This uncompromising and inspiring work exposes the personal and social consequences of decreased physical affection. Untouched offers positive solutions for countering the effects of the growing depersonalisation of our times.

Untouched: The Need for Genuine Affection in an Impersonal World

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Mariana Caplan

Mental Health

Hohm Pr

Caplan asserts that "the reality of the present condition of contemporary spirituality in the West is one of grave distortion, confusion, fraud, and a fundamental lack of education." She claims that, as positive as the tremendous rise in spirituality is, there is not any context for determining whether any particular teaching, or teacher, is truly enlightening. Caplan compiles interviews with such noted spiritual masters as Joan Halifax, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee and Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi on the nature of enlightenment. In the first section, Caplan examines the motivations people have for seeking enlightenment and contends that very often they seek this state as a means of gratifying the ego. This "presumption of enlightenment," she says, often afflicts teachers masquerading as spiritual leaders. These teachers sometimes look down on their students and gloat over how far they have come and how far the students have to go. A second section focuses on "The Dangers of Mystical Experience," in which Caplan claims that many seekers mistake the mystical experience itself for enlightenment; she and the teachers she interviews all assert that enlightenment always involves gaining some knowledge about self and others. The third section, "Corruption and Consequence," focuses on the nature of power and corruption; the fourth section, "Navigating the Mine Field: Preventing Dangers on the Path," provides a survey of the ways in which practitioners can avoid the "pitfalls of false enlightenment." A final section, "Disillusionment, Humility and the Beginning of Spiritual Life," concludes that "the Real spiritual life [is] the life of total annihilation and the return to just what is." Caplan's illuminating book calls into question the motives of the spiritual snake handlers of the modern age and urges seekers to pay the price of traveling the hard road to true enlightenment. Publisher’s Weekly/ Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.

HALFWAY UP THE MOUNTAIN

Arts & Photography

Hohm Press

The spiritual path is like any other road―it’s going to have its share of potholes and detours. Safe travel requires a quality rarely taught yet critically important in today’s world: discernment.
In Eyes Wide Open, Mariana Caplan supports us in cultivating the acute judgment and discrimination that will help us to live a spiritual life with intelligence, clarity, and authenticity.
Is enlightenment less about fireworks and bliss and more about dismantling illusions? How do we fully integrate our practice into daily living? What’s the best way to work with the ego and the shadow? Eyes Wide Open explores these questions and more, offering practitioners from any tradition―or those just getting started―a traveler’s guide through "the labyrinth of increasing subtlety" that defines a genuine spiritual life.
Eyes Wide Open has received the following awards:
2010 Gold IPPY―New Age (Mind-Body-Spirit) • 2010 Gold Living Now Award―Enlightenment/Spirituality • 2010 Silver Nautilus Award―Spirituality

Eyes Wide Open: Cultivating Discernment on the Spiritual Path

Religion & Spirituality

New Age & Spirituality

SOUNDS TRUE.

To Touch is to Live

Psychology & Counseling

Bhavan Books & Prints

Tra Cielo e Terra

Libraio delle Stelle

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Books by Mariana Caplan