- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Sounds True Inc (2 Nov 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1591797322
- ISBN-13: 978-1591797326
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13.4 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 101,558 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
World traveler Mariana Caplan is a professor of yogic and transpersonal psychologies. Her most recent book "Eyes Wide Open" offers us the wisdom, awareness and the tools to develop discernment.
Caplan's chapter on spiritual materialism and spiritual bypassing is illuminating. She says the ego can try to acquire and apply the teachings of spirituality for its own benefit. Spiritual materialism is the attachment to the spiritual path as a solid accomplishment and possession. It's thinking we are developing spiritually when we are actually strengthening our egocentricity. Given our global materialistic culture it is inevitable that it would infiltrate our approach to spirituality.
Spiritual bypassing uses spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep personal and emotional challenges to shore up a shaky sense of self, belittle basic needs and feelings in the name of enlightenment. The ego by-passes rather than works through the wounded, confused and damaged aspects of ourselves. The goal is to allow the ego to manage and guide us along the spiritual path without egoic identification and dominance. There is a fine line between fear based neurotic detachment and spiritual non-attachment.
Being conscious includes being present with everything that exists on all levels of experience and emotion. Spiritual teachers can have a certain degree of realization in some areas but remain imbalanced in their psychological or sexual development. Those who haven't dealt with their psychological issues attract students with similar tendencies. A spiritual codependency or mutual complicity develops.
Crisis, depression, sickness and breakdown are often a part of the spiritual journey. When we awaken the light within us it illuminates our unresolved issues. Neurosis can lead to enlightenment because at its core lies a storehouse of buried energy that has limitless capacity to transform. A nervous breakdown becomes a "nervous breakthrough." All mystical journeys involve descent, a "trial by fire,"a regression in the service of transcendence. When we manage our hell realms we gain the power to live in truth, authenticity and integrity. When we acknowledge our shadow all opposites collapse into a field of continually changing experience. We learn to identify with the larger bodies of humanity, with the earth, it's creatures and the cosmos. At the highest level of healing, the body is transformed into prayer through the actions of daily life.
When we say "yes" to all experiences, choose the life we are given, commit to a life of service and thank God for what we have all resistance to ourselves and life dissipates.
Discernment, the cultivation of acute judgment and discrimination, helps us see life's lessons more quickly and clearly, turn challenges into opportunities and avoid unnecessary obstacles. We'll know we have learned discernment when we can say on our deathbed "I have lived a good life, have gained self-awareness and fulfilled my purpose on earth."
Many of us suffer a poverty of spirit and spiritual alienation. We have lost touch with our deeper spiritual nature and forgotten that we have forgotten. Discernment is a transformation tool, a journey of descent into our psyche to penetrate broader and deeper aspects and dimensions of ourselves, to turn internal and external poisons into medicine and ordinary experiences into the extraordinary.
Her chapter on the complexity of the ego's mechanical loop structure of thought-emotion-manifestation is helpful. As our identification with the ego lessons we discover a new freedom. Most thoughts are a result of familial, cultural and karmic conditioning, they are repetitive and habitual and think themselves. We are not our thinking. It is not the ego that causes suffering but our relationship with it.
Our egoic, cultural and psychological conditioning causes us to distort reality through projections. Becoming conscious allows us to withdraw false projections, frees up energy and allows clearer perception. What irritates us about others can lead to a clearer understanding of ourselves. Suffering can be reduced through conscious attention, spiritual practice and discerning knowledge.
Caplan's book is a reminder that we have received a love letter written by the Divine in the form of our lives. Will we receive it? How will we respond?
Caplan's chapter on spiritual materialism and spiritual bypassing is illuminating. She says the ego can try to acquire and apply the teachings of spirituality for its own benefit. Spiritual materialism is the attachment to the spiritual path as a solid accomplishment and possession. It's thinking we are developing spiritually when we are actually strengthening our egocentricity. Given our global materialistic culture it is inevitable that it would infiltrate our approach to spirituality.
Spiritual bypassing uses spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep personal and emotional challenges to shore up a shaky sense of self, belittle basic needs and feelings in the name of enlightenment. The ego by-passes rather than works through the wounded, confused and damaged aspects of ourselves. The goal is to allow the ego to manage and guide us along the spiritual path without egoic identification and dominance. There is a fine line between fear based neurotic detachment and spiritual non-attachment.
Being conscious includes being present with everything that exists on all levels of experience and emotion. Spiritual teachers can have a certain degree of realization in some areas but remain imbalanced in their psychological or sexual development. Those who haven't dealt with their psychological issues attract students with similar tendencies. A spiritual codependency or mutual complicity develops.
Crisis, depression, sickness and breakdown are often a part of the spiritual journey. When we awaken the light within us it illuminates our unresolved issues. Neurosis can lead to enlightenment because at its core lies a storehouse of buried energy that has limitless capacity to transform. A nervous breakdown becomes a "nervous breakthrough." All mystical journeys involve descent, a "trial by fire,"a regression in the service of transcendence. When we manage our hell realms we gain the power to live in truth, authenticity and integrity. When we acknowledge our shadow all opposites collapse into a field of continually changing experience. We learn to identify with the larger bodies of humanity, with the earth, it's creatures and the cosmos. At the highest level of healing, the body is transformed into prayer through the actions of daily life.
When we say "yes" to all experiences, choose the life we are given, commit to a life of service and thank God for what we have all resistance to ourselves and life dissipates.
Discernment, the cultivation of acute judgment and discrimination, helps us see life's lessons more quickly and clearly, turn challenges into opportunities and avoid unnecessary obstacles. We'll know we have learned discernment when we can say on our deathbed "I have lived a good life, have gained self-awareness and fulfilled my purpose on earth."
Many of us suffer a poverty of spirit and spiritual alienation. We have lost touch with our deeper spiritual nature and forgotten that we have forgotten. Discernment is a transformation tool, a journey of descent into our psyche to penetrate broader and deeper aspects and dimensions of ourselves, to turn internal and external poisons into medicine and ordinary experiences into the extraordinary.
Her chapter on the complexity of the ego's mechanical loop structure of thought-emotion-manifestation is helpful. As our identification with the ego lessons we discover a new freedom. Most thoughts are a result of familial, cultural and karmic conditioning, they are repetitive and habitual and think themselves. We are not our thinking. It is not the ego that causes suffering but our relationship with it.
Our egoic, cultural and psychological conditioning causes us to distort reality through projections. Becoming conscious allows us to withdraw false projections, frees up energy and allows clearer perception. What irritates us about others can lead to a clearer understanding of ourselves. Suffering can be reduced through conscious attention, spiritual practice and discerning knowledge.
Caplan's book is a reminder that we have received a love letter written by the Divine in the form of our lives. Will we receive it? How will we respond?
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
29 reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Sobering, eye-opening look at spiritual development
20 Oct 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
This book offers an impressive look at what spiritual aspirants encounter as their spirituality matures through the lessons of human experience. There are many ways we can be misled or mislead ourselves as we pursue spiritual endeavors and "enlightenment." Caplan cautions us about these pitfalls and encourages us to confront our shadow material and our ego so that we can become more integrated. Spiritual materialism, and using spiritual practice to bypass facing our unresolved issues and human intimacy are some of the examples of how people can misuse spirituality.
This book also helps bridge the duality and non-duality perspectives and draws on transpersonal psychology, shadow work, Buddhist philosophy, developmental psychology, and other sources to help bring together psychology and spirituality to support integrative approaches to spiritual development.
Fans of Ken Wilber may appreciate the integral approach of Caplan, as there is a depth to this exploration that is lacking in a lot of "new age" spirituality and popular spiritual and psychological approaches. This is not to condemn those other approaches - they are certainly valuable and can assist spiritual growth, yet they are incomplete and lack the balance needed to guide aspirants even further along their spiritual journey. It's easy to get a false sense of mastery or enlightenment at various stages of our spiritual path - Caplan's book gives us cautions and insights to help us maintain our commitment to continued self-examination and discernment.
This book also helps bridge the duality and non-duality perspectives and draws on transpersonal psychology, shadow work, Buddhist philosophy, developmental psychology, and other sources to help bring together psychology and spirituality to support integrative approaches to spiritual development.
Fans of Ken Wilber may appreciate the integral approach of Caplan, as there is a depth to this exploration that is lacking in a lot of "new age" spirituality and popular spiritual and psychological approaches. This is not to condemn those other approaches - they are certainly valuable and can assist spiritual growth, yet they are incomplete and lack the balance needed to guide aspirants even further along their spiritual journey. It's easy to get a false sense of mastery or enlightenment at various stages of our spiritual path - Caplan's book gives us cautions and insights to help us maintain our commitment to continued self-examination and discernment.
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Caplan at her best!
30 Oct 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
While at one point in my life I would give praise to any book that made me feel good or validated my New Age point of view, or that of my "teachers," I am now a much more discerning, and wary, reader.....and person. After much disgust over the last few years at the market saturation of anything that sounds even remotely spiritual and satisfies the western desire to get-rich-or enlightened-quick mentality, I decided to give Caplan a read. I wasn't a huge fan of Halfway Up the Mountain, but it had so much good information and ideas in it, and fell into my hands at a critical time in my life.
Halfway through the book she references herself in relation to Halfway Up the Mountain, stating that after she wrote - and taught - on the concepts in that book, she could still see herself doing all of the things that she warns against in that book. While I'm not into the whole idea that enlightenment, awakening, of self-development is some never-ending process that is all about the journey not the destination, I really do appreciate a person who is open and mature enough to see themselves as they truly are. A very real person.
While many spiritual dogmas tell us to deny, wage a war against, or squelch our egos, Caplan takes a much different approach that is more in line with how we actually function as humans, a non-essentialist view of the ego itself, and a very illuminating analysis of the current state of western spirituality.
A great resource and absolutely perfect for anyone who feels called to explore all of their dimensions but who has been turned off by old and new age spiritual leaders, movements, and practices. I don't want to put words in Jed McKenna's mouth (if said mouth actually does exist :), but I would say this book would fit as a good guide for the person who wants to really be a mature adult and is ready to open their eyes.
Halfway through the book she references herself in relation to Halfway Up the Mountain, stating that after she wrote - and taught - on the concepts in that book, she could still see herself doing all of the things that she warns against in that book. While I'm not into the whole idea that enlightenment, awakening, of self-development is some never-ending process that is all about the journey not the destination, I really do appreciate a person who is open and mature enough to see themselves as they truly are. A very real person.
While many spiritual dogmas tell us to deny, wage a war against, or squelch our egos, Caplan takes a much different approach that is more in line with how we actually function as humans, a non-essentialist view of the ego itself, and a very illuminating analysis of the current state of western spirituality.
A great resource and absolutely perfect for anyone who feels called to explore all of their dimensions but who has been turned off by old and new age spiritual leaders, movements, and practices. I don't want to put words in Jed McKenna's mouth (if said mouth actually does exist :), but I would say this book would fit as a good guide for the person who wants to really be a mature adult and is ready to open their eyes.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
a much needed spiritual resource
23 July 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
If you've ever wondered why some people who seem spiritual fall into terrible errors, or if you've ever wondered why some spiritual teachers can talk the talk better than they can walk the walk, or if you're personally trying to follow a spiritual path and have those days where you catch yourself doing something that makes you feel like a complete hypocrite - you probably need this book.
Ms. Kaplan works with the reader to illuminate how we can stop dichotomizing our spirituality and our humanity, and how we can tell when a spiritual teacher has gone off track due to that dichotomy. Her focus on discernment is tempered with compassion. The only criticism I would have is that the writing can be a little didactic at times, but the subject matter and the focus is such that this is only a minor complaint. The book is definitely worthwhile for anyone who wants to seriously follow any spiritual path.
Ms. Kaplan works with the reader to illuminate how we can stop dichotomizing our spirituality and our humanity, and how we can tell when a spiritual teacher has gone off track due to that dichotomy. Her focus on discernment is tempered with compassion. The only criticism I would have is that the writing can be a little didactic at times, but the subject matter and the focus is such that this is only a minor complaint. The book is definitely worthwhile for anyone who wants to seriously follow any spiritual path.
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