What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America (Paperback)

by Tony Schwartz (Author) "I BEGAN meditating in 1989 for the most practical of reasons: I wanted a way to slow down the frenzied activity of my mind..." (more)
Key Phrases: theta training, personality fixations, brainwave training, Ram Dass, Swami Rama, San Francisco (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Feeling empty despite the success of The Art of the Deal, which he coauthored with Donald Trump, Schwartz began meditating in 1988, thus embarking on a four-year quest in which he crisscrossed the country meeting mystics, psychics, philosophers, healers. He took breathing classes with LSD researcher Stanislav Grof, joined a dream-analysis workshop led by psychoanalyst Montague Ullman, did body exercises at California's Esalen Institute and was hooked up to biofeedback machines at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kans. He tapped an "ideal performance state" while playing tennis in a Florida training academy. He reports that a mind/body technique cured him of chronic back pain. Schwartz benefited most from use of the Enneagram, a system of classifying personality types said to help people overcome self-destructive behavior patterns. His spiritual odyssey, reflecting a smorgasboard of approaches, incorporates an insightful social history of the human potential movement with profiles of key figures like Esalen founder Michael Murphy, transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilber and psychologist/guru Richard Alpert (aka Ram Dass).
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
Schwartz, a reporter for the New York Times, has a nice wife, good kids, plenty of money. So why does he feel so bummed? In attempting to answer that question, the author set off on what turned out to be a four-year journey in search of the contemporary Holy Grail--peace of mind. As he crisscrossed the U.S., he encountered all aspects of the consciousness movement, from meditation and dream therapy through personality analysis and Eastern spirituality. Naturally, he met a few gurus along the way, including Baba Ram Dass and others less well known to the general public but just as revered among their followers. This is not just the story of a whiner holding out his bowl and asking for more. Schwartz offers a serious, analytical look at the whole phenomenon of self-discovery, appraising what he finds as both a reporter and a searcher. In addition, he brings to the process a liberal dose of humanizing humor. Schwartz's final chapter, in which he ties together what works and what doesn't, will certainly touch readers on their own spiritual journeys. His bottom line is hardly new news, but it bears repeating: "To live a complete life requires drawing deeply on all of one's potentials--mind, body, heart, soul, and spirit." Ilene Cooper --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (March 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553374923
• ISBN-13: 978-0553374926
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #81,035 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #30 in

  Books > Nonfiction > Philosophy > Movements > Humanism

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding!, August 1, 2000

By	Paul "potential12" (Mississauga, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This is one of the most honestly written books I have ever read. Anyone interested in personal evolution will get clear, concise information on some of the best of what really works, and a wonderful explanation about why it works. Integrative and realistic, it is written from the perspective of someone willing to expose his own personal challenges and limitations. It is one of the most insightful and comforting pieces of work I have ever read. Having read over 300 works on this subject, it takes a lot to impress me - this work has gone beyond doing so!

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Inner roadtrip., March 3, 2001

By	G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"The road to wisdom is often an obstacle course," journalist Tony Schwartz writes (p. 430). "Looking deeply within challenges people to engage their own feelings of emptiness, dissatisfaction and despair. Most people instinctively avoid such pain at any cost, and the culture provides us with endless ways to anesthetize ourselves" (p. 425). Schwartz spent four years travelling the country, "seeking out people who had made the search for meaning primary in their lives" (p. 9), interviewing psychologists, philosophers, physicians, mystics, psychics, teachers, and scientists. He writes, "I spent four years looking for answers to the straightforward, age-old questions Who am I? and Why am I here? The wisest people I met offered very different answers" (p. 14).

In his book, Schwartz introduces us to a few of those people who reveal that a "richer, deeper, more meaningful life is within reach" for each of us (p. 431). For instance, in Chapter One we meet Ram Dass, who tell us "the spiritual journey is a journey of continually falling on your face . . . you take a step, which you think is wise, and you blow it and you fall on your face" (p. 60). In Chapter Two we meet Michael Murphy, the 1962 cofounder of Esalen, in Chapter Four we meet right-brainer Betty Edwards, and in Chapter Eight we meet Buddhist vipassana teachers, Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein. In Chapter Nine, transpersonal psychology's leading theorist (p. 346), Ken Wilber, says: "It's hard work. The truth is that transforming oneself is a long, laborious, painful process" (p. 364); "The point is that each of us has to take the actual journey, in our own way, in our own time, at our own pace" (p. 374). Although this book covers a lot of ground, that ground is always deep and fertile.

In the final pages of his book, Schwartz arrives at a number of personal conclusions, each of which rings with universal truth. "To live a complete life requires drawing deeply on all one's potentials--mind, body, heart, soul, and spirit" (p. 423). "The planet's survival--and evolution--depends on our collective capacity to look within more honestly, and to act more consciously and less defensively in every spere of our lives" (p. 422). Schwartz concludes his spiritual roadtrip with an impressive, nine-page bibliography sure to appeal to the seeker in each of us.

G. Merritt

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bright, frank, biased, May 30, 2000

By	Chris Leggette (Central Islip, New York United States) - See all my reviews

It is odd -- Tony Schwartz loves to think and talk about what he thinks; he's singled out what he thinks are important disciplines on the American spiritual landscape and, oddly, skips several influential traditions of the last few years: Tibetan Buddhism, Kabbalah, Tai Chi and related moving meditations; why? I'm not sure; he attempts a review of Vipassana Buddhism, or Insight Meditation -- he speaks to Jack Kornfeld (a leading teacher of Buddhist meditation and headquartered in California) but makes a final assessment based almost exclusively on Jack's opinions as to why traditional Buddhism just doesn't work in this country; sadly, Tony confines himself to meditating roughly 30 minutes a day and never signs on for a retreat at East Coast Insight Meditation mecca, Barre, Mass. (or anywhere else); he researches little in the tradition and appears to be in too much of a hurry to throw himself at and into Ken Wilber and the hot new discipline of Transpersonal Psychology; while Ken's practice includes considerable meditation, it is primarily one of Jnana, or thinking on things spiritual, emotional, psychological -- and how Tony grooves on that; Tony likes talking up the spiritual life and sampling the initial highs; he is not in it for the long haul; his transformational path is apparently one of words -- and he is unusually articulate (as is Ken Wilber); while I am gratified for much that Tony has given -- and his gifts are concise and appetizing (I am pushed to look deeper into the Enneagram, for instance, and it was wonderful to remeet Baba Ram Dass), I am left feeling as if once he cornered his subject -- What Really Matters -- he found he had a taste for little more than what he'd begun with -- a high, high-minded gift for gab and unwillingness to commit. Try again, Tony.