Richard Harvey
connecting psychotherapy and spiritual growth for human awakening
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Human Awakening
the source book that sheds light on the three stages of awakening
The following is an edited version of the Introduction.
Introduction
This book explores the path of personal and spiritual unfolding, with all its challenges and joys, from initial stages to Self-realization. It is a comprehensive guide to the process of the psycho-spiritual journey, or to put it more simply how we discover who we really are. Rather than being an unattainable fantasy, I have tried to show that spiritual attainment is the logical extension of human development and how the personality, the authentic self and the transcendent self can be discovered.
Work on the personality is commonly thought to be what therapy is all about. But personal work is only a part of inner exploration. Beyond personal change, lie the challenges of authentic transformation and real consciousness. The fulfillment of these three stages of human development is our innate capacity, and it is attained through a single connected process of awakening.
This book charts this process in three stages. The first stage, The Process of Self-Discovery, describes how we explore, understand and transcend our small sense of self through identifying and shedding restrictive life conditioning, emotional and behavioral patterns, becoming whole and fulfilling our personal potential.
The second stage, The Threshold of Transformation, describes how we can reach the state of permanent change and personal authenticity by stabilizing in the personal changes we made in the first stage and empowering ourselves to relate authentically and compassionately to other people and the outer world. This stage is the flowering of personal inner work.
The third stage, The Source of Consciousness, describes the experience of living in the world when we have touched transcendent reality and understood who we really are. Through shedding illusion, living in the present and re-centering in the True Self we at last live our divine nature.
Although I have written this book from the point of view of the therapeutic encounter, it can be used by people who wish to develop themselves on their own, with a partner or with a group of friends.
In addition to teaching stories, ancient and modern, I have often used case histories to amplify and illustrate. Because these accounts are real they do not always have ‘fairy-tale endings’ (although sometimes they do). Names, gender and specific details have been changed or adapted and the stories are sometimes a composite of different experiences in order to make individual clients unrecognizable and preserve privacy and confidentiality.
Through this book, I will introduce you to the inner journey, attempt to clarify and/or inspire you if you have already begun it and give a clear and accessible model of how we can realize human potential. I have tried to present profound ideas in an accessible way without cheapening the subject matter or patronizing you, the reader. This is also a travelogue of the journey through the inner landscape, a glimpse of real experiences, a series of sketches of the inner journey, rather than a manual or a list of techniques (which are plentifully available elsewhere). May it illuminate, inspire and encourage you to awaken to a most welcome stranger, your deeper self, to a life of empowerment lived out of your authenticity and to a dazzling light beyond anything you could ever think possible, your True Self.
The Contents
Introduction
The Perrenial Problems
The Challenge of Being Human
Preface
Real Change
A Short History of the Growth Movement
I—The Process of Self-Discovery
The Desire to Free Ourselves
1 Inner Work
Speaking of ‘I’
A Crack in the Fabric
Dissatisfaction
Crisis
Appreciating the Gate
Life Changes
Commitment and Intention
The
Baggage of Inner Characters
The Lessons of the Father and the Mother
Boundaries
Proportion
Personal Empowerment
2 Relationships
Men and Women in Therapy
The Nature of Woman—a Series of Dreams
Relationships and Projection
Ritualizing the End of a Relationship
The Path of Relationship
Acknowledgement and Support
3 Attending to Soul
Going Back to Childhood: Deepening in the Present
Personality and
Perspective
Personal Stories
Simplicity
The Essential Practice
of Awareness
The Art of Listening
Balancing Acceptance and Challenge
The Most Common Issues
Privacy and Secrecy
4 Stages of Transition
Thresholds of Maturity
Initiatory Experiences
Madness—Illness
or Initiation?
The In-Visible Nature of Inner Work
Doing It on Our
Own: Ego and Self-Therapy
Alone Together: Shared Reflection
The Path
to the Inner World
Assuming, Relying and Idealizing
Giving to Ourselves:
Working with Ego
Attitude and Responsibility
Learning from Everything
5 Pointers on The Way
Creative Chaos
The Unconscious and Truth
When Our Angels Become
Our Jailers
The Power of Language
The Inverted Relationship of Inner
and Outer
Short Cuts and Dead Ends
Therapy Junkies
Complaining
Forgiveness
6 Our Greatest Gift
The Thinning of the Veils
The Last Grains of Attachment
Therapy
or Spirituality?
The Original Wound
Unconscious Change and Art
Wholeness
II—The Threshold of Transformation
7 The Transformation into Authenticity
Alone on the Threshold
Waiting
Doing and Being
Clearing Up Loose
Ends
Life Transforms
8 Responding from The Heart
Assumptions: Coping and Transformation
Self-Improvement and Spiritual
Awakening
Bodywork, Thought and Silence
A Spiritual Path in the World
Centering in the Heart
The Divine Pervades Each Moment
Being and Purpose
Born Therapists
Inhabiting the Heart: Practicing Compassion
9 Outer Work: Stabilising in Transformation
The Four Stages of Ego
Carrying Fuel
Community
The Enabling
Power of Disability
Aging
Death
Love
10 Ways to Realization
Group Practice, Commitment and Letting Go
Spiritual Distance
Any
Way, All Ways
Spiritual Questions and Divine Lessons
Changing Biographies
Continuing Birth
The Self and the Mystery
Beyond Contradiction
and Paradox
Does Therapy End?
III—The Source of Consciousness
11 Realizing Our True Nature
Beyond the Shadows of the Divine
Experiences of Transcendence
De-Spelling
Illusion
The Divine Nature of Personality
Growing out of the ‘Me’
Concept
The Unattainable Goal
Pitfalls and Cautions
Now: Freedom
and Fear
12 Perpetual Illumination
The Impossibility of Seeing Ourselves
No Teacher, No System
The
Original ‘I AM’
Spontaneity and Surrender
Appendices
1. Self-Realization and Your Divine Nature: An Exposition of the Three
Stages of Awakening
2. Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) Online Training
3. The Work of Richard Harvey and Sacred Attention Practices
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Sacred Attention Publishing, Second Edition January 2017
Pages: 494
Price: 55 euros (PDF document, 3.4MB)
What readers say
Reading
this book is witnessing consciousness crafted in the hands of Richard Harvey.
Each page is a mystic map for the inner journey to reveal itself in an evocative
and piercing way. This book is a must for any seeker of truth.
Berdhanya Swami Tierra, author of Mystic Heart
Beloved
Richard...the wisdom that speaks through you, the precious complete way
in which you allow Life to bring light to willing and eager hearts! How
You soar the altitudes of unspeakable divine knowing and also with profound
compassion keep giving your clear pure mind and pointings to those of us
who are still not clear about our true nature.
Carla Bhavani, administrator at Colegio Mission, Mexico