Christian Reviews of Michael Singers Book the Untethered Soul?

Past Shauna Lee Lange

While living in Tampa, Florida, in the early 1990s, our family suffered an all-consuming house burn. Poof. Everything instantly burnt to embers. Fifty-fifty still today, it's difficult to reconcile the fact that ane'south reality tin be dismantled then abruptly. How can a atypical incident change and then much of what we know and trust and believe? In the physical sense, at that moment, I lost my United States military compatible, a attestation I'd hoped to pass down to my children as a heritage and legacy. In the spiritual sense, I have now gained credence and friendship with the transitory. The gift of that fire was in the understanding and knowledge that all that ever really lasts, all that actually ever matters, is love.

Author Michael Singer would concur. In his 2015 publication The Give up Experiment (Harmony Books), Singer speaks of the spiritual liberation of deep inner surrender, peculiarly in the midst of life'south extraordinary events. While I was still reflecting on this, out of nowhere, my blood brother'due south ex-married woman sent me a copy of Vocalizer's 2007 seminal work, The Untethered Soul (New Harbinger Publication/Noetic Books). Her gracious gift exemplifies the subtitle: The Journey Beyond Yourself. Information technology is this unhitching, unfastening, and unleashing that speaks peculiarly to creative and spiritual people. "Untethering" represents an intentional and purposeful disconnecting from security for the sake of something grander.

We want to cling to the familiar, you know. As such, though its application is still valid ten years after initial publication, The Untethered Soul was a bit of a philosophical accomplish for me. Although I admire the claim of complimentary-flowing yogadic meditation methods, I tend to prefer the directed visio divina (divine seeing) for demystifying life's questions. Still, I am mindful of the words of Lesslie Newbigin in Foolishness to the Greeks: "The fact that Jesus is much more than our culture-bound vision of him can only come up home to usa through the witness of those who see him through other eyes."[1] And and then, as I continue my search, every bit an artist and believer, to find the best methods to tap into the divine and unlock the secret regions of the heart, I work, play, pray, and make art.

Artists often raise our prayer life through creative expression and channel our inspiration into concrete products, as a class of witness and communication. Singer would say that fifty-fifty this busy-ness, this work, even this can exist a form of attachment. Further, our attempts at self-medication, preservation, protection, and insulation are all efforts at not feeling too much. As well, neurosis, cocky-incertitude, worry, and defoliation keep us at the center of our own manufactured worlds.

Maybe you have found the slow and intentional practice that leads to true co-creation every bit a godly artist. Looking with God's eyes, bringing life to his plan for dazzler, submitting to his leadership and will, pursuing a heart of purity, and healing others are proven pathways to intimacy with God. If we enquire what information technology is to create, what is the true meaning of the sacred, and ultimately what is holy, Singer would say the answers can be establish only when we relax and release.

The Untethered Soul divides a stream-of-consciousness writing style into five concrete sections. In "Awakening Consciousness," nosotros're asked nigh our internal voices and prompted to truly answer the "Who Are You?" questions. In "Experiencing Energy," we're reminded of the Space Source and asked not to close our hearts to the undesirable in life. In "Freeing Yourself," Vocaliser compares a rose's thorns to our fear of personal pain in moving toward true freedom. "Going Across" encourages us to pursue a lifelong do of dismantling walls and letting become of false solidity. Finally, in "Loving Life," we are reminded that death is our constant, faithful companion and teacher. Past employing a Taoist stance of "finding the center of all experience," nosotros can be helped in regulating life's extremes.

Later the house fire, everything was a confused dubiousness. Ours was a suspected arson, and I found myself shutting downwards and turning off with friends and family. Those were dark vertigo days of imbalance and overcast thought. I remember thinking that the merely matter I really wanted from life (beyond immediate answers) was to feel joy, enthusiasm, and love once more. The details, the paperwork, the investigations became overwhelming. At a certain point, when I couldn't end the speeding train, I just sort of decided to let this state of affairs take place and be at that place with it because I really had no other option. Singer would call this approach, sitting in the seat of consciousness. A thought or emotion emerges, you detect it, and it passes considering you allow information technology to, rather than clinging to information technology.

This technique of semi-detachment has facilitated my fine art do since, likewise. If the spiritual journey is one of constant transformation, so is the artistic ane. We wish to give up the struggle of remaining the aforementioned, and we seek to comprehend modify. Simply the journey is often, if not always, ane we must take lonely. Singer writes:

You lot meet, loneliness is just similar a thorn. Information technology causes pain and disturbance in all aspects of your life. Only in the case of the homo heart, we have more than than i thorn. We take sensitivities about loneliness, about rejection, most our physical advent, and well-nigh our mental prowess. We are walking around with lots of thorns touching right against the most sensitive parts of our heart. At any moment something can impact them and cause hurting within.

If we tin can get to the stage of being okay with everything, that's the fourth dimension everything will be okay. When we embrace the natural unfolding of life, analytical malaise can be transformed into open-hearted observation, where nosotros recognize, acknowledge, and let each moment pass, not denying the pain or discomfort, but in recognition that each moment will pass, and that peace and joy may be found on the other side of turmoil. This can simply occur when we requite up clinging and attachment by untethering.

You may protestation that it is hard to allow get. Believe me, I know, merely there can be joy in sailing free in unchartered waters. There is light, love, pity, joy, and protection in yielding to the Holy Spirit. One way to do that is by remaining quietly in the center of each event, buoyed past the sensation that information technology will pass. The gratis soul is the happy soul, 1 that accepts it all—expert or bad, painful or joyful—embracing a journey beyond oneself.

The Untethered Soul is accompanied by online resource including a reading guide, video clips, and recorded talks with Michael Singer

[1] Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988).

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Shauna Lee Lange is the founder of The Fine art Evangelist, a full-service liturgical fine art informational specializing in sacred, visionary, and interfaith art. The firm is defended to arts immersion in sacred spaces, public places, and creative placemaking. Lange is besides the founder of Creative Arts Consultants International, a growing global network of over 18,000 art professionals.

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Source: https://civa.org/civablog/in-review-michael-singers-the-untethered-soul/

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