Customer Reviews

Waking Up In Time: Finding Inner Peace In Times of Accelerating Change

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This book is one of those rare books that stays with me long after I've read it. I find myself frequently referring to it in conversations about how fast things seem to be changing these days. I was moved by the wisdom I gleaned in these melodic passages -- and impressed at how Russell can convey such intense feeling and truth in so few words. Difficult and challenging issues are presented and discussed with clarity that provides just the right amount of tension, just as the most beautiful music creates moments of stress which are then relieved with passages of exceptional grace. Rare is the book that can aim to briefly summarize such topics as Materialism, Fear, Stress, Enlightenment, Meditation and Love... and succeed to touch one's heart, mind and soul so completely without ever hitting a sour note. I give this masterpiece of a book my highest recommendation for anyone interested in discovering what they can do to make their life (and life for all of us) the very best it can be.

Straight off: This is a great book! Mr. Russell writes intelligently and intelligably about where we've been, where we're probably headed and gives us some optimistic views on where some of the choices might lead us, if "we" are thoughtful about "our" choices.

This book presents some incredibly complex themes, and even delivers physics, understandably! The hallmark of any great writer, in my view, is to make himself or herself understood to the vast majority of people. Mr. Russell has accomplished that quite admirably. This is the best book on futuristic thinking I've ever read. Reading this book felt like having a conversation with this writer. A pure pleasure! And, a must read for any thoughtful person.

I love this book so much that I have already bought 3 and still planning to buy more to give out to my friends. This book combines science and spirituality so beautifully. What he describes in this book make logical sense. I have never been a believer of "God" in a form of superior being. And I have never been comfortable with organized religion. This book really confirmed and went further into the world of "consciousness." HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Are we hurtling toward heaven or hell? Russell leaves both possibilities open. We may be accelerating ourselves toward annihilation or toward the climax of evolution. The answer is within us. It will be our success or failure to develop inwardly that will determine which path we take. Russell writes short, pithy chapters that will move you from exhiliration to despair. This book will have you thinking, and probably differently than you did before you read it.

In his latest book, Peter Russell again lights the way for his readers to envision the "big picture" and the part we all play in our own, and in a global evolution. He looks at societal transformation, at the covergence of knowledge from various, even seemingly unrelated disciplines such as physics, theology, business, biology, cosmolgy and systems theory, and the notion that just as we reach "critical mass" in, let's say the world of consumerism, the same occurs with human belief systems __and this emerging consciousness can change the way society views its own capability and destiny.

We are all looking to inspire greatness __in our organizations, communities, families __and in our own lives. Russell shares *information* and the wisdom gleaned from a path he has walked with integrity to help his readers discover breakthrough opportunities. jn

Along with "From Science To God" Mr Russell establishes himself as one of the masters of spiritual reawakening. Although this piece has more doomsday in it than his later work, it has the same hopeful message and the same readability.

In both books Mr Russell never seems to lose the reader in scientific mumbo jumbo, even when discussing very complicated subjects. That isn't a statement on his intelligence or research, but rather on his ability to communicate on all levels. Neither does he offend when he deals with the spiritual aspects of his writings. In short everyone can sit around his table (well, almost everyone).

Read'em twice.

I found this book, when it was still called White Hole in Time, and at a good time in my life. Now, ten years later, I want to share it with those oh-so-lucky others when I see that they are on the brink of jumping into an abyss or are in that abyss of intellectual and spiritual yearning and needing some marker/s to take them more quickly out of the metaphorical maze of the mind's traps and vicious cycles aka anxieties, past, present or future.

This is one of my deepest darkest secrets--- in the 1990s, I was on a roll of reading about doomsday prophecies. Tabloid magazines be damned. I was reading books about that stuff. Dozens of books. The readings really got me nowhere else but in the dark and and in fear of the future. That wasn't good enough for me because I wanted answers. I realized I wanted more than just a glimpse of what the future might hold... I wanted to know my part in it, I wanted to find hope---both intellectually and even spiritually. So I looked. Then I found this book. And as this review's title implies, this book gives me those things and more.

I friend of mine was talking to me about something totally different when she said "we don't need people to just talk about the problems, we need people to talk about solutions...". But she could have very well been talking about the author Peter Russell in this book. In the first part of the book he talks very succinctly about what most people already know about---materialism, environmental crisis, fear, addiction, stress, self interest...but also speaks of them on the collective and global level...these are not doomsday predictions but they are problems on individual and collective levels---sure signs of impending doom...

And what of solutions then? Its actually wisdom and advice from ancient east---but reinterpreted on a very practical level---summarized on a personal level, it is that any change needed in this world is not more change in the world, but change from within my own self. I saw a guy in rags in 1999, standing in our previous hometown's rural street corner. He was carrying that proverbial sign lamenting "Repent. the end is near." My high school son commented that he saw the guy down in New York City a few weeks before. Then wondered out loud if the countryside was more in need of deliverance than the urban crowd? Ha! Anyhow...

"Repenting" is a biblical, short word for a whole process---but what does that really really mean? Yes, yes, they holler and cry from their pulpits "repent, repent". Yes, I know I'm stressed. Yes I know I've got a to-do list as long as my laundry lined up from end to end... yes I am in deep doo-doo, and yes, I want to get out of it. But how? How?!! Give me practical ideas on how. Aha, the pinpoint of light...the last chapters on Awakening and The Future are glimpses of such a process in terms of solutions: Breaking the Trance, A New Way of Seeing, Gift of Peace, Art of Letting Go, Emancipation from Matter, Premonitions of Transformation, A Conscious Universe to name some of them...

But don't expect these chapters to be THE ANSWERS for "finding inner peace in times of accelerating change" but rather the signposts that point you the way out of the maze of anxiety and towards a path and practice of an awakened and transformed human being. I am most intrigued and inspired by P.Russell's thought on the acceleration of evolution and the Omega point, but I'm not explaining it here, I wouldn't give it justice, so you'll have to read the book.

I lent this book to a very close friend after he had a breakthrough in his life---a degree of enlightenment I can describe it. When he was done reading the book he said to me "you saved my life". He was exaggerating of course. Later he got it closer to what he really wanted to say, the book gave him a bigger picture of what was going on in his life, of where he was headed and how he now needed to redirect his life... maybe we can believe in the power of the individual and how it empowers the collective... and maybe its a bigger picture of how many of us need to redirect our human lives... maybe.

There's still a lot of work to be done after reading this book, or any other book. The real work is done between the readings, eh? (wink)