The Question to Life's Answers: Spirituality Beyond Belief [Paperback]

Steven Harrison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 11, 2003

Grappling with the questions we all have about life, the author deconstructs the prevailing spiritual, therapeutic, and self-help methods we use to try to change ourselves. By taking this journey of exploration with him, we come face-to-face with the unknown and the potential for radical transformation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the moment I saw the title, I was in love with this book. I simply can't recommend it highly enough. Harrison lays to rest narcissistic and narcotic forms of spirituality, and invites us into a truly open inquiry. For those who are tired of seeking security and certainty, and who are willing to take the plunge into spiritual adulthood, this is the book to read. -- Joan Tollifson, author of Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life

Whenever you feel close to a new personal insight in your spiritual life or you sense a breakthrough in the world's spiritual awareness, be sure to check in with Steven Harrison right away. Chances are very good that he's already there, leading the way, way ahead of us. With this work, Harrison deepens and broadens his peeling away more of the layers that hide the truths we seek, the answers we assume, and the questions we avoid. It's quietly wonderful! -- David Kundtz, author of Everyday Serenity: Meditations for People Who Do Too Much

"Harrison lays to rest narcissistic and narcotic forms of spirituality, and invites us into a truly open inquiry." -- Joan Tollifson, author of Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life

"Steven Harrison moves through authoritarianism and belief systems to arrive at consciousness and the explosion of the heart." -- Paul Rezendes, author of The Wild Within

How do we enter into wholeness in a divided world? This book takes the reader through a veritable maze of all the complicated constructions humans make, taking sly potshots along the way at science, philosophy, religion and yes, even spirituality. This is a demanding book, well worth the effort of the journey through it. -- Elise Boulding, author of Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History

Like Socrates, Harrison roves through various questions that make up our modern life to seek answers that we might live out in our search for greater human integration. This work will excite those who have already studied the inadequacies of the world of thought and concepts and are searchers into the `really real. -- Rev. George A. Maloney, author of Inward Stillness

When a book disturbs, upsets commonplace assumptions, and forces us to reconsider major issues, it is valuable. Harrison does all that and more. He throws light into dark corners and offers a way out from our cultural mind-trap. This dialogue is on a par with those of Bohm and Krishnamurti or Castaneda and don Juan. -- Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of The Crack in the Cosmic Egg

About the Author

Steven Harrison has studied a wide variety of meditation and spiritual practices and is an international speaker on spirituality and the conscious life. He is a founder of All Together Now International, a charitable organisation that provides aid to street children and the destitute in South Asia, and The Living School, a learning community in Boulder, Colorado.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Sentient Publications (August 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971078602
• ISBN-13: 978-0971078604
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,005,423 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Answers are completely useless, October 11, 2004

By 

Steve Ray "Stevie Ray" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Question to Life's Answers: Spirituality Beyond Belief (Paperback)

I relished reading this book! It is new and unique. The answers that we collect are sandbags for our hot air balloon. The truest freedoms that I have felt have occurred after a deep introspection in what I thought was solid and real, only to find out that it was ephemeral and unreal. Answers are often bondage whereas questions lead the way to freedom and even these concepts are questioned within the pages of this book. A must read for those serious about relinquishing the old and making way for the new.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The importance of looking, April 14, 2004

By 

Kelly (Boulder, Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Question to Life's Answers: Spirituality Beyond Belief (Paperback)

Harrison's book opened my eyes to the fact that it's good not to have all the answers. What is really important is that you continue looking for them. It's important that people keep on questioning how things work and how they themselves work. However Harrison stresses the fact that, "It is not an intellectual question we have come to, but rather the expression of beingness and freshness--the joy of inquiry." He reminds us that everything and everyone is interconnected. He asks us to challenge what we know and to contemplate what we don't know. I have never read anything that made me feel so intellectually and spiritually awakened and at peace at the same time. This book is definitely a major stepping-stone on the path to spirituality.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps an Ultimate Spiritual Book Purchase, March 9, 2002

By 

Eric Gross "www.liberationfromthelie.com" (Philadelphia Suburbs) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Question to Life's Answers: Spirituality Beyond Belief (Paperback)

While this review may not be all that popular with the folks at Amazon.com, I believe that this book could, if not should, be your last spiritual book purchase. Harrison points out that buying such books are part of a continuing pattern and life process oriented around the idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with yourself, that you are searching for THE answer, when the answer is just who you are as you are. His antidote is similar, if not identical, with the taoist idea of wu wei, doing nothing, that the process of doing something is where we all go wrong, where we exchange a real "now" world with that of our psychological confusion, seeking happiness, and seeking survival. Harrison says that since there is really nothing you can do about it anyway, just give it up, SEE who you are as you.