Customer Reviews

The Awakened Heart

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It happens that sometimes in moments of silence, honesty and surrender we become aware of our deep desire for love - both to love and to be loved. This deep desire is our true nature and it is God's life in us. This is May's simple thesis. The power and beauty of his book is that he unabashedly celebrates this love and slowly gets us to become aware of and appreciate its presence and also to recognize the ways we seek to stifle it or twist it or run away from it and some of the reasons why we do this. Like his other works, May here again blends his unique experiences of prayer and psychology into a touching re-affirmation of our heart's basic goodness. His book opens an inner door to a greater trust in the instincts, intuitions and spontaneous acts of love that arise from that sacred space. How courageous for a man to write about and value the apparent "weaknesses" and "vulnerabilities" of love in a time when the "virtues" of efficiency and action are so exalted. By now, having read most of his works, I feel like a friend. And so as a friend, I say, thank-you Jerry.

This is one of the wisest books I have ever read. Whether I can read it or not is a good measure of my spiritual openness to God, or at least, of my willingness to be open. If I am closed down, I don't want anything to do with this book. But if I am yearning for God's yearning for me, this book is meat and drink. How one person can be so spiritually wise is astonishing.

This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. A friend passed this onto me and I remember reading the first 20 pages on a bus and not being able to stop crying. It was so beautiful and it made me look at myself and others differently. The one thing that we are all searching for is Love. That is the fundamental purpose of life. Absolutely amazing book in it's simplicity and beauty.

What a deeply enriching book! I have had to read it a few pages at a time to savor and feel my way through what is being said. I reccommend this book to any spiritual seeker, even though the book is loosely Christian in orientation.

This author is the best contemporary spiritual guide I have. I wish he would write more!!

I actually bought this book because I thought it would help me open up to *romantic* love, as in, to meeting my potential partner/soul mate/twin flame. It was none of that, but it did help me open up to Love -- the greater love for life, for people, and especially for myself and God.

This book was not an easy read, but it was worth it. While reading, little light bulbs went on in my mind as several realizations became clear and obvious. I've read a great deal of spiritual material before, and had become almost against the word 'God' because it connotes a judgmental creature looking down upon us. This book does not go into "defining" God, but refers to the term a lot. As a result, I was able to return to being okay with the word and really feel what Gerald May was talking about.

It was really worth the money, and it's one of those books that you read 2 years later and realize how much deeper is becomes the next time around.

This was not a book I could read without stopping. It's truth hits my heart hard; and gives it pause. Each page invites meditation. I will keep it in my library for further study. It gives Amazing Insights to the connection between mental and spiritual health.

Really, now.....who is being "narrowminded"?
An "anti-12 step" agenda is all you gleaned from this entire book? Some in the so-called "12-step" community can take themselves so seriously they end up shooting themselves in the foot. Gerald May is offering something very rare through his writing. My favorite is his first book Simply Sane. It can be re-read and contemplated for years. He has a very important broader point to make about the self identification as a person always needing "recovery"...or "improvement". This is totally beside the point of treating or addressing physical/chemical addictions. The addiction he points to is that of defining oneself as.....(name anything)....and believing one IS that.

This book is philosophy of an accessable kind. It is a book to ponder and take time with, not one to read through. You can read, put it down and come back to it but let the ideas perculate through before you move on.

This book is for those wanting a more open relationship with self and God. Not a book to read like a novel but one to study each day page by page.

The author uses this book to express his narrowminded simplistic theories. The author uses the word "addiction" very loosely and is anti-12 step claiming that throngs of people have searched for problems in their life so that they can join the "recovering masses" as if needing to save ones' life from early demise due to alcoholism or drug addiction is some sort of fad. The author does not provide any data to support his broad claims. I'm glad I bought it used and did not pay for shipping. I'm putting it in the recycling bin.