Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook [Mass Market Paperback]

Ram Dass (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 1, 1990

Ram Dass is an American psychologist and spiritual teacher who has studied and practiced meditation for many years.  Here he shares his understanding and explores the many paths of meditation--from mantra, prayer, singing, visualizations, and "just sitting" to movement meditations such as tai chi--and suggests how you can find methods suitable for you.  He illuminates the stages and benefits of meditative practice, and provides wise and often humorous advice on overcoming difficulties along the way.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Ram Dass is an American psychologist and spiritual teacher who has studied and practiced meditation for many years. Here he shares his understanding and explores the many paths of meditation--from mantra, prayer, singing, visualizations, and "just sitting" to movement meditations such as tai chi--and suggests how you can find methods suitable for you. He illuminates the stages and benefits of meditative practice, and provides wise and often humorous advice on overcoming difficulties along the way.

From the Inside Flap

Ram Dass is an American psychologist and spiritual teacher who has studied and practiced meditation for many years.  Here he shares his understanding and explores the many paths of meditation--from mantra, prayer, singing, visualizations, and "just sitting" to movement meditations such as tai chi--and suggests how you can find methods suitable for you.  He illuminates the stages and benefits of meditative practice, and provides wise and often humorous advice on overcoming difficulties along the way.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (July 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553285726
• ISBN-13: 978-0553285727
• Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 1 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,465 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #58 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Spirituality > Meditations

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars For new explorers of spirituality & meditation September 4, 2000

By Kim Boykin

Format:Mass Market Paperback

A friendly invitation and beginner's guide to meditation--of various forms, from various traditions, Eastern and Western--with suggestions for picking a form suited to you, and helpful advice for the times when you get lost or stuck. Sprinkled with quotes from all sorts of wise people and cute little drawings of a meditator. Includes an extensive directory of groups offering meditation instruction, plus a good list of suggestions for further reading.

Ram Dass, born Richard Alpert, left his position as a psychology professor at Harvard in the 1960s to explore mind-expansion through psychedelic drugs and then through the guidance of an Indian guru. His bestselling 1971 book "Be Here Now" includes a chronicle of this journey and, like "Journey of Awakening," invites the reader to spiritual practice, but it focuses more on Hinduism and is written, illustrated, and typeset in a very hippie, psychedelic style, so you might prefer or definitely not prefer that book.

Welcome to spiritual practice!

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Most Practical Approach to Meditation Ever Written! September 1, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Journey of Awakening: A Meditatior's Guidebood by Ram Dass was a complete surprise to me. I had been looking all over for a book that gave you meditation techniques rather than places to go and pay to learn meditation. This was the first such book I found. Since I found it in the New Age section of the bookstore I expected to be weeding through a lot of mumbo jumbo and new age nonsense. Instead I found it to be a very practical guide to meditation techniques.

I was also pleased to discover that it taught how to use meditation within several religious practices including Muslim, Christian and Judism as well as Eastern traditions. This makes this book appealing to persons of any faith.

At the end of the book there is a listing of places around the country where you can go if you want more instruction or group meditation. But it is not neccessary as the book is a complete guide to meditation.

74 of 81 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Just what I needed September 29, 2002

By Rick Jones

Format:Mass Market Paperback

True story...

One day I was walking in San Francisco on my way to the Carl Jung Institute, when I had an overwhelming urge for a cup of cappucino. I mean, completely overwhelming. I turned and headed down a street (Van Ness) that I knew (at the time) did not have any cafes or coffee shops, yet I could not seem to help myself. I was being pulled.

After walking a few blocks, I noticed a sign for a bookstore below street level, and for some reason I went in. It was a weird little place filled with crystals and Hopi dream catchers, and I knew immediately it was probably not my kind of bookstore. Nonetheless, I decided to stay and browse a bit. I was turning one of those turning bookstands, when my eyes hit upon this book among a bunch of extreme New Age titles. I looked through it, and got tremendously excited as I realized that I had found something I had been barely aware I was looking for. So I bought it, read it about a dozen times, and it provided me with absolutely the right information I needed to make some decisions about meditation techniques, teachers, etc. In that sense, you could say it changed my life.

Based on my own experiences, I would recommend this book unconditionally to anyone who feels themselves drawn in that direction but needs a bit more information first. As always, Ram Dass does a first-class job of presenting somewhat arcane information in a very accessible manner.

Going back to that particular day, the funny thing was that as I walked out of the bookstore with the book, that overwhelming urge for a cup of cappucino had completely disappeared. And when I went back a few months later to find the bookstore again, I couldn't find it. I've always wondered what Carl Jung would have thought of the whole episode.