By Robert Epstein — 2002
The Road Less Traveled may well have been a life-changing work and one of the best-selling books of all time.
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CLEAR ALL
The term “religious experience,” or sometimes “mystical experience,” is used to describe a transcendent event that transforms the person who has the experience, often in a way that leads to a strong sense of connection and/or oneness with the universe and/or God.
We live at a time when all spiritual traditions and contemporary inner work schools are available to the interested seeker. However, many of us rest in the comfort of believing all spirituality and spiritual teachings lead to the same place and aspire to the same awakening.
There is no end to realization, kinds and types of awakening, or enlightenment and completeness.
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The primary import of the present contemplation is to point out the significance of both recognizing and experiencing the individual consciousness, whether we refer to it as soul, stream of consciousness, or subtle continuum of awareness.
Conventional psychotherapists often look askance at spiritual practice, just as many spiritual teachers disapprove of psychotherapy. At the extremes, each camp tends to see the other as avoiding and denying the real issues.
During our weekly meetings in the Sun office, editor Sy Safransky and I occasionally stray into philosophical territory. One day, knowing that I’d once studied meditation at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand, Sy handed me a couple of videos of talks by the spiritual teacher Adyashanti.
When people allow themselves to connect with what their spiritual life is about for them—what their deep questions are, what their deep yearning is—then they have all the vitality they need