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The Jump Into Life: Moving Beyond Fear

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It is a Shame that no one knows about this man. He is one of the most intelligent spokesmen for the spirit since Thomas Merton. This book has no b.s. These are profound thoughts of a deep and highly sensitive man. No rhetoric. He draws on his own past experiences from childhood, with his teacher, and as a filmaker. He is humble and I get the sense he is as real as they come. I cannot reccomend this highly enough. This should be on the New York Times Bestseller List. This makes the Celestine Prophecy look like purile sandbox spirituality!

I don't know if this could be called a self-help book, but it's full of helpful and affirmative ideas. Desjardins is so open and generous with his wisdom that it would be impossible to read very far without feeling a deep YES in response. The book is compiled from recorded lectures and exchanges with students so it is very simply written, almost conversational, with occasional anecdotal meanderings. Nevertheless, it quickly becomes apparent that a lifetime of experience is behind his words, unlike many spiritual "teachers" who don't have a practical understanding of their material because they haven't lived it. Desjardins has lived it, worked with it, taught it, for the last forty years. It is his own synthesis of East and West--Gurdjieff, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity--but it doesn't feel like a mish-mash of dogmas; the core teachings of each tradition have been wisely assimilated by a lively mind and willing spirit.

In the 60's Desjardins was one of the first filmmakers to go to Tibet and India, and he brought back not only remarkable footage but a new grasp of Eastern ideas. On his journeys he met many of the luminaries of Buddhism and Hinduism, but it was when he met Swami Prajnanpad that everything came together. Prajnanpad challenged him on every front and Desjardins rose to the challenge, though sometimes his resistance was stubborn; it often took several years to fully integrate what Prajnanpad had intended with his very simple statements.

There are no complicated theories here--no rituals, no yogic techniques. There's no magic formula for enlightenment offered, except advice to breathe deeply and to open up and to be grateful. Most of the difficulty for Desjardins was how to deal with fear--he had grown up in a repressed household and he did not feel free to follow his instincts or to be truly himself. At 40, when he seriously began his search, he felt he was suffocating. He didn't have a fear of death, but of living. He couldn't accept the robotic existence programmed by cultural expectations and familial obligations. He wanted a philosophy that moved beyond reactivity and a theology that encompassed sexuality, and with this aim, he eventually studied Tantra. Written in 1989, before Tantra became a means of exploitation in the hands of charlatans, this book offers a gentle view of what divine union actually signifies.

Rejecting both academic aridity and the monk's cell, Desjardins developed an inner structure that would support all that he sought and believed was his as birthright. He presents the blueprint for that internal structure, and it is based on saying YES to change because it's the path to new levels of understanding, having gratitude, choosing to be positive, and knowing that you already have Buddha Nature (you are already free, you are already whole, you are already wise.) It's a long journey toward the freedom that has been yours all along. This books gives straight-forward advice for that journey from a good-natured man who has seen all the emotional pitfalls and ego-detours and survived, with his heart and mind intact.