Customer Reviews

The Purpose of Physical Reality: The Kingdom of Names

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This book crystalized the many concepts floating around in my mind concerning the Purpose of this Physical Existence. I crossed a barrier in my spiritual understanding that I will not regress from. I've been intersested in this subject all my life and I'm sure the subject matter is something that most people in their innermost essence crave for. It's almost as if the Book were tailor made for the exact enlightenment that my soul needs at this stage in my growth. A few points that stuck with me from the book, "Salvation" is not an end in itself, but rather it's in "motion". It's not a static place, but a dynamic education process overseen by a Divine Teacher.

The basic premise of this book is to attempt to fathom why essentially spiritual beings(we humans) are here living our lives in this physical world. Along the way, the question of theodicy is brought up. That is, how do we explain evil in a world supposedly created and administered by a loving God. The author compares and contrasts several early attempts at answering this question. The story of Job, Plato's Republic, Boethius, Milton's Paradise Lost and the Baha'i Faith's responses are the ones he chose to look at. If you're like me, this discussion may spur you on to read some of these classic works in their entirety. The Baha'i Faith provides the framework for this work, and it is quite compelling. My one quibble with the book is the examination of near death experiences. It may provide some interesting material that fits the context of the book, but NDE research is at the pseudo-science stage and I don't like seeing it given undue credence in an otherwise superb philosophical work. The follow-up work to this is called The Arc of Ascent. I would wholeheartedly recommend it as well.

This book provides a unique perspective on living and unravels many mental knots that some people can be stopped by for the rest of their lives. The language can be a bit heady at times, but the finishing perspective gained is worth every effort!

I came across this book when faced with a spiritual crisis in my life. I was working night shift in an E.R. and a SIDS baby (crib death) came in. I felt the pain that the young mother and father were feeling and asked how a loving God could have possibly tormented this family by giving them a baby to love and then taken it away a month later. This book helped me understand that if your existence is a symphony, then your time on earth is just the first page of it.