There Is No Other: The Way to Harmony and Wholeness

These enlightening lectures from late spiritual teacher Dass (Polishing the Mirror) explore humanity’s alienation from its divine roots. The argument running through the lectures is that humans once lived in total harmony with their surroundings and one another (a kind of “Eden”). That idyll was punctured by a fall from grace that generated an illusion of separation, according to Dass, and all religion has been a subsequent attempt to return to “oneness.” The return from worldly to the formless and from the mind (and the attendant fear, egotism, and distrust that are responsible, Dass says, for many of the world’s problems) to the “intuitive heart” is impeded by the human instinct to judge and covet. It’s also blocked by the habit of “clinging” to one’s possessions, thoughts, and other attachments, though Dass nimbly notes that the notion of not clinging can itself be clung to (to some extent, he writes, one must embrace their humanity and make peace with their separateness). While the lecture format can make for a somewhat disjointed reading experience, Dass more than makes up for it with insights that are complex, erudite, and often personal (“I looked around at my human incarnation, and after all the years of trying to be divine, of clinging to the idea of divinity, suddenly I wanted to be human”). Spiritual seekers should snap this up. (Oct.)