Customer Reviews

The Instruction Manual for Receiving God

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Jason's new book is like the clear scent of a flower calling us
home. As my dad and my first husband were dying they both said the
same thing: "It's time to go home." Listening to each I thought,
"Why can't I go home while I am still alive?" This book opens to us
that way home, not by re-making our life into something other than
what it is, but by guiding us as we take every bit and morsel of it
as the nourishment we need to be truly at home in our life and body.

If God is - Always-Present-Everywhere - and is most desirious of being Found, then our Relationship with this Being is unalterably different from the way that most of us approach it. This is a book that is profound in its simplicity, its depth and its wisdom. It is a human roadmap to that which is paradoxically both BEYOND US and yet at the same time may quite possibly represent our ultimate Identity. In my opinion, it is must reading for anyone whose Spirit and Consciousness is so engaged.

This book is filled with kindness and wisdom, heart and hope. It answers many of our deepest questions, questions about life, suffering, spiritual growth, the presence of God and enlightenment. A book to treasure. Probably one of the most important spiritual books to appear in recent years.

In those moments when all you can hear is the house creak and the dog change positions, I like to pick up this book and read one or two of what the author calls seed passages. It's that kind of book. The author provides joyfully lively and thought provoking portals for the contemporary seeker's spiritual envisioning regardless of the readers' religious or non-religious identification. It is a small book with big ideas. Mr. Shulman's languaging, explanations and examples, in this his second book, are extremely clear, to the point and easily understood., The profound perspectives offered present many varied opportunities for the healing integration of body, mind, heart, and spirit into a place of embodied fullness and awakened consciousness. I find this book deeply transformative, full of delight and would recommend this book to all seeking devotional insight.

"This book does not encourage false forays into imaginary worlds where there is no suffering of any sort, where some magical notion of spirit has whitewashed reality into a palatable dollop. Instead, the words in this book seek to awaken you to the truth of God, that perspective and level of integration that allow you to be separate and one with the universe at the same time. It seeks to put life into perspective and to make our lives something worth living, despite the hardships inherent in the situation in which we find ourselves." - From the book

Rare is the day that I read a book but instead enter a peaceful sanctuary. It is equally rare for me to discover a book that depressurizes the air surrounding the human condition and the idea of spirituality.

The Instruction Manual for Receiving God does not advocate the destruction or transcendence of the ego, nor does it promote striving to reach a superhuman ideal. There are no flights into magical thinking, denials of the difficult or dualistic notions of God being "here" but not "there".

Instead, this seminal work disseminates forbidden knowledge--ideas so profoundly simple and shockingly sublime that to peer into this deep well of mystery is to see the face of God.

According to author Jason Shulman, you--yes, you!--already have what you need to receive God. In fact, "you have your own song, and God has a ticket to your concert. If you are shy, God, being God, will sing for you."

Here are a few of my favorite excerpts from this gloriously poetic, healing book:

"The hardest job in the world is to be simply and fully human."

"When we have problems, we imagine a different sort of life where there are no problems and then attempt to get there...There is no life but this one. There are not two lives, one better than the other. True change begins with a relationship with what is actually present in the Now."

"God cannot be known secondhand...God comes from the heart and not from a book. You must think God up for yourself."

"The bruised apple is still good for making pies. In other words, trust in the Creator to see the good that even you yourself cannot see. Your sorrows do not need to disappear for you to be good in God's eyes. Therefore you need never hide any part of yourself again."

"There is no form of freedom that does not include our limitations and suffering."

"All neurosis is an obsession with memory."

"Your ongoing life is the furnace that brings human warmth into the world."

"Every story about a vision quest or spiritual journey ends with the hero discovering something that was in him or her all along...Trust that everything you need is already within you."

The Instruction Manual for Receiving God shows us how to move from lost to found, from rejected to accepted, from wounded to healed, from wandering to rooted. Like Dorothy, we can come to realize that "we had it all along"--and that there's no place like Home.

And where is Home? It's right where you are sitting, my Friend.

I feel happy that there is a book that makes known the true kindness of God: That God embraces the human condition just as it is and we can be with God just as we are. This book is written with a living and embodied wisdom by someone who understands our deep need for a relationship with God that lets us relax and be ourselves. It is also written with great kindness towards the condition(s) we find ourselves in as human beings. I'd have to say that kindness is the heart of this book.

The Seed Passages unlock my mind and heart (and even my feet) to reveal God in this place, right now. Practicing receiving God in this way helps me to work with my longing to be in (or go to) some other place in order to be with God. I can just be myself, right here, at my cozy desk, and be with God, too. This makes getting on with the tasks of life much easier as pining to be (or worse, fantasizing about being) elsewhere in order to find God is such a painful energy drain.

In another piece of writing called "The MAGI Process," Jason Shulman writes, 'The world settled down is God.' "The Instruction Manual for Receiving God" is a walk through the settled down ground, and a felt sense of the divine plays on every page. This is one of those books you can walk with, and in, at the same time. I highly recommend it as a guide book for the great spiritual journey to one's humanity.

in the Jewish tradition is Jason Shulman's The Instruction Manual for Receiving God. Shulman, a Kabbalaist who has also drunk deeply from the well of Buddhist Dharma, is the founder of A Society of Souls, a school based in New Jersey dedicated to awakening the human spirit.

Shulman writes in a direct but low-key manner, presenting us with 108 (a number favored by Buddhists) "seed passages" which he invites us to meditate and reflect on.

The core message that Shulman delivers is that it is not so much God who is elusive, but rather, it is we who tend to hide ourselves and make ourselves unavailable to God. We think that because we are imperfect, we must not let God see us, but, in fact, it is in embracing our imperfection, in this moment, exactly how we are, that awakening and enlightenment become possible.

For example, one of the seed passages states that "God receives us just as we are. But we don't receive ourselves in the same way. We don't love ourselves as we our. Our deepest work is not so much to improve ourselves as to realize ourselves, to see ourselves clearly and dearly." Then, the commentary on this passage concludes that, "The secret here is that we are not practicing being better than we are. We are simply practicing kindness toward who and what we are."

I found some of the passages to be truly enlightening, while others failed to hit home. But overall, as I read this book, I found myself cheering on Shulman's message about being here, now, exactly as we are, with all our imperfections and warts. Forget about the notion of a single "Big Bang" or spiritual enlightenment, the Kosmic Orgasm that sets you free forever and lifts your spirit permanently into the clouds. That's not what life is about, that's not what being human is about, and while this sort of thing does occasionally happen to people, it doesn't happen because you want it to happen or try to make it happen.

Again, be here now, with whoever you are with, doing whatever you are doing. Open a page, read a seed passage, and let Jason Shulman's wisdom flow into you.

Easy reading, highly inspirational. Read it like drinking fine liquore - a little bit at a time, letting the words sink in and be carried on their wisdom on the days that follow.

Who knew that God seeks me? Who knew that humanity is Divine? This book makes me want to be human because it illuminates humanity and begs me to be exactly who I am, what I am, and where I am. It doesn't tell me how to rise above it. It's truly an instruction manual for loving myself, and in that process, I receive God.

What a wonderful book, simple and clear from cover to page. Jason has been one of my most important teachers, and I have read all that he has published in the 10 years I've studied with him. Everything till now has educated me and assisted me on my spiritual path, but nothing has touched my heart as this book does. It is the very best of his teaching, soul to soul, heart to heart, breath to breath. More than words to study, these are words to soothe, inspire, remind, restore and heal all who are willing to take them in. It is a great gift to have the heart of his teaching accessible in a form I can pick up and partake of any time my soul needs a long, cool drink of reality. Definitely one of those desert island picks!