“The most important voice that is speaking to us is usually the one asking us to do something that takes courage, something that takes us out of our comfort zone. That’s why we so often ignore that voice and listen only to the endless chatter of our minds.”
These are the words in the introduction of Beyond Success: Redefining the Meaning of Prosperity written by Jeffrey Gitterman. My good friend Cynthia Litman recommended Beyond Success because the book examines the idea that people do not find happiness in money and material possessions, but through engaging in the journey of goals that challenge us and allow us to make a contribution to the world through our own unique expression.
Gitterman divides his book into four pillars that show us how to find meaning and joy throughout this quest. First, we can connect to a Source of infinite energy within us, rather than something ‘out there.’ Then, Gitterman shows us how we can find our unique expression and offer that to the world. After we learn how to own our unique expression, then Gitterman suggests that we redirect our attention on ‘the road that is your life story’ , not just the destination of our specific goal. The book concludes with a section on expanding our awareness by giving both financially and spiritually to others.
Beyond Success will not only show you how to achieve success, but it will also help you find great joy, inspiration and creativity while you pursue your goals.
Jeffrey Gitterman is a corporate leader who successfully brings a spiritual message to the traditionally materialistic business community. He is one of ING Financial’s top advisors, whose GoBeyond seminars have been the highest-rated training program at the company for years. For more information you can visit www.beyondsuccessconsulting.com.
You can purchase Beyond Success on Amazon if you Click Here.
Upon learning that the previous owner of her home was a victim of suicidal depression, author Barbara Richardson made a silent promise: to turn that farmhouse into a house of joy. In her new book, Guest House, she fulfills that promise.
Guest House is a fictional novel that weaves together the burdens and joys of one outwardly accomplished go-getter, Melba Burns and one shy, imaginative and neglected kid, Matt Garry. After witnessing a terrible accident, Melba has retreated from the world; she’s abandoned her high-achieving life, she’s stopped driving her car, and she avoids human contact. Her sheltered world starts to crumble when Matt, a courageous and ingenious boy with troubled parents finds his way into her heart.
I recently had a chance to interview Barbara about Guest House. She also talked about how it took her 18 years to get her first book published and gave some great advice for aspiring writers.
You can read a few highlights from our interview below and listen to our entire 20 minute conversation by clicking the play button.
Matt: Your characters deal with many challenges ranging from growing up with alcoholic and troubled parents, spousal abuse, being raised in a very strict and religious household, how to comfort those grieving, loneliness, and finding love. Do you have a personal connection to the issues raised in your book?
Barbara: I do. Yes I was raised in a really strict religion and had parents who sort of ignored me…And, I think the beautiful thing about living a spiritual life is that it’s not the circumstances, but what you do with them. To me it was so important to show the humanity of all these people, even the terrible actions of parents and friends. And, in all the confusion truly there is this beautiful thread running through it that you can be free when you learn how to surrender to those who love you and to the moment which provides all the care you could possibly need.
Matt: How do you find beauty in those moments of darkness when you have such terrible circumstances?
Barbara: . . . I saw a documentary on the Holocaust a couple nights ago. And, no there wasn’t joy in the camps there. But, these people managed to locate the joy in their heart in these most difficult circumstances because they were true to themselves. If you’re true to your self, not your outer circumstances…joy is available to you every moment.
For more information on Barbara, you can visit her web site at www.BarbaraKRichardson.com or purchase Guest House on Amazon by Clicking Here.
Nautilus’ motto is “Changing the World One Book at a Time,” and fellow Gold winners include William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer’s marvelous The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind about an African boy who makes a windmill out of scraps and “brings electricity and a future” to his village, Pierre Pradervand’s beautiful The Gentle Art of Blessing, and Elizabeth Grossman’s powerful ode to green chemistry, Chasing Molecules. Previous Nautilus Gold Medal winners include the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Deepak Chopra, so Jessica is in excellent “and humbling!” company.
Spiritual Media Blog interviewed Jessica about her memoir, Roll Around Heaven, and how anyone can have an authentic spiritual experience. You can listen to that interview by clicking the button below or purchase the book by clicking here.
I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Jane Bernhardt, author of We Are Here: Love Never Dies about her book, communicating with loved ones after they die and how her message can help people heal.
On the morning of November 5, 2006 Jane’s father Harry Lee Smith passed away. It was never his intention to abandon Angelika, his bed-bound wife of forty years. So, shortly after his death, he began an amazing series of communications through his daughter Jane, to comfort and inspire Angelika as she transitioned out of her body. What Harry and his spiritual helpers have expressed are extraordinary illuminations of the beauties of the after-life as well as precious lessons in living and letting go.
In our conversation, Jane shares with me how we can communicate with loved ones who have passed away, how she responds to people who don’t believe we can communicate with loved ones after they have died and how her message can be healing and empowering.
She made a few remarks that really helped me see a bigger picture such as,
“When I can work for the things that are eternally important, then there’s no end to the fruitfulness of my life.”
“Whenever I felt lost or discouraged, I’ve gone deep inside to ask: ‘Are you still here?’ I speak with the lover of my soul. This conversation has taken me to amazing places.”
You can listen to our entire 30 minute conversation by pressing the play button below.
For more information on Jane Bernhardt and how to purchase We Are Here: Love Never Dies, please Click Here
Andrew Harvey and Karuna Erickson are the authors of Heart Yoga: The Sacred Marriage of Yoga and Mysticism. In Heart Yoga, Andrew and Karuna use practical teachings and richly layered poems to remind us that through yoga it is possible for anyone to become “embodied channels of illumined love, grace, peace . . . and instruments of divine creativity and service in the world.”
I recently had a chance to interview them about their book, the benefits and differences of heart yoga and how yoga can connect you to the Sacred. You can listen to our 30-minute conversation by clicking the play button and read highlights from our conversation below. For more information, please visit Andrew’s web site at www.AndrewHarvey.net and Karuna’s web site at www.yogakaruna.com. Heart Yoga is available on Amazon.com by Clicking Here
Andrew, you are an internationally acclaimed visionary and bestselling author and/or editor of over 30 books. What inspired you to write about yoga?
Well my last book , which in a way is a consummation of my life work is called “The Hope; A Guide to Sacred Activism.” In that book I lay out a vision for what I believe is a force that can save the planet, save the human race and save us from the addictions that are now destroying us. That force I call Sacred Activism, which is the fusion of the two noblest fires in the human soul: The fire of the mystic’s passion for God and the fire for the activist’s passion for justice.
When these two fires fuse, they birth a third fire which is the nuclear fire of love in action and which connects directly to the evolutionary fire that streams from the Godhead to evolve all of the Universes ever more profoundly into the glory of the Divine.
When I wrote this book, I came to understand that four kinds of practices were profoundly needed now for us to become strong enough to deal with the enormous crisis that is manifesting everywhere:
Cool practices that calm us and align us with Divine Being.
Hot practices that align us with the Motherhood of God.
Prayer practices that enable us to keep up a stream of remembrance of the beloved through everything and align us with the will of God through everything.
And very importantly, body practices, Sacred body practices that enable us to embody the Divine energies that are streaming in at this crucial and menacing moment to help birth what I believe is the real secret meaning of our crisis and embody Divine humanity.
About eight years ago, I had the great good fortune to meet Karuna Erickson and she was a pupil of mine in a class that I was giving on Rumi. And very sweetly and tenderly, she came up to me after one of my classes and said,
“Andrew, the passion that is devouring you and that you are emanating will deeply damage you if you don’t get more bodied.”
And because she said it so sweetly, I heard her and I embarked on a whole deep immersion in yoga under her instruction and through that immersion, I came to understand with Karuna’s help that at this moment yoga could be the most important crucible for the divinization of the body that we have available to us.
Yoga has very ancient sacred roots. Yoga has always known at these Sacred roots that the Divine is present as Light Consciousness in every cell of the body…
Yoga can become a conscious way of uniting with the Divine within and without and even more importantly of calling down the Divine Light into the body so that the body can become more and more consciously the living temple of the Divine energies.
One of the most extraordinary things about heart yoga has been is its extremely vibrant reception from both the leading spiritual teachers Marianne Williamson, Caroline Myss and Deepak Chopra and also by the leading Yoga teachers such as Seane Corn, Rodney Yee and Shiva Rea.
How does Heart Yoga differ from other types of yoga, and what is its biggest benefit?
God is the sacred marriage of immanence and transcendence. This is the way in which God is most holy and most vibrantly worshiped in all the great mystical traditions. And the site of the marriage is the sacred heart center. This isn’t the physical center of the heart. It’s a little bit to the right of the chest and it’s called by many names…
And, when this heart center is open, it allows for the irrigation of the body by the Divine Light….And so the heart center functions in the spiritual body, psychosomatic body, mystical body in the same way that the physical heart center operates in the physical body. For example, just how the physical body pumps blood around the body to keep the body vibrant. So, does the heart center, when open, pumps the Divine Light around all of the different parts of the physical and spiritual body and allows them to come into a vibrant field of naked unity, which allows us to become more and more consciously Divine.
So, we called it Heart Yoga in this very profound mystical sense and we’ve put at the core of our book a vision of the heart center how to open it and how to stay in it while practicing the asanas and I think Karuna you’d like to say something about why you feel so important about heart yoga…
Karuna:
I think that Andrew is a living example of heart yoga because you can hear in his words how the inspiration flows, in a very grounded way flows through the body. The light is manifesting in every cell of our bodies actually when we practice with conscious intention, as we do with heart yoga. Our intention is to bring practice into a deeper and deeper level of actually invoking the light and feeling it radiating through every cell in the body. This creates the type of inspiration in which Andrew has been speaking of….
I’d like to emphasize that this experience is available to everyone. It’s not just some rare, strange experience that’s only available to a few enlightened beings. But, everyone has an experience of connecting with what is Sacred. For example, when they look at a baby or look at beautiful flower. This direct experience of connecting with the Sacred is something that through conscious practice that we can all, and we all have experienced. You don’t have to be an accomplished Yogi. You can just open your heart to the possibility of this experience. And, here it is for everyone.
Andrew:
In our book, we really do make that very clear. One of our great dreams for this book is that it would be a book for absolutely everyone, not only for yoga practitioners, but also for those who haven’t yet found yoga. And the ways that we offer for opening the heart through the ancient, mystical systems are very simple.
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Robert. In our conversation, he shares some personal experiences that prompted him to take a radically different approach to business and money and offers some useful advice for how we can develop a similar mindset and bust loose from the business and money game.
If you would like to listen to my interview with Robert, please click the play button below. For more information on Robert and his book, please visit http://www.bustingloose.com.
For example, she writes: “I finally understood why I’d been through all of those challenges and difficulties. It was so I could relate to others on a deeper level and be of help to them.”
Kim’s book provides thoughtful advice on how to become more aware of our internal dialogue and remove thoughts that might be distracting us from our guidance and experiencing more peace.
For more information on Kim and how you can purchase New from the Inside Out, please Click Here
Margaret Clare Elizabeth has produced an eloquent and heartfelt rendition of the Book of James on CD. Her voice and delivery helps the listener to hear and feel the message of perseverance that is evident in the Book of James.
For example, when she says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance,” you can feel the strength that is embodied in those words.
Margaret Clare Elizabeth is an articulate New Yorker, a beautifully poised and gracious actor, host, anchor, in depth and versatile journalist and prolific writer.
For more information, you can connect with Margaret on Facebook by clicking here.
The Spiritual Significance of Music is a collection of exclusive interviews with many of the world’s most visionary musicians and writers. Edited by Justin St. Vincent, it is a unique anthology that explores the dynamic relationship between music and spirituality.
For example, in an interview with Ron Thal from Guns N’ Roses, Ron writes, “A good amount of songs I’ve written came about by taking whatever was weighing heavy on my chest and letting it in, facing it, and returning it to the world as something positive, a way to help make sense of it all.”
The Spiritual Significance of Music takes you into the hearts and minds of well known musicians and lets you know how the music they make relates to their own personal spirituality. For more information on the book, you can visit www.musicandspirituality.com.
Jessica Maxwell never intended to have a spiritual or mystical experience. However, after seeing her just-deceased father’s face on a plane of cloudless blue sky, like a projection on a movie screen, she began a path back to God and a spirituality that was open to learning from all religions and belief systems. This led her to a series of events that most would describe as synchronistic or even miraculous.
Initially a religious skeptic and a journalist specializing in nature and traveling to foreign locations, Jessica wanted to document her adventures and spiritual experiences so she could understand how and why they were happening to her. Eventually, she wrote about her journey in a personal memoir, Roll Around Heaven: An All-True Accidental Spiritual Adventure.
I had the chance to talk to Jessica about her life journey and why she wrote Roll Around Heaven. Using humor and heartfelt personal anecdotes, Jessica shared with me how we could have more authentic spiritual experiences throughout our daily life even if we are a bit skeptical or reluctant.
You can listen to our conversation below by clicking on the play button. For more information about Jessica Maxwell and Roll Around Heaven: An All-True Accidental Spiritual Adventure, please visit http://www.jessicamaxwell.com.
“The most important voice that is speaking to us is usually the one asking us to do something that takes courage, something that takes us out of our comfort zone. That’s why we so often ignore that voice and listen only to the endless chatter of our minds.”
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has won the Gold Award for Best Memoir in the 2010 Nautilus Book Awards!
about her book, communicating with loved ones after they die and how her message can help people heal.
. In Heart Yoga, Andrew and Karuna use practical teachings and richly layered poems to remind us that through yoga it is possible for anyone to become “embodied channels of illumined love, grace, peace . . . and instruments of divine creativity and service in the world.” 
and 
. For those who want to approach their business, job or career with hope, joy and excitement, Scheinfeld offers a unique model to help you achieve those goals. The heart of his message is to avoid separating who we really are (however you want to define that – whether that is Spirit or Higher Self or Expanded Self) from our business and career decisions. When we begin to see our business or career from the perspective of our Expanded Self, then he believes everything takes care of its self. His books offer a practical method to accomplish this noble goal.
