The Heart of the Soul: Emotional Awareness - Hardcover

Zukav, Gary; Francis, Linda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743205677 ISBN 13: 9780743205672

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2002

Synopsis

With the rare combination of profound psychological insight and deep spirituality that has already drawn millions of readers to his two great national bestsellers, "The Seat of the Soul" and "Soul Stories," prize-winning author Gary Zukav now joins with his spiritual partner Linda Francis to help us to develop a new emotional awareness that is central to our spiritual development. In "The Seat of the Soul," Zukav brilliantly set forth his fundamental concepts, explaining how the expansion of human perception beyond the five senses leads to a new understanding of power as the alignment of the personality with the soul -- "authentic power." In "Soul Stories," he showed how such concepts as harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for Life express themselves in other people's lives. Now, in "The Heart of the Soul," he and Francis take the next major step forward in showing us the importance of emotional awareness in applying these concepts to our own daily lives. Zukav and Francis show how true emotional awareness transforms the human experience. Although developing emotional awareness is challenging and difficult because it requires becoming aware of our buried emotional pain, it is also enormously rewarding. "The Heart of the Soul" shows us how to free ourselves from our compulsions, fixations, obsessions, and addictions -- such as anger, workaholism, perfectionism, obsessive eating, alcohol and drug abuse, and sexual addiction -- that prevent us from living a fulfilling and meaningful life. It also provides the reader with the necessary tools to replace the desire to avoid painful emotions with the desire to explore every aspect of consciousness, and to cultivate theparts of ourselves that contribute the most to Life. Emotional awareness -- becoming aware of everything we are feeling at every moment -- is one of the most challenging tasks we can undertake. As Zukav relates in the book, "The longest journey that you will make in your life is from your head to your heart." For all of us, that is the unending journey toward spiritual growth -- toward wholeness, wisdom, and compassion -- and the healing that will allow us to achieve our fullest potential. Zukav and Francis do not discount the violence and destruction that pervade our world, but they recognize a new, emerging consciousness that has the power to transform it. "The Heart of the Soul" will be a powerful revelation, enabling readers to recognize emotional awareness as a key component in the creation of authentic power. Filled with helpful tools, empowering practices, and compelling drawings, "The Heart of the Soul" is a life-changing work that can reshape our lives for the better. It is a book to read and reread many times.

About this title

Review:

We are all students in the "Earth school," according to authors Gary Zukav and Linda Francis in The Heart of the Soul. And the time has come to create a whole new lesson plan. For thousands of years we were outwardly focused as we mastered the tasks of cultivating food and building shelter. Unfortunately, we are still stuck in an outward fixation, obsessively accumulating more wealth, material objects and power. "What enabled our species to survive so long is now bad medicine. In fact, it is poison" according to Zukav and Francis. What we need now is an inward focus, in which we cultivate the heart and live in alignment with our souls.

As it turns out, The Heart of the Soul is a timely guidebook, being published shortly after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. "The pursuit of external power produces physical violence and destruction between nations. You can see this in every newscast," the authors note.

Billions of people live in poverty, are hungry, and suffer oppression, and brutality. Changing these circumstances requires our hearts. It requires the ability to feel the pain and joy of others, and to take their needs as seriously as we take our own.

And here is where the heart lessons come in. "As long as there are parts of yourself that reach outward to make you feel safe, valuable, and loved, you need to identify them and heal them." The authors include numerous exercises and suggested activities to help readers feel and understand their emotions in order to "empower the soul" and live a more rewarding and joyful existence. The words and intentions are indeed poignant and worthwhile. The numerous boxes, diagrams and passages in bold print create a self-help structure that some will find simplistic and others will find inviting. --Gail Hudson, Amazon.com

About the Author:

Gary Zukav is the author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics, winner of the American Book Award for Science; The Seat of the Soul, the celebrated #1 bestseller in The New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, and others; and the New York Times bestseller Soul Stories. His books have sold millions of copies and are published in sixteen languages. He is a graduate of Harvard and a former U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) officer with Vietnam service.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0743205677
• ISBN 13: 9780743205672
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320