John C. Robinson Writes on Sacred Aging... in The Divine Human...

Spirituality is the Personal Meaning We Create from Our Life Experiences, Religioous Beliefs, Intuitions, and Moments of Mystical Awareness.

I have always known that I was made of God. More a tacit intuition in the beginning, this realization was nonetheless instinctive and solid. Now, every day, I return to the experience of sacred being. I feel God's spirit and presence as my own. Each morning, in the journaling that has been my spiritual practice for decades, dialogues with God unfold, and their message in endless variations is this: "I am you, you are me, we are one." I know this to be true.

I write this book approaching seventy, a time when the busy routines of the middle years give way to the natural enlightenment of aging. Guided by the awakening consciousness of advancing years, The Divine Human came to me as the natural culmination of my life's work. I'd like to share with you the journey that brought me to this ultimate consciousness. I'm hoping you will find this evolutionary breakthrough as profound and transformational as I have...

The Divine Human:

The Final Transformation of Sacred Aging

By John C. Robinson

You may recall meeting the author with his novel, Breakthrough. Much like one of my favorite authors, who writes as Stan I. S. Law, I have pondered, learned, and found many thought-provoking ideas about the present and future of our spiritual lives. For me, the one thing I am sure of is that God touches each of us on an individual basis. Taking the "setting" you might say, of where we are born and what cultural religion we may have been introduced to, He greets us and invites and encourages us to move forward with Him...

Some of us like me have found our way through Jesus. You may have a different background... As did John C. Robinson. He has studied and dwelled in God's world all of his life. For him, as he approaches his 70s, he has written to share what his own experience has been. You might consider this book somewhat of a memoir, but also a self-help book. John has written where he has come in his life with God, but he's also written the book to allow readers to consider and perhaps seek more of what he has experienced. I strongly believe that if you are seeking a closer relationship with God, you should consider this book...

An important part of the book is that each chapter ends with a set of questions about which the writer suggests that you journal, e.g., Select the idea from this chapter's review that appeals to you most. Can you sense how it reflects something you already feel and know? Explore your intuitions about the other concepts as well and see what you discover. 

At first, I was planning to do that to get the full benefit of the book; I decided to wait for a later, second reading. Why? Because I found that what was evoked--brought to my conscious mind--became more and more complex and disruptive to me. What I mean by that was that Robinson was challenging me personally to move to where he was...Did I want to go there? Perhaps I wasn't old enough to have the time he thought we aging people now had, LOL. Did I want to move away from my book review activities, which I feel is what I'm supposed to be doing? Did I want to devote that much "time" to God? Yes, that was the bottom line.

I understood what Robinson was clearly saying. But what was my own relationship with God saying to me...was I rebelling against Robinson or was I seeing him as a disruption to my own beliefs?

Mystic Voices of the Divine Human. I am hardly the first or the only one to know the experience of the Divine Human, so I begin this book and each chapter by honoring those mystics upon whose shoulders I stand - from Walt Whitman to Meister Eckhard, Huang Po, Fakhruddin Araqi, C. S. Lewis...and countless others. Take the time to absorb their words at the beginning of each chapter and let yourself be inspired by the clarity and consistency of their mystical message. Go deep until the floodgates of mystical transformation open. The struggling world cries out for our transformation. In these perilous times, what could matter more? And remember, the material in this book is not theoretical - I am living it and it is changing me...

~~~

I have been dialoguing with God for many years now. These dialogues not only move me ever deeper into the experience of divine union, they also "solve" problems, but not in the usual way. In the timeless, thought-free space of consciousness, problems disappear. Mental constructions, full of assumptions, beliefs and the upset feelings, cannot exist for long in the silent and thoughtless consciousness of the divine. I see now how beliefs create suffering and obscure divinity. Understandings like these are gifts of awakening. So, too, is the spiritual wisdom gleaned from these dialogues with God - unexpected, brilliant, shocking, wise, and always loving. And each time a little more of the "old me" falls away and I step forth a new kind of person, one who realizes that he has been dialoguing with Himself.

~~~

Some of us may have been introduced to the mystical skills available to God's children. For me, it was through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. But I do believe that, if there is more, than we should be open to learning about it. The author speaks of the availability of mystical skills and directs the book to those who might be open to awakening to those skills. The first reason he gave resonated for me: Struggle with their current spiritual beliefs and practices and are not afraid to seek new possibilities. Many of us living in today's world see what is happening both in America and around the world. While we strive to remain close to God, what we see happening tears us apart with fear and anger...Human Trafficking, drug cartels, abuse of our fellow man...and children... It is difficult to see God through all of the corruption, even when we know He is there.

Will reading alternative books, beside your own particular guidebook from your early life, lead us, change us, change the world? I don't know, but it seems to me that we owe it to ourselves and to God to be able to continue learning what He might share with us personally. That is why I highly recommend this book if what I've shared has touched you in some small way.

GABixlerReviews

John Robinson holds doctorates in clinical psychology and ministry and is an ordained interfaith minister, author, and mystic. He has taught extensively at men's gatherings, professional conferences, hospitals, churches and retreat centers and is the author of three previous books on the interface of psychology and spirituality. His new book, Finding Heaven Here (O-Books), endorsed by Mathew Fox, Andrew Harvey, Malidoma Some, John Mabry and Jeremy Taylor, is both an integration of psychology and spirituality and a description of the reality and presence of Heaven on Earth. He explains, "I see Heaven on Earth all the time. I've seen it since childhood. I know I'm not crazy because I'm a clinical psychologist and I know I'm not a religious heretic because I can quote teachers and sages from every major religious tradition who describe it. Heaven on Earth is the greatest secret on the spiritual path." Dr. Robinson lives on an island in the Puget Sound of Washington State. Learn more about him at www.johnrobinson.org.