence. As we learn to forgive the past, the present, and ourselves, fear evaporates and a new reality crystallizes - a reality founded on love.
Our compassion transforms. Our belief of a shared mortality becomes a knowing of shared divinity. In the final chapter, chapter ten, we finally 'let go' of our attachment to pain and we surrender to what is - our pure radiance - as we 'take up' the Power of Now.

In het Nederlands uitgegeven door Ankh-Hermes, 200 pag, prijs ¤ 17,00

Exerpt from the Power of Now

5

  You Are That! vol.2 - Satsang with Gangaji

Antoinette Roberson met her master Poonjaji in 1990 on the banks of the holy river Ganga in India. In this meeting the true fullfilment she had been seeking throughout her life was revealed.
Confirming her realisation of the true Self Poonjaji gave her the name Gangaji and instructed her to carry his transmission to the west. Nowadays Gangaji holds satsang throughout the U.S.A. and abroad.
Her message of truth and peace is now felt reverberating throughout the world. regardless of one's culture, religion, the essence of her teaching resonates clearly as the truth of one's own heart. What Gangaji freely transmits is a gift beyond measure.
It is the gift of one's self to one's Self, and it is recognized, without a doubt, to be That which has always been here.

Publisher:Satsang Press. ISBN 1887984003. 220 pages$15.00

5

Outbreak of Peace

  By Dick Sinnige      

isaac shapiroOutbreak of Peace is based on the Satsangs of Isaac
Shapiro
that took place in Amsterdam during 1996.
Satsang is a meeting with Truth, which is always
here and is usually overlooked. We can watch a bird
flying in the sky, but when asked "What do you
see?", people say "A bird." The sky itself is
overlooked. The bird comes and goes, the sky
remains. It may be cloudy or sunny, the sky is
always there. In Satsang Isaac points to the
emptiness in which everything appears, which is
always here. .......
In Satsang with Isaac everything can come up and go, jealousy, anger, fear and love, the fire of hell as well
as the light of heaven. Deeper than this you are. In this recognition there are
laughter, tears and wondrous silences. Satsang is not about getting anything or
about gettinganywhere. To get you need something and someone to get it.
In Satsang one can see that there are no two, there's only one.
Deeper than intimacy, higher than the sun.
However wild the storm, however rough the shores of existence, the ocean
of Awareness contains it. We are it all the time and it is everywhere.
There is no hiding place from the Source of all creation.
Isaac responds to every question, being Awareness itself, Truth shining without
a shadow of compromise. This love transcends all space and time.
Satsang is a hot fire and the diamond is shining.
What a joy it is to have these beautiful dialogues with Isaac. They are natural,
and yet completely revolutionary. It's an overflowing of Truth and it is here with us.
We are invited to Satsang, a meeting with our own Self. Yes, we are one. Yes,
Love is pulling. Such eternal beauty is here.
Welcome to this outbreak of Peace. Let it have you!

September, 1997

Excerpt from Outbreak of peace

 
It Happens by Itself - Satsang with Isaac Shapiro

Responses from Isaac to questions from satsang visitors.
The book gives a clear insight in the approach from Isaac Shapiro in satsang

 

Publisher: Luechow, ISBN 09703574. 166 pages $12.95

 

 The Awakening West - Lynn Marie Lumiere


awakening west 
 This book presents evidence of an unprecedented shift in human  consciousness. It includes conversations with many western spiritual  teachers  like Gangaji, Francis Lucille, Isaac Shapiro, Eckhart Tolle and
 Lama Surya Das.
 Each conversation is preceded by a short introduction of the teacher. The  interview with Kenny Johnson, a black man who spent most of his adult life
 in prison and woke up there after a visit from Gangaji is very touching.
 Kenny speaks straight from the heart. Another interview tells the life story of  Mira with Papaji. Mira warns against people giving satsang too early.
 The Awakening West gives a beautiful overview of present advaita teachers  and the awakening that is happening on our planet.

Clear Visions Publications, ISBN 0970479204. 350 pages, $19,95
You can order thru www.theawakingwest.com


5

The New Dawn - Maitreya Ishwara

The Implications of Unity

Unity is an idea whose time has come. Many spiritual leaders are calling for unity. They point to the core of common ground central to all religions and suggest a more integrated approach to religion. Talk is cheap. If you ask any spiritual leader which parts of their irrational dogma they are willing to give up for Unity, you will quickly discover that their ways are best for everyone.
All groups, gurus and religions feel their way is the right one. This is normal, and a central theme of the Kali Yuga, the age of separation. Talking about Unity is easy. Getting all religions and groups to move into a single way of understanding is simply impossible at this time. Nevertheless, Unity is scheduled to happen very soon. Actual Unity can only occur by Divine Intervention.

This book contains the foundation for Unity. Naturally, every other channel for God will have a different message. We are still in the age of separation. What all channels for God lack is a rational, integrated, unified, experiential, playful, silent, loving, creative vision for the millennium.

This book is that vision. It is given to us by God to create the blueprint for Unity. Still, even those most close to its central theme of Zorba the Buddha would not agree with much of it. And all other groups would reject it as too different from their own approach.

God loves drama. The shift from separation to Unity is accompanied by lots of drama of every conceivable kind. Soon, when the Great Change starts, we will all be propelled into another level of energy. Mindsets are easily changed when God wants them to. All thoughts and feelings of all people are easily altered by Divine intervention. This is how the Great Change from separation to Unity will come about. As you are reading this book, it means you are blessed. You are being informed in advance of many things that will come to pass. The challenge of this book is to let go of ALL your irrational beliefs and silly ideas. Become an inner scientist with a single hypothesis to verity with your own experience: God is all there is, I am not separate from That.

Just Watch

These two words are the very essence of all the wisdom of India. Shiva, Buddha, Osho and many great masters have based their teaching on this fundamental understanding of the alchemy of transformation. Your ego is programmed to achieve and improve things for you. Self-improvement is an ego trip, good for beginners, but useless for real freedom, because the ego is always subtly involved in changing things for the better.

Even if you try to surrender, again it is the ego that tries, and of course, survives in its involvement in "your surrender". Just watch means conscious recognition of your inner reality, without any subtle attempt to change it. This passive awareness of your inner world leaves the ego unemployed. Life happens and is witnessed. As simple as this sounds, it is rarely fully practised, even by seekers who have heard Osho and others recommending it for decades.

Your ego has great difficulty remaining passively aware of your inner world. Everything is as it should be. Finally, when the time is right, you start to apply the wisdom of the alchemy of transformation. By sitting silently for several hours a day, just watching your inner processes unfold, the miracle of rapid growth happens. With the silent energetic support of a living Buddha, this transformation is intensified and accelerated. And he keeps reminding you every time your ego wants to change things: Just watch.

Beloveds, when your destined time of rapid growth comes, this message may give you the support to face yourself as you are, without subtly trying to improve yourself.

Shiva and Advaita

Osho's work rests on Shiva's great contribution to consciousness, the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra. These 112 methods of meditation are the culmination of Shiva's vast experience. They are the foundation for all meditation techniques, and the essence of most of them is witnessing, or watching experience and the content of mind, with equanimity. Eventually, the witness is silently aware of itself, in pure contentless consciousness. Osho's holistic, esoteric approach rests on the support of Shiva's great knowledge of transformation. Advaita focuses on understanding and often negates the value of meditation, saying: what will be will be, no need to meditate. This is why advaita people often remain stuck in the desert of intellectualism and enlightened egos.

Meditators often feel they are responsible for their growth and are unnecessarily burdened with ego effort. Osho, Buddha and most enlightened meditators are agnostic, Osho settles for godliness. Thus, they conclude a fully enlightened Buddha is the highest in existence. Only through their awareness is consciousness aware of itself. Hence the vital need for surrender to a master, he is the ultimate authority in existence.

Advaita is more sophisticated, it understands: Consciousness is all there is. Therefore the universe must be made of condensed consciousness; and the source of the universe must be consciousness of an unknowable type, that has the ability to design, create and sustain the universe. This is the definition of God, or Source. Now Source is revealing the truth: There is no need to surrender to any guru, surrender can only be to the Whole that gives you life. Your life is a gift of the Whole, and is enough reason to trust the Whole to take care of you when the ego lets go of control. Trust in what is, eventually flowers into surrender and enlightenment. Part of my work is to help bring clarity to meditators and relieve them of the burden of spiritual responsibility. And to share the techniques of Shiva with advaita people. Without meditation advaita can remain dry and intellectual. Understanding and applying the wisdom of Shiva and advaita is the foundation of spiritual maturity. They are the two wings of the bird of Unity.
The body is Source.

5

and more...


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