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.

Welcome John C. Robinson, Author of BREAKTHROUGH, a Challenge to Today's Aging!

Good Morning, today John C. Robinson, clinical psychologist, minister and author who writes and speaks about the psychology and spirituality of aging, is here at Book Readers Heaven via an email interview and discussion. Insofar as possible, I try to provide the author with questions or comments regarding his/her book and then also give another chance to review any further responses I have. Time is necessarily a factor, but I try to provide my review first, followed by the discussion, which appears as questions...

So you might want to check out my review which was published yesterday before you begin reading our discussion.

While this is a novel, it is fiction based upon non-fiction. So, as usual, I looked at the credentials of the writer as I began to read... 

First, here is a link to his website--http://www.johnrobinson.org/ He has a list of his publications and tells quite a bit of what he's been involved with for many years. Because his work directly relates to his novel, I am including his bio in its entirety since it will help readers getting into the discussion... And please feel free to add questions or comments below. I will forward to the author and seek his feedback to be added later.

Biography

Tree of Life Quilt Design

I am a clinical psychologist with a second doctorate in ministry, ordained interfaith minister, author, husband and father. I started writing books about psychology and spirituality at midlife and I couldn’t stop. Looking back now, I am beginning to see the larger design of my work, like one of my wife’s quilts when it’s hung, all the pieces finally in place, the design evident. Quite without planning, I have been following a single vision of life that I am certain is true, though I can take no credit for it. As music comes through a
composer, this vision came through me.


I wrote Death of a Hero, Birth of the Soul -- a description of the male midlife passage -- while dealing with my own midlife and specializing with men’s issues in my psychology practice. The book argued that the central developmental task men faced in their forties was to replace the traditional model of manhood -- driven, competitive, soul-numbing and exhausting, with a deeper and truer model, one that unleashes the true self and its gifts. This first book also hinted at the possibility of one day living in the divine world, an experience forgotten since theologians convinced the Western World that we had been expelled from the Garden for some mythical figure’s "Original Sin."

I then moved more deeply into the spiritual realm. Intuiting that psychotherapy was only half the solution to psychological problems, I wrote But Where Is God? Psychotherapy and the Religious Search. It was meant for psychotherapists of all stripes who either left spirituality out of their work (often dismissing its insights as irrelevant or even pathological) or inadvertently (and unethically) imposed their own spiritual beliefs on their clients. I wanted to heal the split between the defiantly empirical medical model and the sometimes rigid theologies of religion. I knew that psychology more fully appreciated the dark side of religion (the reality of sexual scandals, religiously-rationalized child abuse, spiritual addictions) and that religion better appreciated the forgotten spiritual side of healing (the value of prayer, the healing of Presence, and the importance of ultimate questions).

After envisioning a spiritually-oriented psychotherapy, I wrote Ordinary Enlightenment: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life, for I longed to understand the nature of Presence and how to experience it. By the time the book was completed, I knew firsthand what God’s Presence felt like and how it changes us. I had entered the realm of mysticism -- the direct experience of divinity -- and began to see how this experience can transfigure the world in the most extraordinary ways.

The mystics from across time and religion often talk about seeing Heaven on Earth. They say that Heaven is already here when we are awake enough to see it, and that this awakening occurs in the experience of the Presence. As I found more and more evidence of this universal realization, I was thrilled and amazed -- Heaven on Earth seems to the best-kept secret of the spiritual life! I wondered, "Why doesn’t everyone and every religion talk about this?" I explored this amazing theme in Finding Heaven Here.

Then, as I started to age, I sensed that growing older continues this same unfolding transformation of consciousness that had begun with midlife. More than that, I realized that aging itself offers the highest levels of spiritual realization if we understand and surrender to its powerful energies. The Three Secrets of Aging describes these energies as initiation, transformation and revelation and argues that they are intrinsic to natural aging. Moreover, as advances in medicine, nutrition and public health increased the average life span by nearly thirty years, we are now witnessing the unfolding of an entirely new stage of life.

Hoping to make this vision of aging more accessible (and more fun), I wrote Bedtime Stories for Elders: What Fairy Tales Can Teach Us About the New Aging. Drawing on ten old and new fairy tales from around the world, I invite older folks (just like me) to discover the three secrets of aging in symbolic parables.

It should be evident by now that the vision I have been following represents the call of a profound developmental process driving the second half of life. Aging is changing me, revealing an essence I had long sensed but couldn’t get at until time, loss, and love broke loose the façade I had created so many years ago. In aging, I return to a sacred consciousness that now welcomes me home to myself.

~~~

Good Morning Dr. Robinson, I'm so happy you agreed to discuss your new novel, Breakthrough, with me and readers of Book Readers Heaven. I admit I enjoy reading fiction versus nonfiction, although I did ask for a sample of your Bedtime Stories book which sounded fun. I understand you switched to fiction, hoping to get your ideas more into the mainstream through a good story. I can agree it's a good story, but have you found that you are indeed getting a bigger response to the novel as opposed to your nonfiction books?  Personally, I'd love to recommend it to church-related or other book groups--those who are willing and interested in exploring the inner life at the same time they are reading about characters who may have (or have) actually been involved in what is happening in the book. So you know the obvious next question...How much of this is autobiographical? 

Glenda, I only write about what I know personally: I lived most of the experiences in this book!

One of the first thoughts that came to mind when I started to read was whether this book was related to "New Age". One of the issues for readers is that, oftentimes, writers begin to use a different lexicon for what may be a regurgitation of older principles... When a close relative told me that Yanni was a New Age musician and I shouldn't listen to him--well, let's just say I kept the words in my mouth to prevent a family quarrel. But, I do know semantics is often the basis for problems in communications, So could you explain the basic philosophy of your book versus "New Age?"

As I understand it, New Age refers to... a wide ranging explosion of Eastern, Western, esoteric and alternative medicine ideas that began in the early 1970's. It seemed to reflect a popular need to break free of traditional theological models that felt too confining, prescriptive and intellectual to many who longed instead for a personal experience of spirituality. Like the Burning Man  festival, it was a creative movement by sincere and very independent seekers that supported nearly any path and never really attempted to became an organized religion, which would violate its free-for-all ethos. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Man

Burning Man is an annual gathering that takes place at Black Rock City—a temporary community erected in the Black Rock Desertin Nevada. The event is described as an experiment in community and art, influenced by 10 main principles, including "radical" inclusion, self-reliance and self-expression, as well as community cooperation, gifting and decommodification, and leaving no trace. First held in 1986 on Baker Beach in San Francisco as a small function organized by Larry Harvey and a group of friends, it has since been held annually, spanning from the last Sunday in August to the first Monday in September (Labor Day). At Burning Man the community explores various forms of artistic self-expression, created in celebration for the pleasure of all participants. Participation is a key precept for the community - selfless giving of one's unique talents for the enjoyment of all is encouraged and actively reinforced. Some of these generous out-pourings of creativity can include experimental and interactive sculpture, building, performance, and art cars among other mediums, often inspired by the yearly theme, chosen by organizers. The event takes its name from its culmination, the symbolic, ritual burning of a large wooden effigy ("the Man") that traditionally occurs on the Saturday evening of the event.

Certainly, We are living decades longer than ever before, but what is this new developmental stage for? Tom realizes that aging is enlightenment in slow motion, a death-and-rebirth journey that may even awaken planetary consciousness. The implications are awesome: A new kind of aging and perhaps even a new kind of human. In sum, aging can be the crowning achievement of human life.

A word that you used throughout the book is beliefs. I remained unsure of exactly what was meant since it was used so often. Specifically, you talk about giving up beliefs and allowing thinking to disappear (written as I understood it). Originally I thought you were talking about the rules and regulations--beliefs--of any particular religion. But then, in the dreams of two different characters, they were confronted by Jesus, which implied it was related to Christian beliefs, which I really didn't think you meant. So, could you share more about your intent in using the word beliefs?

By belief, I am referring to any ideational structure that comes between subject and object. When we look at a tree, we immediately upload our consensual ideas about trees. We name it, explain it, and move on. Looking at a tree in mystical consciousness is very different. We stop thinking, heighten and focus awareness directly on the tree, and examine its nature directly with a still and silent awareness. Then it's not just a concept, it becomes an experience - unique, astonishing, beautiful and personally impactful. This is not to say beliefs are bad, only that they create lenses that can take over our experience of reality.

Before I put you totally on the spot, I want to mention to you, and remind readers, that I consider your book as being the next step I've experienced through two previous books and interviews with authors... I've always been interested in religion, spirituality and interpersonal relationships, so I've always been reading, rejecting, accepting of issues that became important to me...

Then I read The River of Life by Lee Harmon with a full discussion on his book...

And a Personal Memoir, Prisoner of Belief,  by Dr. John Van Dixhorn, also with a discussion...(If you want to refer to either of these, the review is published first and the Discussion on the next day...)

Now Breakthrough has provided, perhaps, the last answers in my constant questioning of Why? What? How? Why? So, Dr. Robinson, I hope you'll bear with me as I dig deeper into what is provided in your book! 

Paul came into Tom's life as a client. Your choice to create Paul as a nonprofessional, somewhat dominated husband of a very religious woman, I found to be very interesting. I could guess, but, please, why did you choose a man such as Paul to deliver the issue into Tom's head? Again, though coincidentally in the book, you next had Tom go on a Vision Quest, which is most times associated with Native American  culture. In fact, each of your characters appear to be uniquely created to pinpoint some issue that you wanted your readers to see. If I'm right, would you mind clarifying and explaining your thoughts, please.

Great questions. I wanted a character that would reflect the mystical experience in a pure way, without a lot of intellectual baggage. Tom was full of intellectual baggage. He had lots of training, diagnostic categories for every condition, opinions on everything, but his model of the world was completely derailed by Paul's mystical consciousness. It didn't fit anywhere. Tom and his colleagues kept trying to reduce it to a psychiatric condition, which is what psychiatry actually did historically. Happily, Paul's experience began instead to undermine Tom's secure grasp of reality, a necessary step in the evolution of personal spirituality and consciousness. If we are stuck with a rigid model, we wont' learn anything new. I loved Tom's decision to go on the vision quest. He naively thought it was just a retreat of some sort that would give him space to think more; instead his thinking was further unglued. And yes, each character was created to carry a point of view about the spiritual journey. I loved the freedom of getting to speak from many different voices.

Your professional experience appears to have been planned very carefully. For our readers, how do you see each area of specialty as it relates to your life and your books? Specifically, what is the relationship between each?

I grew up in a family dominated by science, psychoanalysis and intellect, and critical of religion, yet I was always drawn to ultimate questions: why are we here, what is life, what is suffering? I pursued psychology because I sensed it held some of the answers but really I was biding my time until I was old enough and the culture free enough to explore more metaphysical ones. Gradually I shifted my work from traditional practice to more experiential possibilities including the mythopoetic men's movement and the integration of psychotherapy and spirituality. I returned to school for a Doctor of Ministry degree and interfaith ordination in order to balance my training and enhance my credibility. 

And yes, the distinctions between psychology, religion, spirituality and mysticism are important. Psychology studies human thought, emotion and behavior, and clinical psychological seeks to understand and treat psychological suffering. 

Mystical experiences like Paul's are the source of all authentic religion. Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Muhammad and countless others all had profound mystical experiences; their revelations turned into world religions. Less enlightened followers conceptualized their experiences, hoping to understand, teach, and repeat them. In the process, they created theologies that were often more about the personalities and beliefs of the theologians than about God, leading to considerable misunderstanding. 

This is an important recognition to me...It fits! It explains many of my "why" questions...

Fortunately, mystical consciousness allows us to re-experience a religion's original truths and distinguish them from Ego-derived proclamations and dogma. Spirituality refers to our personal understanding of ultimate questions. A congregation of 300 people may have one religion but 300 different spiritual interpretations.

That last sentence is also an important statement. How many times do individuals speak to others with what can be considered judgmental statements..."You must do this or that before...or in order to..." when we really have no way to claim that we know that individual's relationship with God. I've always tried to live so that I didn't try to judge another person's beliefs...We can share them, of course, as you are doing, but unless we become intimately involved in discussion, I will not argue the legitimacy of another's beliefs... Thank you so much for sharing these thoughts!

What is your religion? 

I really belong to the mystical branch of every religion. The mystics are my brothers and sisters.

Well said.

One of the things that has evolved for me, based upon history as well as ongoing daily living, is the realization that few people other than atheists, do not question that God exists. It seemed to me that it was when each religion was "created" and the founder, scripture, etc., that you mentioned above becomes the foundation of that religion, that is when people started disagreements, churches split off, and wars began--most noticeably for the attempt to stuff that new religion down the throats of everybody else.   Your book discusses this, I think, very important issue in detail, but could you highlight your thoughts based upon your studies, please.

You are right. In America, there are over 500 different sects of Christianity: one religion, multiplying interpretations. Which is why I love the realm of mystical consciousness. We can each subjectively explore a religions teaching in our own first hand experience of the divine. Arguing about theological differences is usually futile. No one changes their opinion. And anyway, what is God's religion? Religion is a human invention - it can be very meaningful or very confusing and controlling. We each have to find answers for ourself and I suggest the best answers come from direct experience.

I, too, have come to that conclusion, although I'm still "allowing" myself to explore the ultimate of what it is that you describe.

One of my early personal ideas was that, for me, I thought we should have heaven on earth (seemingly more important than looking toward a far future, LOL). Your book, however, includes both! Yes!!! A much more palatable concept for me--but quite different from that which has been normally taught. I would admit, even more...that it feels "right" to my inner spirit...

Ok, I do have to stop and raise a semantics question. From my background, I believe the Holy Spirit abides within us. In other words, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. For purposes of understanding your book, and with my own experience, would I be right to assume that the consciousness you discuss eliminated both the Son and the Holy Ghost and forges the connection with God himself? Or am I trying to fit my experience into your book's material. Help me, and others, understand, please.  

The mystic seeks direct experience of the divine. We can call the divine any name that feels comfortable, but if we get too complex and conceptual, we begin to worship our ideas more than divinity. I have always been interested in experiencing God directly. When I studied accounts of first hand mystical experience, I was amazed by the clarity and consistency of their reports. This was much more empirical, much less theological. The Ego likes complexity because it feels important, powerful, superior. They mystic likes direct experience and has little or no false self to prop up with beliefs.

Certainly an experience that calls to our inner being, doesn't it?!

I'm interested in the evolution of your studies...were you religious prior to becoming a student of mysticism? If not, have you also studied traditional religions, so that you could compare the lexicon of mysticism with religious groups? It seems to me that the terminology could become a stumbling block because of the confusion. 

For instance, the author of Prisoner of Belief had left his religious training and experience behind and is now a clinical psychologist. When I described a personal experience, he noted that it was more mysticism than, as I had referred to it, as gifts of the holy spirit. For myself, I tend to not worry about what something is called by one group versus another, but it seems to me that a lot of "reinventing the wheel" takes place when, in rejecting religious experiences as different from what is in essence, at least to me, the mystical side of all interaction with God, that we fail to take advantage of considering the experiences of many who have just not realized and been able to explain some experience they went through.

Paul, for instance, sought help, fearing his mental health. Tom, then, went into extensive research and interaction with various individuals that could have had some experiences that he had now begun to have. If we have to stop and think...consciousness equals God contact...what's this new thing that this new author is writing about and how does it differ from what I already have experienced in my life?

I have always wanted to simply religion and spirituality, to find the experiences that gave birth to knowing. Countless books have been written on theology from so many different religions, but who has been personally touched by all this thought. If unity is true, and all religions embrace the idea that we are one, then we have to be made of the same stuff as God. If we can feel the being of our being, and become conscious of our consciousness, we are directly in touch with this oneness, and this experience is transforming. We are not who we think we are, we are the embodiment of divinity. The

mystic Meister Eckhart said, "God is the being of my being. My truest "I" is God." This, too, is an archetypal idea, it just happens to threaten those committed to dualistic beliefs. This "new thing" is just the pure first hand experience of what is.

Eckhart von Hochheim O.P. (c. 1260 – c. 1328), commonly known as Meister Eckhart [ˈmaɪ̯stɐ ˈɛkʰaʀt], was a Germantheologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha, in the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire.
Eckhart came into prominence during the Avignon Papacy, at a time of increased tensions between monastic orders, diocesan clergy, the Franciscan Order, and Eckhart's Dominican Order of Preachers. In later life, he was accused of heresy and brought up before the local Franciscan-led Inquisition, and tried as a heretic by Pope John XXII. He seems to have died before his verdict was received.[citation needed]
He was well known for his work with pious lay groups such as the Friends of God and was succeeded by his more circumspect disciples John Tauler and Henry Suso.  Since the 19th century, he has received renewed attention. He has acquired a status as a great mystic within contemporary popular spirituality, as well as considerable interest by scholars situating him within the medieval scholastic and philosophical tradition.

~~~

On the other hand, I must admit that I've been looking at things differently as a result of the aging process. Much you've written about in your book, including, for instance, studying your own hand, has become a part of my own experience. And I agree wholeheartedly with the recommendation to allow things to happen as they do... But then, why did you write your book, LOL? 

I write because it grows me to write. I write because I have to. It's the work of my soul. There is a compass in my psyche always pointing to the ultimate, so I keep following it. Aging is just the next expression of this process. It, too, is sacred, mystical, amazing, beautiful, and profound. I live more and more in a sacred reality and I believe this is our spiritual destiny.   

How does this book reflect what you call the New Aging in America--and exactly what do you mean by that?

I suppose this work is an extension of the same creativity that fueled the New Age movement, though I don't' need to label it with such categories. Categories are part of the belief process that divides and confuses us. I am just happy living it and inviting others to do likewise. 

Ahhh, a perfect way to finish our discussion... Or look forward to another one! Thank you so much for spending time with me and readers of Book Readers Heaven--here on earth, LOL! You've fueled me with so much. Indeed, to repeat your last statement:  I am just happy living it...

It's been a pleasure sharing my work with you. I hope my responses were sufficiently on target. Your questions are wonderful, your journey has obviously been rich, and I hope our paths cross again in the future. Thanks for your interest!

Best wishes, John

Breakthrough by John C. Robinson Presents Spiritual Illumination... Discussion With Author Tomorrow!

"Come forward, Brother Jensen. Confess your sins and call for the Holy Spirit to wash you of Satan's evil and corruption. Come forward. NOW! Time is running out. Only your testament will bring forth God's salvation...
Paul stood dumbly. Audience tension mounted. But what was he supposed to confess? He could think of nothing to say.
With a dark, menacing rage full of impatience, Pastor Hoeller tried to move things along. "Brother Jensen, have you not been forgetful of your duties as head of your family. To provide, to tithe, to set an example for your wife of godly behavior? Worse, have you not left the church to consort with the enemy of God? Have you not sought counsel from Satan himself? Have you not brought your spiritual burdens to a mental-health counselor," he twisted his face in disgust as he pronounced these words, "instead of the Lord?...Brother Jensen. WHAT IS YOUR TESTIMONY?"

~~~

Pastor Hoeler was what I've always thought of as a "Hell's Fire and Damnation" preacher. Paul's wife and the others within that church worship at his feet to ensure his approval, based upon their fear of Hell... It was the pastor's plan to shame and humiliate Paul and have him fall before him to his knees...

In fact, it was Paul's wife who had talked to Hoeler, complaining about her husband and, most parts of her life, hoping to curry favor and possibly gain some position of honor within the church...

When Paul was challenged, however, nobody would have ever expected what he shared as his testimony!

Now Paul thought he understood. The pastor believes I've lost my faith in God. Is that what this is all about? What a relief! Wait until he hears the truth. With that, Paul readied himself to speak.

He began slowly, tentatively. "It is true that I have suffered deeply. I had lost my soul in a dark pit of depression and damnation. It is true that I abandoned my work. I was too sick to function. My torment was unbearable. But now it is over.  My suffering ended last week when I felt God's Presence surround me in the night. I have been living in grace ever since."

"What are you talking about?" Pastor Hoeller asked suspiciously.

Warming to the topic and its profound meaning in his life, Paul could not stop himself. He had wanted desperately to help others see the lit world as he did. He took this opportunity now to unburden himself.

"The universe is alive. I know that now. It is alive and conscious. Everything! The world is filled with God. It is made of God. It is the very consciousness of God. Reality is God. The divine Presense is in everything, including us, and it makes everything perfect. There is no sin, there is only God."

Pastor Hoeller was stunned. What kind of demonic blasphemy was this? Before he could collect himself, Paul innocently continued.

"Heaven is not some future time or place. Heaven is here now, all around us. This is the Garden!

We haven't left. God never kicked us out! And you don't have to be good enough. There is nothing to fix, no problem to solve, nothing to pray for. God is not some vengeful tyrant demanding perfect obedience. You are already perfect because God is your being. You and me and this world are infinitely beautiful and infinitely precious because it is all divine. Worship the beauty that you are and that is all around you. There is no more to understand than this." Paul's eloquence surprised even himself.

Paul was radiant. He was complete. He felt one with divinity. He felt a depth of love toward every shining person in the room that transcended anything he had ever known. He was so happy.

No one responded. Something was wrong. What was it?

Now the storm broke. Pastor Hoeller's fury, unleashed by his heinous display of sin and depravity erupted...

~~~

BREAKTHROUGH

By John C. Robinson

When I worked at Rainbow's End Publishing Company, Bettie Tucker, publisher and I worked on a book where we were introduced to the phrase, "God Incident." I've never stopped using that phrase since then. Some people use the word coincidence, some fate...but as I've grown older, I have felt that many events that happen in my life were, "God Incidents." For instance, during the last two years, I've been asked to review three books. Breakthrough is the third and, for me, concluded the trilogy presented for my consideration... To me, it was exciting to have briefly discussed mysticism during my discussion with the author of Prisoner of Belief, only to have John C. Robinson's Breakthrough come into my hands next... Now all that has nothing to do with my review of this latest book, but I did want to highlight it as we go into our discussion tomorrow. If you'd like to see the evolution of my reading, there will be links shown tomorrow... Until then... let's move on to Breakthrough...

This novel is written as fiction, but has a ring of truth...something like, the "names have been changed to protect the..." Indeed the author has confirmed that he writes about things he knows. And has already written a number of non-fiction books on the same topic. He chose a novel for this latest book to provide a better conduit into the mainstream reader. That's how it made its way to me. I thoroughly enjoy authors who use reality upon which to base fictional novels.

The book opens at the First Christian Church of Mayhew and we get to know Emma Jensen and her husband Paul, as well as Pastor Hoeller. Paul has had a spiritual experience and it has not only changed him, but has caused a major, you might say, uprising in the Church. It all started when Emma started talking to the Pastor about her husband and Pastor Hoeller decided to force Paul in front of the Church, demanding his testimony...

Next we meet Tom McLaughlin, a psychologist, in practice, who had very little personal background in "matters of religion." Science had pulled his family away and Tom had made little time for spirituality. 

Then a routine day started, with Tom waiting for his first patient and checking the mail. He noticed one ad, for a Vision Quest; not knowing entirely why, he did joke to himself that something like that might "force him to look at his meaning-of-life questions. Then soon after, Tom got a call from an old friend who had referred a man to Tom. Clarence Kelly was a priest at a Catholic Retreat Center. Neither expected that there would be follow-through on the contact... but they took the opportunity to plan lunch after such a long separation.

But Paul did come...

Without making an appointment, he walked into McLaughlin's office and explained who he was. He promised to return later after Tom's next patient. And that's when Tom's world turned upside down... Paul quickly started telling him why he was there...

 Paul began describing the barrenness of his life. Tom mentally checked off the typical signs of Major Depression: depressed mood, loss of interest and pleasure in customary life activities, feelings of worthlessness, diminished concentration and memory and recurrent thoughts of death. Paul repeated his nightmare of Jesus taking him into the lake, which had become a recurring dream, and described his lonely wanderings through empty streets at night. His childhood history cried out for its emotional austerity and deprivation, and Tom felt a pang of empathy for the profound grief and depression this man had endured as a boy. Paul's next comments, however, were entirely unexpected.

"Dr. McLaughlin, there is more to the dream. Now when Jesus takes my hand, a peace surrounds me and I feel like God is present. It fills me with joy. For days afterwards I don't care what happens around me. I am happy. I notice wonderful things, like the beauty in nature or radiant light shining everywhere in the world. And then it slips away and my depression returns. I cannot work. I can barely talk to my wife. She is certain my condition is the Devil's handiwork. I can't go on like this. I don't know where else to turn."

Knocked momentarily off balance by these unusual remarks, Tom asked. "What do you think this dream means?"

"That's just it," Paul replied. "I no longer think of it as a dream. I think it's real. I think Jesus has come for me. I just don't know why and I don't think I'm ready to go."

~~~

Sensing Dr. McLaughlin's struggle, Paul resumed his soliloquy, filling in more details and repeating his wonderment and gratitude. Finally, as the morning sun poured through the office's mahogany shutters, Paul concluded, "When I called you I was still high. I was beyond myself. Even now, it has not really left me. This feeling of Presence is like an ocean of love holding me and everything in its deep peace. I can sense it. I am in it. Don't you see? God never left the world, God is the world. Do you understand what I'm saying? There is no ugliness or sin. Heaven is here! We're in it. I'm no longer afraid of death, for I know now that death is just the doorway into this total love."
Though Paul felt genuine compassion for his doctor's bewilderment, it didn't really matter. It was enough now just to be alive. "I've returned to Eden," Paul mused aloud to himself. "I have been given a new life."
The session ended anticlimatically. Paul simply got up, said goodbye, and started to leave. His movement broke Tom's transfixed state enough for him to ask, "Will you come back?
~~~

Paul met with Tom until he was able to understand he had more than likely had this mystical experience and that he was quite all right mentally... But Tom had been first surprised, then curious, and then moved to learn more about what had happened to Paul...

I tended to identify with Paul, having accepted that this really had happened, he moved to savor his new closeness with God and work to fit his new life into his old one. Tom, however, was confused and agitated. Soon, he remembered the ad for the Vision Quest and abruptly decided to cancel his work, told his family he was going...and left, thinking it would be a learning experience in spirituality...

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The experience Tom described was very intriguing...

Day three began with the same sunrise. Last night's mood, however, was not the same. God were amazing thoughts and feelings from the top of the butte. Tom could recover the words but not the mystical consciousness accompanying them...There was no escape from his suffocating heat. I don't think I can do this all day and then stay up all night, thought Tom..."Am I in Hell? How can this be spiritual?

Then, as if he were having a conversation in his mind with someone else, came a response that he recorded in his journal. "It is the hell known to all addicts, whether the addiction is heroin, alcohol, gambling, work, money, sex, power, things, beliefs, security, perfection, even the idea of a future. Addictions are attachments that separate you from the divine. This separation is hell, psychologically and literally. It is the outcome of choosing ego over soul."

~~~

Indeed it was and it led him into more and more research, discussions with those who he could truthfully share what was now happening to him. Ultimately, a specific issue caught his attention...Many of those with whom he talked were in their later years. Changes were happening as their years went by. If they pursued learning and spent time accepting and engaging, he realized a new awareness, a new consciousness--an acknowledgment of the world around him and a response to the divine order of that world... He began to refer to it, conceptually, as The New Aging...the spiritually of aging...

If you are unable or unwilling to explore what your own spirituality is all about, don't read this book. Paul and Tom, two men who met because something mystical had come into Paul's life, and then totally turned Tom's upside down. Reading this type of book is a challenge to me. I feel if I cannot consider what others have experience spiritually and evaluate it, then I will never be able to believe that God loves all of us--including those whose religion is different from mine. Each of us has been born into the faith of others. Must we, should we, continue to claim there is only one way to God when we can readily see that historically, that belief has led to nothing but war after war.

Robinson has presented a story that is simple to read, fast-paced in many ways, and yet filled with a totally unique experience as discovered by people living today. But is it totally new? Or, rather, is it as old as mankind, found by a few, and now being considered more and more as communication brings the world together. Mystical experiences have been known for thousands of years. Can a single man, working in a garage, now find himself faced with the mystical experiences that came to those ancient people who lived secluded lives of study? Certainly John Robinson has done so. And he talks of many others who are also experiencing and seeking.

If you fall into that group that is curious about the mysteries of God, I believe you will find this book highly worthy of your consideration. If you are looking for a way to understand and accept that differences in various religious structures and doctrines may very well be moving toward the same God as you, then I highly recommend you consider that potential BREAKTHROUGH that is described by the author in his first fictional novel based upon years of study, research and personal experience. I would add that if you find this book of interest, I would suggest that you consider his non-fiction books as well. The overall philosophy of his thoughts are certainly presented in this novel, but there is mostly experiential activities that may not totally satisfy interested readers to move further...

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

From his site...

Introduction

Are you frightened of aging? Do you worry over every new physical symptom, memory lapse, or mistake? Do you keep busy to avoid thinking about being "old" or brag about how happy you are in retirement when you secretly feel pretty low? Do you believe that aging is really about waiting to lose everything that matters? For most of human history, we viewed aging like this - as inevitably grim, depressing, and hopeless. It's no wonder no one wants to talk about it. But no longer. A radically new kind of aging is on the horizon, one that can change us, the culture and the world. And millions of us are getting ready for this new adventure...