Mysticism and Modern Life: Ancient Wisdom for Personal GrowthMysticism and Modern Life is a compelling examination of the relationship between mysticism and human development. The book provides a step-by-step approach to transcending personal constraints in order to achieve higher levels of personality development. |
Contents
| 3 | |
| 13 | |
| 22 | |
Presuppositions of Identity Formation | 31 |
From Merger to Differentiation | 43 |
Family Patterns and Styles in Marriage | 55 |
The Law of Polarity and Marriage | 65 |
Creating a Conscious Marriage | 76 |
Healing the Eternal Split in Adult Relationships | 87 |
Life Death and Transcendence | 99 |
Developing A Personal Epistemology | 109 |
Becoming Conscious | 119 |
Conclusion | 131 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 137 |
INDEX | 145 |
Common terms and phrases
action anxiety attraction awareness ayahuasca balance Bateson behavior patterns Buddenbrook Castaneda central paradox Chaos Theory child complementary concepts conscious marriage constraints cow shit create death define don Juan Matus duality ego psychology emotional energy entrenched everything existence experience family of origin father feel focused freedom Freud Heraclitus hidden higher consciousness human identify identity imagos integration interactions internalized Jung karma karmic language Lao-tzu law of polarity life’s lives mental models microcosm monocular vision mother move mundane Mysticism and Modern natural negative never opposite pole ourselves paradox of mysticism parents partners personal epistemology personality development physical polar shift reality realize redundant loop repression resolve restrictions Sara’s schismogenesis self-reflection sense separation and connection shared domain singular source space split spouse stage of marriage structure symbiosis System Theory theory things thinking transcend true unconscious unconscious mind underlying understand unity universe
Popular passages
Page 127 - If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
Page 124 - One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.
Page 100 - The surest thing there is is we are riders, And though none too successful at it, guiders, Through everything presented, land and tide And now the very air, of what we ride. What is this talked-of mystery of birth But being mounted bareback on the earth? We can just see the infant up astride, His small fist buried in the bushy hide.
Page 114 - ... the air. All this was familiar to me from my research in high-energy physics, but until that moment I had only experienced it through graphs, diagrams, and mathematical theories. As I sat on that beach my former experiences came to life; I 'saw...
Page 114 - saw' the atoms of the elements and those of my body participating in this cosmic dance of energy; I felt its rhythm and I 'heard' its sound, and at that moment I knew that this was the Dance of Shiva, the Lord of Dancers worshipped by the Hindus.
Page 14 - My belief is that the explanations of "emergent" phenomena in our brains — for instance, ideas, hopes, images, analogies, and finally consciousness and free will — are based on a kind of Strange Loop, an interaction between levels in which the top level reaches back down towards the bottom level and influences it, while at the same time being itself determined by the bottom level.