A More Ardent Fire: From Everyday Love To Love Of God

A More Ardent Fire: From Everyday Love to Love of God

From the Inside FlapA More Ardent Fire is full of techniques for deepening and strengthening the capacity to love those around us -- and thereby deepen and strengthen the stream of devotion for God that flows in the hearts of all.Readers seeking practical spiritual guidance based on personal experience and a universal approach will find them here -- written with Eknath Easwaran's usual delightful humor and lucid style.-- Bookmarks are available for bookstore promotion-- Bookstore Newsletter book information kits are available-- Press kit will be sent to 350 magazine and newspaper reviewers-- The Blue Mountain Center of Meditation offers retreats all over North America to teaching Eknath Easwaran's eight-point meditation program and introducing his books.In a verse-by-verse reading of a chapter on devotion from the well-known Indian scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, Easwaran offers practical wisdom, stories, and insights to guide us through the challenges of everyday love. Our deepest need is to love completely, universally, without reservation - in other words, to become love itself.This book is Easwaran's commentary on Chapter 12 of the Bhagavad Gita, and is taken from Like a Thousand Suns (The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living Volume 2, chapter 7-12), with a new introduction from Easwaran.From Publishers WeeklyEaswaran, a native of India who taught at the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in Northern California from the 1960s until his death in 1999, posthumously presents the ideal of spiritual growth through practicing love. In his life, Easwaran authored over 20 books, the best known being Meditation and My Life Is My Message; he also translated the Bhagavad Gita into English. In this slim volume, he contrasts "the way of knowing" with the "way of love" as spiritual tools and suggests that most people, lacking the emotional detachment for the way of knowing, will find the way of love the appropriate path to self-realization and union with the eternal. Easwaran's philosophy draws on Hindu scriptures, buddhism and Eastern teachers, and finds points of contact with Christianity and even Judaism by quoting the words of Mother Teresa, St. Francis of Assisi, the Ba'al Shem Tov and others whose approach resembles his. (His title is drawn from a saying of St. John of the Cross.) The book's final section briefly reviews the eight-point program that is the heart of Easwaran's teachings. Not everyone will agree with Easwaran that ultimately all religions are the same, but any spiritual seeker can benefit from his emphasis on abandoning selfishness in order to care for others and seek the face of divinity. (Sept.)Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.Review"Easwaran employs the sweetest and gentlest of prose, as well as draws upon his own personal experiences to convey some of the greatest of universal truths . . . It is definitely a manual for wiser living." --India-West"In this poetic and passionate devotional work, he presents his commentary on passages from the Bhagavad Gita on the Way of Love... and concrete advice on ways to deepen and strengthen this capacity to love. " --Spirituality and PracticeFrom the Back CoverOur deepest need is to love completely, universally, without reservation -- in other words, to become love itself. Where there is love, everything follows. To love is to know, is to act; all other paths to God are united in this path of love.In form a verse-by-verse reading of a chapter on devotion from the Bhagavad Gita -- the most popular spiritual document of India -- Eknath Easwaran's words of practical wisdom guide us through the nitty-gritty challenges of everyday love, showing:-- How to deepen our love for all those around us-- How to seek the divine in all our relationships-- What is means to "love the Lord"-- Why it is so difficult to change entrenched habits -- and how to make those changes-- Effective spiritual practices for learning to love