Gateways to the Soul: Inner Work for the Outer World

Description

A guide on how to live more soulfully and, in so doing, transform yourself and the planet * Explores the connections between healing your personal wounds and healing the planet * Explains how embracing unitive qualities such as love, friendship, joy, courage, forgiveness, and truth, as well as facing your Shadow sides and confronting world evil, enables you to move through important gateways leading to soul * Offers a variety of transpersonal exercises, meditations, and guided visualizations Humanity is in a great crisis of soul today, but there is also much good will around. As a species, we are challenged to start embracing a new story, one that enables us to be less greedy and materialistic and to espouse peace not war, kindness not cruelty, and heart as opposed to indifference. What we need is to bring more soul into the world. In this guide about engaging in inner work to bring change into the world, Dr. Serge Beddington-Behrens reveals how the healing of our personal wounds combined with the growing of our soul life leads us directly to the addressing of world problems. Sharing inspirational stories from his own personal journey of becoming a transpersonal psychotherapist, shaman, and activist, he shows you how, by transforming your inner world, you begin creating important positive ripples that reverberate around all areas of your outer one. The exercises and meditations he has devised will not only help you heal and become more fully human but also enable you to bring a very different kind of awareness--a sacred awareness--into all areas of your everyday life. Not only will this enable you to experience more joy and meaning as you increasingly disconnect from the clutches of the system, but you will also find yourself opening your heart, reclaiming your personal power, bringing in new myths for humanity to live by, and gradually shifting away from being part of the problems in the world to becoming a core part of their solution.

Dr. Serge Obolensky Beddington-Behrens, MA (Oxon.), Ph.D., K.S.M.L., is an Oxford-educated transpersonal psychotherapist, shaman, activist, and spiritual educator. In 2000 he was awarded an Italian knighthood for services to humanity. For forty years he has conducted spiritual retreats all over the world. In the 1980s, he cofounded the Institute for the Study of Conscious Evolution in San Francisco. The author of Awakening the Universal Heart, he divides his time between London and Mallorca.

"This uplifting book is packed with spiritual exercises to help us work to bring about positive change both in our personal lives and in the life of our society. It gives us hope and insight as to how to approach our current challenges and in doing so take responsibility to heal those wounds that we human beings have inflicted upon ourselves. Deeply engaging!" * Penny Sartori, Ph.D., author of The Wisdom of the Near-Death Experiences * "In this wise and compassionate distillation of his life journey, Serge has given us an invaluable handbook for spiritual and psychological health and development in our complex era of unparalleled challenges and opportunities. He provides a series of gateways and key insights into essential aspects of life, such as courage, forgiveness, joy, and work, along with extensive practical reflections and exercises to do at the end of each chapter. A hugely enriching and rewarding read." * David Lorimer, program director of the Scientific and Medical Network, UK, and author of Resonant Mi * "This book is a vast compendium of ideas and exercises that can help us take the next steps in our own soul awakening in ways that also make them a contribution to the further evolution of the human species." * Thomas Yeomans, Ph.D., founder of the Concord Institute * "In a time of unparalleled crises, Gateways to the Soul uncovers with laser-like precision the soulless, amoral, ruthless dynamic that drives our so-called civilization. Knowing that nothing will change in the outer world unless changes are made in our inner one, it then leads us gently but firmly into the neglected chambers of the soul, bringing clarity, insight, and the possibility of transformation to entrenched unconscious patterns of belief and behavior. This book heals, informs, and enlightens, releasing us from the corroding power of old wounds and old habits, some of which may have festered inside us for centuries. A brilliant manual that teaches us how to live life in a different way, engaging with its abundant energy, discover its secret intention for us, which is to consciously embrace the freedom to be who we are meant to be." * Annee Baring, Ph.D., Jungian analyst and author of The Dream of the Cosmos * "In this book about wisdom and compassion, Serge introduces us to practical gateways to walk through into our shared future. A spiritual classic." * Dale Mathers, Ph.D., Jungian analyst and author of Alchemy and Psychotherapy * "Serge Beddington-Behrens is a wise and inspiring soul. His new book is full of insights and provocations that will stir you and help open up your heart and mind." * William Bloom, Ph.D., founder and co-director of the Foundation for Holistic Spirituality and author * "Serge is absolutely right in saying that we cannot retrieve our individual or our collective souls without also retrieving the soul of our beloved earth, with its every molecule as alive as we are. In the harm we have done to our world and in this great storm of crises we have currently unleashed upon ourselves, we can only successfully navigate our way forward and start melting our blockages by realizing our unity with all life." * Elisabet Sahtouris, Ph.D., evolutionary biologist, futurist, professor in residence at Chaminade Uni * "An excellent guide for breaking out of the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and how the world is that will help us become more alive and awake to the untapped potential we all have to create a better world." * Peter Russell, futurist, eco-philosopher, author of The Awakening Earth, Finding Your Own Happiness, * "If you savor this book by Serge Beddington-Behrens, your life will be enriched. You will hear and feel one of the kindest and most beautiful voices of personal and spiritual wisdom from a man who has dedicated his life to serving and uplifting his fellow human beings and this planet that we all share." * Stuart Sovatsky, Ph.D., author of Advanced Spiritual Intimacy * "In this wise and compassionate distillation of his life journey, my dear friend Serge has given us an invaluable handbook for spiritual and psychological health and development in our complex era of unparalleled challenges and opportunities. The tone of the book is refreshingly personal and direct, with the author addressing the reader as a friend and fellow-traveller but one who is challenging us to embrace and live up to noble ideals in a somewhat cynical age. Each chapter has at the end pertinent questions and exercises for further personal work." * David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer (Journal) *