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What is Self?: A Study of the Spiritual Journey in Terms of Consciousness,

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What's beyond "sheer burden"???
A Comprehensive Guide to the Spiritual Journey
Thank you Bernadette
Correction
The map.

What is Self?: A Study of the Spiritual Journey in Terms of Consciousness,
Bernadette Roberts
Manufacturer: Sentient Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Path to No-Self: Life at the Center
The Experience of No-Self: A Contemplative Journey
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ASIN: 1591810264

Book Description

This extraordinary philosophical treatise on the nature of self and God follows on the author's now-classic book, The Experience of No-Self. The book includes fascinating chronicles of her own spirtual journey.

Customer Reviews:

What's beyond "sheer burden"???.......2007-03-11

Father Keating's comment on the front of the book says it all: Bernadette Roberts has a gift for articulating the ineffable. This book is unique and not for the faint-hearted. Her writing on the Christian Passage is unsurpassed and not available elsewhere in the literature.

The only reason I did not give the book five stars is for one single sentence near the end of the book. After the resurrection, ascension, and incarnation experience, she states: All that is left now is the Eucharist; everything else is sheer burden.

The fact is that some of us begin our lives in the condition of "sheer burden", and after a lifetime of the journey, it shifts to: All that is left now is the Eucharist; "everything else" IS the Eucharist.

I appreciate Bernadette's honesty, but "sheer burden" is not the end of the journey for every Christian contemplative. For some of us, the journey has no end.

A Comprehensive Guide to the Spiritual Journey .......2006-11-07

Without a doubt, Bernadette Roberts is the clearest, most incisive writer in our time on the mystical splendor of Christianity. Stunning is the range and depth of Robert's presentation of the essential Christian Mysteries in What is Self? As you contact the abyss of beauty in God that this book reveals, you will fall in love with God ever more deeply. This book is without peer, in any century, as a systematic presentation of Christian mysticism.
Joseph Conti, Ph.D.
Dept. of Comparative Religion
California State University at Fullerton

Thank you Bernadette.......2005-11-28

For your insight and wisdom. You have provided a path, a description and a direction for what lies beyond. Your books should be part of the Catholic heritage - and available to all who seek God.

Correction.......2000-12-29

Ms. Roberts stated she wrote this book because her previous two (The Experience of Noself and The Path to Noself) missed the mark: it is true. In reality, the reader should reverse the sequence. I wrote a review here for The Path to Noself. Know that it is incorrect. I now understand her views on the ego and the self, which are different from those of Jung and Hinduism, which she used as comparison. However, I marvel at the lack of insight regarding reincarnation, which is barely mentioned. Ms. Robert also writes that this path: first the falling away of the ego, then the falling away of the self, is unavoidable and every one must go through it...but when? Obviously the majority dies without this experience. Where do they go? Let's look at the classic example: a seemingly innocent one year old baby dies. What happened? His ego or self did not fall, he did not experience the unitive phase. If he did not "merge" with God, what happened? What a hoax this life then is! It was around the year 500 that the Christian Church, in the Council of Nicaea, decided to make reincarnation "anathema", a concept accepted by many Christians since anno domino, including fathers of the church like Origen. With a stroke of their pens these intolerant fanatics made metempsychosis heresy. Reincarnation does not collide with Christianity, and if some believe, like Roberts, that Jesus was born sinless, meaning already without ego, isn't it possible that this happened in a previous incarnation? Following Roberts' line, then Jesus only needed to get rid of his self. Many Westerners look to Eastern religions out of the impossibility to answer similar questions like the baby's posed above? Finally, none of her books tells us how to get started. Do this unitive condition falls on us out of the blue? What do we need to do? In her favour, I must say that this book is the best summary I have ever seen of the concepts of ego, self, and Self or Atman.

The map........1999-12-13

Having discovered Miss Roberts by suggestion from a Religious Studies college classmate almost 20 years ago, I was thrilled to see another book by this wonderful author who has devoted her life to explaining the unexplainable. Without her understanding and excellent ability to convey, so many aspects of the contemplative path, and beyond, would go unnoticed-or worse yet- misunderstood.

This latest effort puts it all into perspective. Explains it all in a deeper more matured way, as though her own journey "grew clearer with distance."

There is one statement in the book that I must take issue with. When descibing an especially bewidering aspect of the journey, she states that she could not point to one person she ever helped. Bernadette- point over here!

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What Is Self? : A Study of the Spiritual Journey in Terms of Consciousness
Bernadette Roberts
Manufacturer: Mary Goens Publisher
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KXK6OC

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