“Probably you believe you are a person reading these very words right now. Maybe you also see yourself as a spiritual seeker. You've been to sacred places, followed yoga or meditation, maybe you've been involved in a group of seekers with similar interests. Probably you've invested a lot in this search for the ultimate truth. Maybe you feel you have been close to finding your true nature, and still ... something is lacking. What if this search leads you nowhere because the seeker who wants to achieve ‘it’ is itself a concept? Have you ever investigated the existence of the investigator you believe you are? The seeker you believe yourself to be will not like this book. Seekers do not want to learn that that their search for enlightenment is just a game of their ego. They don't like to see that their spiritual enquiry is endless and that their goal of finding their ‘true nature’ is a myth.” Jan Kersschot graduated in medicine from Antwerp University, Belgium. His lifelong quest for the ultimate truth was characterized by his interest in a wisdom which does not exclude anything or anyone. Blending the core of Eastern wisdom with a contemporary Western lifestyle, Jan shows in this collection of extraordinary dialogues how the popular myths about self inquiry and enlightenment can be unmasked. He is the author of the books, Coming Home, Nobody Home and This Is It.
'Throughout my early life I felt that there was another possibility which, once realised, would transform all and everything. One day that possibility became a reality, and it was simple and ordinary, magnificent and revolutionary. It is the open secret that reveals itself in every part of our lives. But realisation does not emerge through our attempts to change our lives, it comes as a direct rediscovery of who it is that lives. The Open Secret is a singular and radical work which speaks of the fundamental liberation that is absolutely beyond effort, path, process or belief.'
Collection of papers that resulted from a symposium held at Victoria University in 2002 to promote research undertaken by postgraduate students which in one way or another could be seen as both scholarly and courageous for the risks taken in terms of subject focus and the sometimes audacious methodology.
The instant New York Times bestseller By the acclaimed author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing. In this revolutionary book, renowned physician Gabor Maté eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their healthcare systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, hypertension is diagnosed in more than 30 percent of the population. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the rise. So what is really “normal” when it comes to health? Over four decades of clinical experience, Maté has come to recognize the prevailing understanding of “normal” as false, neglecting the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of modern-day living, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health. For all our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today’s culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. Now Maté brings his perspective to the great untangling of common myths about what makes us sick, connects the dots between the maladies of individuals and the declining soundness of society—and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing. Cowritten with his son Daniel, The Myth Of Normal is Maté’s most ambitious and urgent book yet.
The Ultimate Truth Is So Simple. The Simple Message Of Sri Ramana Maharishi, One Of India S Most Revered Spiritual Masters, Whose Teachings, Forty Years After His Death, Are Speaking To Growing Audiences Worldwide. Be As You Are, Edited By The Librarian At The Sage S Ashram-Still Flourishing-At The Foot Of The Holy Mountain Of Arunachala, Is A Compendium Of Those Riches As Bequeathed Personally To Pilgrims Hungry To Discover What Is The Ultimate Truth . Nothing More Than Being In The Pristine State. That Is All That Need Be Said, Declared Sri Ramana. Indeed It Is Claimed That His Highest Teachings, To Those Capable Of Receiving Them, Consisted Of Nothing But Silence During Which He Transmitted A Silent Flow Of Power Enabling Individuals To Experience, Directly, What He Meant By Enlightenment. This Book Is For Those Of Us Who Would Remain Perplexed, But Enriched By The Silence.
The instant New York Times bestseller By the acclaimed author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing. In this revolutionary book, renowned physician Gabor Maté eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their healthcare systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, hypertension is diagnosed in more than 30 percent of the population. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the rise. So what is really “normal” when it comes to health? Over four decades of clinical experience, Maté has come to recognize the prevailing understanding of “normal” as false, neglecting the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of modern-day living, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health. For all our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today’s culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. Now Maté brings his perspective to the great untangling of common myths about what makes us sick, connects the dots between the maladies of individuals and the declining soundness of society—and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing. Cowritten with his son Daniel, The Myth Of Normal is Maté’s most ambitious and urgent book yet.
Most of us believe that we are unique and coherent individuals, but are we? The idea of a "self" has existed ever since humans began to live in groups and become sociable. Those who embrace the self as an individual in the West, or a member of the group in the East, feel fulfilled and purposeful. This experience seems incredibly real but a wealth of recent scientific evidence reveals that this notion of the independent, coherent self is an illusion - it is not what it seems. Reality as we perceive it is not something that objectively exists, but something that our brains construct from moment to moment, interpreting, summarizing, and substituting information along the way. Like a science fiction movie, we are living in a matrix that is our mind. In The Self Illusion, Dr. Bruce Hood reveals how the self emerges during childhood and how the architecture of the developing brain enables us to become social animals dependent on each other. He explains that self is the product of our relationships and interactions with others, and it exists only in our brains. The author argues, however, that though the self is an illusion, it is one that humans cannot live without. But things are changing as our technology develops and shapes society. The social bonds and relationships that used to take time and effort to form are now undergoing a revolution as we start to put our self online. Social networking activities such as blogging, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter threaten to change the way we behave. Social networking is fast becoming socialization on steroids. The speed and ease at which we can form alliances and relationships is outstripping the same selection processes that shaped our self prior to the internet era. This book ventures into unchartered territory to explain how the idea of the self will never be the same again in the online social world.
Radically open dialectical behavior therapy (RO DBT) is a groundbreaking, transdiagnostic treatment model for clients with difficult-to-treat overcontrol (OC) disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, chronic depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Written by the founder of RO DBT, Thomas Lynch, this is the first and only session-by-session training manual to help you implement this evidence-based therapy in your practice. As a clinician, you’re familiar with dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) and its success in treating clients with emotion dysregulation disorders. But what about clients with overcontrol disorders? OC has been linked to social isolation, aloof and distant relationships, cognitive rigidity, risk aversion, a strong need for structure, inhibited emotional expression, and hyper-perfectionism. And yet—perhaps due to the high value our society places on the capacity to delay gratification and inhibit public displays of destructive emotions and impulses—problems linked with OC have received little attention or been misunderstood. Indeed, people with OC are often considered highly successful by others, even as they suffer silently and alone. RO DBT is based on the premise that psychological well-being involves the confluence of three factors: receptivity, flexibility, and social-connectedness. RO DBT addresses each of these important factors, and is the first treatment in the world to prioritize social-signaling as the primary mechanism of change based on a transdiagnostic, neuroregulatory model linking the communicative function of human emotions to the establishment of social connectedness and well-being. As such, RO DBT is an invaluable resource for treating an array of disorders that center around overcontrol and a lack of social connectedness—such as anorexia nervosa, chronic depression, postpartum depression, treatment-resistant anxiety disorders, autism spectrum disorders, as well as personality disorders such as avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive, and paranoid personality disorder. In this training manual, you’ll find an outline of RO DBT, including history, research, and how it differs from traditional DBT. You’ll also find a session-by-session RO DBT outpatient treatment protocol, with sections that outline the weekly, one-hour individual therapy sessions and weekly two-and-a-half hour skills training classes that occur over a period of approximately thirty weeks. This includes instructor guidelines and user-friendly worksheets. The feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of RO DBT is evidence-based and informed by over twenty years of translational treatment development research. This important manual—along with its companion book, Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (available separately), distills the essential components of RO DBT into a workable program you can start using right away to improve treatment outcomes for clients suffering with OC.
The author of Being One presents “a persuasive argument for stopping the perennial search for enlightenment” in this unique guide to finding inner peace (New Age Journal). Steve Harrison spent decades seeking out every mystic, seer, and magician he could find throughout the world. He studied the worlds philosophies and religions, and dedicated himself to various forms of austerity, isolation, and meditation before coming to a truly profound conclusion: it was all useless. In Doing Nothing, Steve encourages spiritual seekers to find the truths of life through the simple act of stopping the search. As he puts it, “nothing is a surprisingly active place, but it is here that we discover who and what we are.”
First published in 1989. Covering subjects such as empathy, transference, and countertransference, as well as the nature of the psychoanalytic process, the author of this work argues that there can be no psychoanalysis without self analysis.
