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    Forty Days to Begin a Spiritual Life: Today's Most Inspiring Teachers Help You on Your Way
    Forty Days to Begin a Spiritual Life: Today's Most Inspiring Teachers Help You on Your Way
    Forty Days to Begin a Spiritual Life: Today's Most Inspiring Teachers Help You on Your Way
    Ebook156 pages3 hours

    Forty Days to Begin a Spiritual Life: Today's Most Inspiring Teachers Help You on Your Way

    By Maura D. Shaw

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    About this ebook

    Practical advice for the curious seeker on how to jump-start a spiritual life. Today’s most inspiring teachers—meditation experts, alternative health practitioners, monks, medical doctors, and spiritual and popular self-help authors—provide you with insight and guidance on seeking spiritual understanding and focusing on what is most important in life. Other innovative features—including self-tests, spiritual practice suggestions and time capsule exercises—make this book an inviting first step on your path to a rewarding spiritual life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTurner Publishing Company
    Release dateMar 1, 2002
    ISBN9781594735233
    Forty Days to Begin a Spiritual Life: Today's Most Inspiring Teachers Help You on Your Way
    Author

    Maura D. Shaw

    Maura D. Shaw is the author of several books for young readers, including the award-winning Ten Amazing People: And How They Changed the World, the historical novel Owl's Journey, and Gandhi: India's Great Soul. Her nondenominational handbook of Earth-honoring activities for parents and children, Celebrating the Great Mother, is popular with families and groups.

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      Book preview

      Forty Days to Begin a Spiritual Life - Maura D. Shaw

      Introduction

      What Does It Mean to Begin a Spiritual Life?

      AT CERTAIN TIMES in our lives we stand at the threshold of something new—marriage, parenthood, college, a new career—and, for most of us, getting to that point required preparation, even dedication and hard work. Our new way of life most likely began with a desire and evolved into a plan. Along the way we consulted experts, teachers, friends—any-one who could give us helpful tips and an insider’s advice on the new world we were about to enter.

      Beginning a spiritual life is no different. We start with a time of preparation, a willingness to accept advice and counsel from wise teachers, and eventually we arrive at a place where spiritual meaning is present in our life every day. In taking time outside of the normal course to reflect on our spirituality, we are following in the footsteps of Moses, Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad. However, the path we choose will be ours alone, discovered through self-examination, reflection and spiritual transformation.

      To help you get started, the editors at SkyLight Paths have created a resource in which some of the most respected spiritual teachers in America—teachers from all faiths and spiritual traditions—share their personal spiritual priorities with you. We hope that you will use this book in such a way that, years from now, you will see it as one of the signposts that helped you: first, to become aware of where you were spiritually and, then, to move further along your spiritual path.

      Why did we call this book Forty Days to Begin a Spiritual Life? As Rabbi David A. Cooper says, There is magic in the number forty: Moses on the mountain, Jesus in the desert, Elijah in the cave, the Hebrews in the wilderness, the days of rain in the Flood of Noah (Three Gates to Meditation Practice: A Personal Journey into Sufism, Buddhism, and Judaism [SkyLight Paths, 2000], p. 23). In many religious traditions, spiritual leaders began their active ministries after a retreat spent in contemplation, prayer and fasting. This time of preparation often occupied the space of forty days, a time that appears to have a special resonance in the human soul and in the Divine order.

      Do we need to spend forty days to take inventory of our spiritual lives? Of course not. But the echo of the phrase forty days can resound in our hearts, moving us toward transformation on our unique spiritual paths. How much time you devote to finding your way is up to you. Just as we invited spiritual teachers and authors of all faiths to share their personal spiritual priorities, this pathway-in-book-format invites you to examine the priorities of your life.

      Some of our contributors’ comments will surprise or enlighten you. All of them are beautiful, brief representations of what they teach about or write about, what they do in the world. Our hope is that you will use this selection of very practical advice to help direct and redirect yourself, to help change your life in ways that are spiritually meaningful.

      We also asked these twenty-three spiritual leaders to share one image, story or allegory that encapsulates our common spiritual quest. The result is a fascinating array of images of our spiritual lives: Holy Envy, the Labyrinth, the Well, Pilgrim People, the Hero’s Journey. Plus, you will find brief stories from Karen Armstrong, Lawrence Kushner, Tamar Frankiel and Judy Greenfeld, and Jane Yolen. Their stories may give you some of the words you need to write down your own stories. It is often in the stories of our lives that we find God.

      Surrounding each contributor’s insights are three more things to help you shape your spiritual self:

      •   Brief descriptions of interesting religious traditions and tales, under the heading Did You Know?

      •   Samplings of prayers, texts or quotes from religious traditions and spiritual leaders of the past, under the heading Every Life Is a Spiritual Conversation with the Divine.

      •   Hands-on suggestions for your spiritual practice, under the heading A Spiritual Practice to Help You on Your Way.

      Each of us has the ability to jump-start a spiritual life, but no one can do it for you. What we can do for you, with the resource you hold in your hands, is to offer tools you can use to take your spiritual temperature and to look as if through a wide-view lens at your life, in order to take charge of where you are heading, and where you want to be going, in your spiritual and religious life. We hope you find yourself refreshed, renewed and inspired.

      How to Use This Book

      There are several different ways you may want to use this book.

      •   Read the pages straight through, in order, and hear the contributors speak about these four themes:

      Seeking Spiritual Understanding

      Living Together on This Small Planet

      Co-Creating with the Divine

      Focusing on What Is Most Important in Life

      •   Dip in and out, perhaps finding your favorite contributors’ insights first, and discover the rich nuggets of wisdom from the other contributors along the way.

      •   Take it like a daily vitamin supplement—and focus on the health your body and soul can glean from it.

      •   Read it with a friend.

      •   Use it for group study. Focus first on the self-tests to get to know each other; then talk together about the contributors’ ideas, and yours.

      To jump-start your spiritual life, you might want to take ten days to explore each of the four themes in the book. Over this period of forty days—a period of time traditionally associated with mindful preparation—rely on the help offered here. Then, set your own course and take new steps on your own path.

      Section 1

      Seeking Spiritual Understanding

      Seeking Spiritual Understanding

      "Spiritual maturity is not something to get, rather it is something we already have within

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