October 2003
 
The Call: Discovering Why You Are Here
The Call opens with the author embarking
upon a forty-day vision quest in the wilderness. At the six-day
mark, she hears an internal
voice tell her to “Go home…what you are looking for
cannot be bought by ordeal.” Thus Oriah Mountain Dreamer returns
to civilization, and to the realization that the art of “not-doing” has an important
message for us: “When we consciously stop fighting, consciously
stop trying to change or ignore what is, we become available
to experiencing what we are.” This third in a trilogy of books (the
first and second books being The Invitation and The Dance)
takes the reader through
the idea of hearing “the call,” to know and embody
the meaning of one’s life, using the author’s personal
stories and reflections on her experiences. As with all of her
books, the author speaks with unadulterated honesty as to her
own struggles, opening a bridge to the reader instead of affecting “spiritual
perfection,” as self-help writers occasionally do, which
tends not only to create distance between writer and reader,
but also to make the reader feel somewhat “less than.” The real secret is in accepting the
marriage of essence and ego, in order to “be fully and consciously in a human life.” This
can only be done in the here and now. As Oriah Mountain Dreamer
puts it, “Here is the only place and now is the only moment
in which to look for how to live who and what you are. Going
home, knowing who and what we are and why we are here, is not
something we have to earn by getting it right, choosing perfectly,
or trying harder.” Amen to that. — Jan
Suzukawa
What Religious Science Teaches
Ernest Holmes
Paperback, $5.95
Science of Mind Publishing This concise summary of Religious Science teachings—first
published in 1944 and now released in a new (gender-neutral)
edition—provides an excellent introduction for the beginning
student of this philosophy. The main principles of Religious
Science, aka Science of Mind, are set forth in an introductory
essay by Holmes, who notes that spiritual knowledge has increased
throughout history and that Science of Mind, a contemporary formulation
of what the enlightened prophets of all the ages have taught,
incorporates the highest truths from the world’s greatest
traditions. Holmes emphasizes both the practical usefulness of Science
of Mind and its future appeal, calling it a “faith that is
winning its way in this, our new day.” The role and value
of individual spiritual experience, the end of fear, the merging
of science and religion, and the essential divine nature of all
beings are other main topics that Holmes addresses. Science of
Mind, he says, recognizes that the “universe in which we
live is a spiritual system governed by laws of Mind,” meaning
that each of us shapes our experience in accordance with our
thought. To elaborate this key premise, What Religious Science
Teaches contains a phrase-by-phrase explanation of Holmes’ “Declaration
of Principles,” quoting after each phrase corresponding
passages from such scriptures as the Talmud, the Apocrypha, the
Zend-Avesta, Hermetic teachings, the text of Taoism, the Bible,
the Koran, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Qabbalah, and
others. This section of the book is invaluable as a guide for
tracing the source of Science of Mind ideas back to their ancient,
universal origins, as well as for deepening the reader’s
understanding of these ideas—a process that leads to a
more conscious use of the laws of Mind. — Kathy
Juline
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