The Soul of the Story , livre ebook

Turner Publishing Company - David Zeller

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

174 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

What Happens When Your Spiritual Path Leads You Far from Home?
Many who embark on a spiritual quest discover that the people they meet along the way ultimately point them back home, into the very soul of the religious tradition they had left behind. So it was with David Zeller, whose spiritual odyssey took him across the globe, through traditions including Zen Buddhism and Hinduism, and into relationship with some of the world's most compelling spiritual teachers.
Thoughtful and endearing, provocative and witty, Zeller's delightful stories recall his meetings with the likes of Carl Jung, Shlomo Carlebach, Alan Watts, Sri Pad Baba, the "Mother" (Sri Aurobindo Ashram), Carlos Castaneda and many others, well known and unknown―and the experiences and teachings that ultimately allowed him to rediscover his own spiritual heritage.
From the stimulating days of California's Bay Area in the 1960s, to a kibbutz in Israel, to the time he spent as a sadhu in India living outdoors and bathing in rivers, these stories of Zeller’s spiritual adventures remind us all that even the most meandering path can, in the end, bring us to our true spiritual home.

Sujets

Philosophie et théologie

Judaism

Hinduism

Religion

Informations

Publié par	Turner Publishing Company
Date de parution	11 février 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781580237789
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0800€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Thank You For Purchasing This Skylight Paths eBook!
Sign up for our e-newsletter to receive special offers and information on the latest new books and other great eBooks from SkyLight Paths.
Sign Up Here
or visit us online to sign up at www.skylightpaths.com .
Looking for an inspirational speaker for an upcoming event, conference or retreat?
SkyLight Paths authors are available to speak and teach on a variety of topics that educate and inspire. For more information about our authors who are available to speak to your group, visit www.skylightpaths.com/page/category/SLP-SB .
To book an event, contact the SkyLight Paths Speakers Bureau at publicity@skylightpaths.com or call us at (802) 457-4000.
The world says: Stories are meant to help you sleep. But I say: Stories are meant to wake you up!
-Rebbe Nachman of Breslov
God created the world with story.
- Sefer Yetzirah
The power of a story reaches beyond our minds, penetrates even deeper than our hearts. It mamash [really] touches our souls . Because in the end, the most important knowledge is not scientific, or even mystical; it s to know what life is all about. And that s the essence of a story-understanding life.
-Reb Shlomo Carlebach
DEDICATION
These stories are dedicated to the memory of my grandparents, murdered in the Holocaust, who could never tell me their stories; to my father, Max Mordechai Zeller, z l , who kindled the lights of the Hanukkah menorah and of my psyche with such dedication; and to my rebbe, Shlomo Carlebach, zt l , for kindling the light of my Jewish neshama and telling us all the stories of our people, rebbes, and souls.
These stories are dedicated to my mother, Lore Zeller, for the neverending story of her love, care, and generosity; may the story of your life keep unfolding for many years to come.
These stories are dedicated with deep gratitude and love to my wife, Hannah-Sara; thank you for your steady support through all the ups and downs of this intensive time of writing.
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. My Mother and Father: Growing Up with Dreams
2. Carl Jung: Seeing the Great Man
3. Shlomo Carlebach: Awakening My Soul
4. Shlomo: Wash Away Your Habits
5. Shlomo: The Words and the Melody
6. The Waterfall: Going with the Flow
7. Alan Watts: The Sound of One Hand Clapping
8. The Experience of Self-Discovery : Integrating My (Remarkable) Meetings
9. Getting High or Getting Tenure: Idea-Man or Fact-Man
10. Dr. Ho and the I Ching
11. Waking Up to Israel
12. How Saddam Hussein Made Me More Jewish
13. The Lizards: Touching the Earth
14. Thomas Banyacya: Hopi Spokesman and Interpreter
15. Harry: Running Away to Home
16. From Israel to India: Finding My Way Back Home
17. Sri Pad: Only God Brings You Here
18. Neem Karoli Baba and Ram Dass: Be Here Now
19. Sri Pad s School for Sadhus
20. The Calcutta Rabbi
21. Swami Hariharananda: It Takes More Than a Man-tra to Become a Man
22. Sai Baba: Getting Enough to Eat
23. Sai Baba: I m Sorry. I Made a Mistake. Please Forgive Me.
24. Sai Baba: Healing and Charity
25. Sai Baba: My Private Interview
26. The Mother: Three Percent Is Better Than Everything
27. The Mother: Sh ma Yisrael
28. Cochin: Jew Town!
29. Farewell to Sri Pad and India
30. The Sadhu Comes Home
31. Intra-Realities: Awakening and Transition-Integrating East and West
32. The Birds: A Blessing of the Universe
33. Tony Sutich: The Hidden Founder of Transpersonal Psychology
34. Ego and Self: I Am the Ambassador of the Self/Soul
35. Carlos Castaneda: A Separate Reality
36. Nakasono Sensei: Meeting the Shinto Priest
37. Reb Zalman Schachter: Professor, Translator, and Explorer
38. Reb Shlomo: How Do You Teach Torah When You re Angry with God?
39. Reb Gedaliah Kenig: Sh ma Yisrael
40. Reb Gedaliah: The Tefillin and the Bus
41. Pascal Themanlys: Finding the Mother in Israel
42. Elana: Bringing Heaven Down to Earth
43. My Honeymoon with Reb Gedaliah
44. Reb Shlomo: Facts and Miracles
45. No Ordinary Ordination
46. Jack Shwarz: Beyond Our Physical Bodies
47. Swami Radha: Bending Over Backwards for Others
48. Kennett Roshi: Beaten to Enlightenment
49. Carl Rogers: Manipulative?
50. Ram Dass: Memorable and Memorial Meetings
51. Swami Vishnu Devananda: Unity in Diversity
52. Reb Gedaliah: The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology
53. A Native American Rosh HaShanah
54. Shlomo, Zalman, and Me: Jewish and Transpersonal in India
55. Sri Pad: A Reunion
56. Reb Yisrael Odesser: The Spirit of Rebbe Nachman
57. The Amshinover Rebbe: Beyond Time
58. Elana: Coming to Israel to Stay
59. Rav Mordechai Sheinberger: A Real Kabbalist and a Real Human Being
60. Hannah-Sara: Life After Death
61. Ram Dass in Israel: The Form and the Formless
62. Tending Our Garden of Peace
Notes
Acknowledgments

About the Author
Copyright
Also Available
About SkyLight Paths
Sign Up for Email Updates
Send Us Your Feedback
INTRODUCTION
FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN: The Wanderer
I Had Become a Hasidic Story
A few years ago, I had a wonderful Shabbat dinner with members of a Hasidic community in Brooklyn. Since many of us did not know each other, we were asked to introduce ourselves. In telling about myself, I mentioned that after living for two years in Israel and then a year in India, I d returned to the West, ready to integrate the worlds of East and West, psychology and religion, the intellectual and the meditative, the inner and the outer, and, especially, Judaism and spirituality. Oh! my host said. You ve got to hear the story of the Jew who met the Shinto priest! He began to tell the story, when I interrupted, asking whether he would like me to tell the story. When he asked why, I explained that the story was about me , and that I was the one who had originally told it years ago.

I had become a Hasidic story. This was a sign that it was time for me to tell my own stories, stories of my meetings with remarkable souls, stories of how they had remarkably affected my own soul. That, in fact, is what I am doing now. That is why I am telling this to you now.
An Orthodox Jungian and a Reform Jew
I was raised an orthodox Jungian and a Reform Jew. Through a lot of wandering and wondering, I became an Orthodox Jew and a reform Jungian.
Reform Jew because, though my family had a very strong sense of Jewish identity-my father was briefly held in a concentration camp and later my parents escaped the Holocaust- other than Hanukkah and a Passover seder, we observed few Jewish traditions while growing up. I hadn t even heard of the Sabbath or of dietary laws, and I had no real awareness of Israel. We had joined a Reform temple only so I could have a bar mitzvah. But there was very little learning about Judaism in my family. Like any bar mitzvah boy, I learned to chant a small part of my Torah portion. It had little meaning for me, and it was the last time I was in a synagogue for many years.
Orthodox Jungian because my father and almost all our family friends were therapists who followed the theories of C.G. Jung, the psychiatrist who had broken with Freud and started his own depth psychology, a broader, deeper approach to the human psyche, the Self, and the Soul. Jungians work very intimately with various aspects of the unconscious, inner and often hidden dimensions of the Self or Soul, from beyond the limitations of our more superficial physical and egoidentity world. I was raised and nurtured amid dream interpretation, astrology, cheirology (palm reading), graphology (handwriting analysis), fairy tales, and myths. All this contributed to the magic of my childhood. It wasn t until I was older that I discovered my parents were really nuts and that most kids parents didn t do those kinds of things!
I Ching : The Wanderer
When I was around fifteen, my father asked what I wanted to do after finishing high school. I told him I didn t know, though everyone seemed to go to college automatically, without giving it too much thought. It appeared that he had given it quite a bit of thought and suggested that we ask the I Ching (pronounced ee-ching ). What s the I Ching ? I asked. He explained that it was an ancient Chinese book of wisdom that is used for divination or clarifying the future. He explained that you focus on your question and then toss three coins, six times. According to the combination of heads and tails that ensues, you get two sets of three lines each, either solid or broken. Then you look up that combination of lines in the I Ching to see what it predicts. Having already been exposed to astrology, cheirology, graphology and dream interpretation, I shouldn t have been surprised that there were still more ways to understand our character and our lives. But I was.
I threw the coins. It came out- Fire on the Mountain: the Wanderer. My father quickly interpreted this to mean that I would wander through the heights and depths of academia. Obviously, he had given this question a lot of thought. My father was a great therapist to his clients, but thank God, around his children, he could still be just an irrational parent.
Well, I did go to college. And I did a bit of wandering while I was there. I started in pre-med and psychology, as all our Jungian friends and, of course, my father had recommended: Become a good psychiatrist in order to make the best contribution to the world of Jungian psychology. It was the tough pre-med requirements that drove me to take physics in summer school at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1966. That brought me to the Berkeley Folk Festival, which led to my life-changing meeting with Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Shlomo was an Orthodox rabbi from New York, who composed original, uplifting, and deeply inspiring melodies from Jewish liturgy. He told stories and gave teachings that touched and opened the hearts of so many searching young adults like myself. I had a spiritual and transformative expe