Review: Ending the Search - From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness by Dorothy Hunt


Ending the Search: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness is a "treatise" on the nature of spiritual search and how it becomes a dangerous preoccupation when it becomes the goal rather than a means to an end.

WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?
Anyone with a love of spiritual literature that is not bound by religious tradition of a specific kind. This means Ending the Search is a book that delves into different aspects of specific religious practices and does not confine itself to a particular one. Though the author has a Christian background and use some of its analogies, a large part of this book, as I understand it, leans heavily towards Zen Buddhism. If this bothers you, please stay clear.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT
The author's grasp on the nature of spiritual thirst is masterful. I learnt how even the best of intentions can get hijacked by human nature where being "spiritual" becomes another tool of self-importance with no real benefits to the soul.

WHAT I DO NOT LIKE
While some of the passages are well-written with sublime turns of phrases, a lot of the paragraphs stream of thoughts are clunky and sometimes require a second reading to grasp its meaning. Ending the Search is deceptively hard to breeze-through (deliberately so, I think). It will take a calm and patient spirit to crack its shell.

MEMORABLE PASSAGE
"If you consider yourself a spiritual seeker, what are you searchingfor? What is the deepest longing of your heart? You may have many desires, but what is the deepest one, the one your heart knows is true, even if your mind does not?

"You may believe that you are seeking awakening, enlightenment, Self-realization, or God-realization. Perhaps you are seeking freedom, peace, love, happiness, truth, or an end to suffering. You may imagine that you know who is searching, who will be the “finder,” who will achieve the final goal, and who will be the primary beneficiary. But do you truly know what you are seeking, what is motivating the search, or who it is who is seeking and wants the search to end?"

.......

Ending the Search: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness by Dorothy Hunt will be available to buy on all major online book stores by March 2018?

Many thanks to Sounds True Publishing for review copy.

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