Ten Ways Spirituality For Dummies
Can Help You (and the World) in 2010

by Sharon Janis

Can Help You:

CALM YOUR STRESS

STAY ABOVE THE TABLOID CULTURE

SPIRITUALLY THRIVE DURING THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

BECOME AWARE OF DEEPER TRUTHS

OVERCOME FEAR

FIND WONDERFUL NEW RESOURCES

BE POSITIVE AMIDST NEGATIVITIES

CREATE BETTER “KARMA”

PROTECT YOURSELF FROM SPIRITUAL SILLINESS

UPLIFT YOURSELF AND THE WORLD

1. CALM YOUR STRESS:

In the year 2010, life is stressful. People are running around busily fulfilling all the many obligations of modern day life while on their cellphones, juggling schedules, and experiencing the nearly nonstop sensory stimulation of being bombarded with media, products, ads, and big headlines that have been carefully crafted to trigger your stress hormones in hopes of making you more likely to open your pocketbook. Many people don’t take time to eat properly or get enough sleep or exercise, exacerbating the stress. Skyrocketing divorce rates, financial pressures, political anger, a scarcity of peaceful silence and a shortage of places to experience the healing effects of nature can trigger excessive stress in the body, mind, and emotions. Spirituality For Dummies gives you practices and philosophies that help you relax, take deep healthy breaths, stretch your body, look at life with optimism, prioritize what is most important to you, and sit quietly for meditation, allowing the jagged edges of stress to melt into refreshing ocean waves of inner peace.

Related Excerpt from Spirituality For Dummies:

The practice of meditation brings a long list of benefits, from the mundane to the divine (including the attainment of knowing that even mundane things are divine). Meditation helps lower your stress and find greater peace inside yourself. Meditation helps you focus your mind and can make you a better teacher, dancer, artist, singer, engineer, lawyer, mother, father, husband, wife, student, lover, and worker. Meditation helps you to relax, get along better with people, be more creative, make clearer decisions, experience God’s presence, and attain supreme enlightenment, liberation, salvation, and nirvana! And all this can be yours for only $19.95! Just kidding, these benefits are free and available to you just for taking time to sit quietly and focus your attention on the peaceful center of your being.

As you follow a steady practice of sitting for meditation, you’ll find that shifting your mind into the state of meditation becomes easier to do. Eventually, you are able to experience the state of meditation even when you’re in a crowd and doing whatever usual work or other activities you do. As you continue to meditate, the beneficial state of meditation becomes naturally integrated into your daily awareness.

2. STAY ABOVE THE TABLOID CULTURE:

2010 is the Chinese Year of the Tiger, but elsewhere around the world, 2010 began as the year of the Tiger Woods scandal playing on tabloid TV, magazines, blogs, and even on previously traditional news sources. As Bill Maher recently said, “They should just change the title from the CBS evening news to ‘Guess what you guys?’” As with most “evils of the world,” the tabloid culture that is turning our society into gossipmongers basically boils down to greed for money. Just as irresponsible cigarette companies have managed to get millions of people addicted to health-threatening nicotine, so the many who are making big money from this tabloid culture are intentionally getting people addicted – not just to gossip – but to endless, repetitive, petty gossip. Spirituality For Dummies shows you how to keep your mind clear and empowers you to choose where to place your attention. As you’re guided to see life from a greater spiritual perspective, even this tabloid culture won’t be able to disturb your peace of mind, your compassionate heart, or your sense of respect and decency.

Related Excerpt from Spirituality For Dummies:

Spiritual metaphysics teaches that you empower and ultimately become whatever you focus on the most. Understanding the power of your mind should inspire you to be more vigilant about how you spend your precious personal consciousness. Here are a few tips:

Be a focus miser. Pay as much attention (or more!) to where you’re spending your attention as you do to where you’re spending your money.

Have discriminating tastes. Feed your mind and heart with good quality thoughts by keeping the right company, both inside and out. Company doesn’t just mean the people you’re around, but also what you read, watch, and listen to.

Don’t think junk thoughts. Just as you have to limit the number of junk food meals you eat to stay physically healthy, you should also limit junk thoughts that have no “nutritional” value and can create physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual diseases in your being.

3. SPIRITUALLY THRIVE DURING TODAY’S ECONOMIC CRISIS:

In the year 2010, our world is in the midst of a serious economic crisis. People are losing their jobs, bankers are committing what at least should be considered crimes, homes are being lost, lives are becoming bankrupt, debts are increasing, and on top of all that you have Suze Orman’s white teeth yelling at you because you like to enjoy an occasional cappuccino. Spirituality For Dummies helps you to find the faith, self-effort, surrender, simplicity, and generosity to arrange your priorities and turn this financial downturn into a big burst of personal and spiritual growth that will help keep you feeling centered, confident, and spiritually happy during times of scarcity as well as in times of plenty.

Related Excerpt from Spirituality For Dummies:

One powerful practice is to imagine that you could create anything at all in your life and see what you choose. Sometimes you may think that you want something, but if you really had the chance to create a desired object or circumstance — along with all the attending necessities for maintaining it — you may very well choose what you have now rather than the greener looking pastures over the fence of your previous desires. Taking time to contemplate what you really want in life is a great practice for self-discovery and self-empowerment.

Many people don’t even know what their hopes and dreams are, beyond the basic necessities of each day. Taking a few moments to contemplate and even write down your dreams and goals — from your highest aspirations to your most basic requirements — can be an excellent use of a few minutes of your time.

4. BECOME AWARE OF DEEPER TRUTHS:

In the year 2010, people have become spiritually awakened enough to know that there is more to be experienced than just the mediocrities of life. The masses have become familiar with ideas of spiritual oneness and deeper truths. Eckhart Tolle and Oprah have told the world that everyone has a spiritual nature, and a great variety of books, articles, videos, movies, services, workshops, and CDs are available to open you up to new ideas about who you are. Still, the real transformational work of spirituality takes place in your own awareness, actions, and understandings. Spirituality For Dummies offers a spiritual vision of life that is both personal and universal, inclusive and beyond this world. With support from great thinkers and sages, Spirituality For Dummies gives you a realistic, amazing, humorous and entertaining view of a greater spiritual awareness that some call liberation or enlightenment, along with tips and warnings about possible pitfalls along the way.

Related Excerpt from Spirituality For Dummies:

Enlightenment is like the feeling you have when you’re standing in the middle of an awe-inspiring scene of magnificent nature – when you’re at the precipice of the Grand Canyon, or at the foot of Niagara Falls, or walking through the amazing beauty of Machu Picchu. But when you’re enlightened, you have this feeling even when you’re sitting in your home, walking down the street, shopping for groceries, or doing your job. Even if the external situations you’re in are not exactly beautiful or awe-inspiring, you still have a sense of the inherent awe and beauty that comes from seeing the world through enlightened eyes.

A popular Zen saying says, “Before enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water; after enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.” After enlightenment, your outer life may look just as it did before you were enlightened, with the same usual daily tasks to do. However, when you’re living the goal, your inner state is free and expansive. Your mind is quiet and serene. Your heart is peaceful and warm, and your attitude is good!

When you live your life with an enlightened perspective, your enlightenment automatically helps the world, even if you don’t speak about it. When you live in an awareness beyond limited ego, your positive vibrations and thoughts become amplified and extend throughout the world. In this way, many unknown monks and sages uphold the positive energy of this world through their enlightened meditations.

OVERCOME FEAR:

Fear is prevalent in the year 2010 – in fact, the year began with a focus on the Christmas Day terrorist plot that barely failed to blow up the intended airplane. People are afraid of what others might do to them or say about them; they are afraid of losing what they have, afraid that they or people they care about might become ill or die, and some are even afraid that the world is going to end in 2012. A deeper root of all these flowers of fear boils down to a fear of death, a lack of faith, and an uneasiness with human mortality and the natural waves of life. Spirituality For Dummies guides readers into a bigger picture view of life and death, without intentionally propagating or denying any religion’s beliefs about death (aside from a small jab at the terrorists’ 72 virgins scenario). Spirituality For Dummies gives a view of life’s journey that allows readers to live with less fear and stay more focused on experiencing the present moment.

Related Excerpt from Spirituality For Dummies:

If you’re experiencing fears over one day losing what you love, this is a good time to remember one of the great universal laws of life: “This, too, will pass.” Good times will pass, and bad times will pass. Easy times will pass, and difficult times will pass.

The bad times passing is something you don’t mind at all, right? But what about that “good times will pass” part of the equation? How can you enjoy, love, and relish all the great people and things in your life without being fearful of losing them?

The secret of enjoying good times without fear is to:

Stay focused in the present moment. When you’re focused in the present moment, you’re enjoying what you have today rather than spending today worrying about what may or may not happen tomorrow.

Live in a higher vision that inspires a sense of detachment. With a higher vision, you know that all beings and things are made of one supreme spirit that can never die and doesn’t really come and go, except in external appearance.

With a higher vision, you free your mind from outer worries and come to experience life through the spiritual heart, which beats with contentment and peace just beneath the waves of your mind, during times of gain and loss.

FIND WONDERFUL NEW RESOURCES:

The year 2010 brings not only challenges to face but also wonderful blessings to explore. The world wide web has opened doors to an almost infinite array of spiritual topics, philosophies, music, and videos. Never before has the wisdom of the ages been available at the click of a mouse. Online and offline, if you have an interest in learning just about anything, worldly or spiritual, you can do it. Such availability of information was not possible at any other known time in human history. The potential for increasing your wisdom and expanding your personal experience of life is incredible and very exciting. But where do you look? How can you find ideas that resonate with the kind of spiritual topics you’d like to learn? Spirituality For Dummies gives hundreds of names and ideas from different cultures, religions, and philosophies that you may be inspired to research further.

         Related Excerpt from Spirituality For Dummies:

Reading uplifting words before going to sleep can help give you good dreams and can also color and brighten your day ahead. You don’t have to read for a long time. Just open any page of a powerful and positive book and read a few lines or paragraphs. Then close your eyes and allow those uplifting thoughts to come with you into your nighttime adventures.

During the day, you can also take positive thought pauses and fill your mind with uplifting spiritual words and ideas. You can even post favorite quotes around your work or home space to remind you to spiritualize every aspect of your life.

One of the great modern tools for finding uplifting words to read is the Internet. Along with all the gossip, news, politics, and distasteful elements that pervade the worldwide Web are gems from spiritual teachers, scholars, saints, and sages of all traditions — including spiritual scriptures, poetry, questions and answers, articles, videos and audios of lectures and music, photos of exquisite nature and holy shrines, and the writings of all kinds of great and somewhat-great beings.

BE POSITIVE AMIDST NEGATIVITIES:

Along with other world problems, the 2010 elections are likely to bring a blast of dirty, negative campaigning, tempting you to fall into the dark well of political negativities. Even without an election at hand, today’s media regularly shows politicians and commenters tearing their opponents down with great gusto, filling the media airspace and social atmosphere with a general climate of political negativity. But during an election year, these efforts become intensified and can go on for months, bringing a long string of dramatic and fear-triggering aspersions and accusations to people’s media doors. Spirituality For Dummies shows you how to recharge your positive spirit and stay above the level of petty arguments and fighting in the world and in your own mind. With a spiritual view, you trust a bigger picture, within which everyone sees the world through his or her own pair of inherently incomplete and distorting glasses. By understanding that life brings a series of individual tests and lessons, you’ll be able to choose what kind of thoughts you want to think, and allow others to learn theirs without having to jump into the mud fight yourself.


Related Excerpt from Spirituality For Dummies:

For one day, use your will power to catch every negative thought that passes through your mind. If you’re complaining about the weather, or are upset that someone took your parking space, or are bothered or disturbed by anything or anyone else, catch those negative thoughts as if you were an expert goalie. Don’t get negative about your negativity, but see these thoughts and hold them at bay with the power of your intention.

Here are three ways you can get rid of negativity:

Neutralize a negative thought by substituting it with a positive one.

Study, remember, and contemplate spiritual teachings that help to move your mind beyond the temporary situations that cause negative thoughts to arise.

Raise your perspective and self-identification into a higher, more spiritual perspective where you remember that everything ultimately happens for the best.

CREATE BETTER “KARMA”:

In the year 2010, the saying “as you sow so shall you reap” is as true as ever. Recent “secret law of attraction” books and fads have introduced into the social consciousness the idea that thoughts have power beyond just filling your mind or inspiring personal actions. Many ancient spiritual teachers also taught about the power of your mind, although without today’s commercialized focus on how to use this law of attraction to get a shiny new car – or perhaps in their case, a big fluffy camel. Spirituality For Dummies gives a clear and easy understanding of the laws of attraction and the philosophy of karma, without stating any particular theory as indisputable fact or indulging in guilt or condemnation for having “manifested” challenges in your life. With a respect for whatever lessons the spiritual universe brings to your door, you are able to notice what subtle impressions you’re putting into the world with your thoughts and actions, and become more aware of how the circumstances of your life can mirror thoughts or actions you have previously taken.


Related Excerpt from Spirituality For Dummies:

One good way to grasp the intricacies of karmic law is to watch how karmas manifest inside and around you. Life is a living textbook on the laws of karma. You can

Observe how life so often creates exactly what you most desire or fear.

Watch, as the most vehement persecutors in any situation seem to inevitably become the persecuted.

Notice how your own good actions can lighten your heart and create an opening for more goodness to enter your life.

Even movie scripts and novels generally reflect an intuitive understanding of these laws, as good wins over evil nearly every time — even if only moments before the final credit roll!

9. PROTECT YOURSELF FROM SPIRITUAL SILLINESS:

In the year 2010, spirituality is a hot and profitable topic, and many profiteers are finding their way into the wide spiritual marketplace. 2010 began with the media’s focus on a recent “Spiritual Warrior” retreat that went terribly wrong, with people becoming ill and dying due to the incorrect practice of ancient techniques, including a deadly sweat lodge. Some who teach and share spirituality are sincere, others not; some are enlightened, others deluded, and most are some combination of all of the above. Spirituality For Dummies gives you guidance on how to be a good editor and keep your wits about you, so you can drink in the great benefits of spiritual approaches without drinking any harmful “Kool-Aid” that could end up making you feel less connected from your spirit, or worse. Spirituality For Dummies is filled with helpful spiritual quotes from many cultures and teachers, giving a delicious serving of intelligent spiritual wisdom from throughout the ages, without having to sign away your life, mind, or finances.

Related Excerpt from Spirituality For Dummies:

     Keep these following points in mind if you choose to be involved with a spiritual community:

Groupthink exists even in spiritual groups — in fact, especially in spiritual groups. When people work together under an umbrella of spiritual commonality, they are likely to form certain agreed-upon views of the world and tend to share many of the same words and phrases. Some of these views, words, and phrases may be very useful, however, group beliefs can also become limiting, because God and spirit are beyond any one particular view of life.

People are still people, even in spiritual groups. If you think that everyone who participates in a spiritual group is a perfect saint, you may be in for a surprise!

10. UPLIFT YOURSELF AND THE WORLD:

2010 is a great time to become even better than you already are, and Spirituality For Dummies gives tools and information that can help you naturally improve your life. With greater spiritual awareness, virtues such as kindness, noncovetousness, humility, generosity, and honesty are not so much arduous efforts as the logical way to be. 2010 is tempting you to be greedy, pessimistic, or callous, but you can find the right balance of giving and receiving, acting and remaining peaceful and optimistic by contemplating higher truths and following your inner guidance. Spiritual awareness makes it natural to perform right actions and shines a light on your own inner guidance. Spirituality For Dummies offers tools and information to help you into a spiritual awareness, supported by wisdom quotes of many who have achieved greatness, health, and happiness for themselves and for the world.

Related Excerpt from Spirituality For Dummies:

Spirituality is not just about learning new ideas or doing spiritual practices. It also requires applying what you learn to your daily life. Spiritual is as spiritual does.

Thoughts and actions that bring your soul and the world higher are called virtuous. Hold your decisions and actions up to the light of spiritual wisdom and ask: Is this action right? Is it kind? Is it helpful? Is it just? Is it harmonious? Is it educational? Is this action or decision taking into consideration the bigger picture of the world? Is it enlightened, intelligent, beneficial, honest, humble, and compassionate? Do your actions express the best in yourself rather than the lower pulls of the senses or base emotions? Are your actions being guided by spirit? Are they offered with a clear mind and a pure heart?

Don’t worry if you haven’t always been virtuous in the past. Today is a new, fresh day. If you weren’t spiritually virtuous yesterday, you can be spiritually virtuous today. If you didn’t act with spiritual wisdom yesterday, today you can be spiritually wise. If you were a thief, today you can stop being a thief. If you’ve done something wrong in the past, today you can do things right.

More about Spirituality For Dummies

“This book bridges the gap between conventional experience and the spiritual life. Spirituality for Dummies gives practical advice for entering the path of spirituality, borrowing wisdom from a host of religious, philosophical, and comedic traditions. Insightful, wise, and humorous, this book can and should be read by all, from novice to saint!"

— Dr. Christopher Key Chapple, Loyola Marymount University

From the Publisher (Wiley): Want to get in touch with your spiritual side? Spirituality For Dummies 2nd Edition shows you how to use spiritual principles to understand and improve your life, empower you mind, and nourish your soul. Complete with a CD filled with calming, spiritual music, it is your personal guide to serenity and spiritual healing.

Spiritual philosopher Sharon Janis shows you how to discover the deeper calling of your soul, survive and thrive through adversity, and look at the world with optimism. You’ll learn how to use meditation, yoga, prayer, and journaling for inward reflection and to spark new vistas as you unfold your own spiritual wisdom and move forward on your spiritual journey in your own individual way. You’ll find similarities and differences among a variety basic spiritual concepts from different religious and philosophical traditions, and you’ll discover how to:

* Find your spiritual path
* Uplift your body, mind, and spirit
* Fulfill your greatest dreams
* Spiritualize your relationships
* Cultivate your spiritual virtues
* Increase your inner peace and happiness
* Turn troubles into triumphs
* Recognize yourself as a co-creator
* Be a VIP: a very inspired person

The companion CD that accompanies this gentle guide brings you more than 60 minutes of inspirational music from around the world. It features the author and other artists performing songs and chants from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions in their native languages.

The Spiritual Guide that Comes with It's Own Ego Test

CLICK HERE if you are offended by the title

spirituality

Humorous, edgy, profound, and enlightening, Spirituality For Dummies brings modern-day spiritual seekers a view and approach to life that is universal, personal, and optimistic, with the dependable style, clarity, and friendliness of the “For Dummies” series.

User-friendly descriptions of spiritual teachings, principles and practices are brought to life with with humorous anecdotes and insightful quotes from great thinkers, scriptures, and texts from many traditions. With a friendly and conversational tone, Spirituality For Dummies gives readers tools tofind and enter the spiritual dimensions of their lives in today's unique world circumstances.

Spirituality For Dummies guides readers to the awareness of their natural and inherent identity with spirit and the all-pervasiveness of divine spirit in everything. It does this with a realistic and common sense approach that is scientific in nature, without asking readers to subscribe to fluffy or black-and-white ideas.

Reviews for Spirituality For Dummies:

“You can be sure you will no longer be a dummy if you finish reading Spirituality for Dummies. This 330-page primer provides a general overview of spiritual knowledge and awareness, and offers specific spiritual exercises and principles designed to expand one's universal consciousness. Author Sharon Janis fuses mystical traditions with "new thought" to encourage individuals to see beyond mere appearances and use intuitive perceptions to comprehend the spiritual laws at work behind the outer conditions in their lives."
— Sacramento Bee

“Spirituality For Dummies is a Mecca for those who are sincerely seeking the genuine meaning and practice of spirituality. Sharon Janis fuses mystical insights drawn from the east/west approaches, resulting in a volume that opens the heart, exhilarates the mind, and inflames the soul. No matter upon which rung of the spiritual ladder you now stand, expect to be catapulted to the next level of awareness through practice of the wisdom-offerings in this scripture of Truth.”
— Michael Beckwith, Agape and "The Secret"

“If you feel empty inside (and not because it's been six hours since your last burrito), it might be time to search for the meaning of life in Spirituality for Dummies… Even skeptics can gain self-knowledge from the thought and visualization exercises strewn throughout the book, which demonstrate how to take a positive view of negative experiences and let go of emotional baggage—like going to a therapist, but cheaper. Janis explains meditation, yoga, and other practices in a chipper, down-to-earth style, using everyday analogies and many an exclamation point, that won't scare off the novice.”
— Village Voice

More Reviews

READ SAMPLE PAGES:

The Table of Contents

Chapter 1: "Finding Authentic Spirituality"

The eclectic and extensive index

What makes Spirituality For Dummies different from other contemporary spiritual books?

Breadth and depth of coverage – No other contemporary spiritual book covers the breadth and depth of topics covered in Spirituality For Dummies.

It's Universal and Personal– The author brings quotes and ideas from many spiritual, religious, psychological, ancient wisdom, scientific, and philosophical traditions together with personal insight and advice.

Friendly, knowledgeable guidance with no strings attached – The author’s goal in writing this book is to share beneficial ideas and worldviews that are accessible to people from all walks of life.

About the Author:

Sharon Janis was brought up by psychology-teacher parents and studied neuroscience and film at the University of Michigan, before spending ten years living a monastic ashram life – studying, chanting, and serving in deep spiritual immersion, while producing and editing hundreds of videos for the worldwide Siddha Yoga spiritual movement.

After a decade of monastic life, Sharon moved to Hollywood for a career as film editor, director, and producer of popular television shows and films – including many evening news and news-feature shows, Hard Copy, X-Men, and The Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers – winning a Los Angeles Emmy, an Associated Press National Board of Directors award, and many other accolades. With her combination of monastic life and Hollywood creativity, Sharon offers a fresh view and style that motivates, entertains, educates, and enlightens with a down-to-earth intimacy, touches of music and singing, and a generous dose of humor.

Watch a video about Sharon and Spirituality For Dummies

Find more info and video and audio clips of the author at: http://www.spiritualityspeaker.com.

Every copy of Spirituality For Dummies comes with
A CD of inspiring devotional music!

The Spirituality For Dummies 2nd Edition music CD comes in the back of every book and gives a delicious taste of inspiring spiritual music, including Gregorian chanting, Christian songs, Buddhist texts, Jewish prayers, Hindu chants, Latin hymns, and gospel music, sung by artists including Erik Peterson, Cantor Kathy Robbins, The Eternal OM, the Desert Fathers, Kali Mandir, Premanand Trikannad, Swami Nirvanananda, and the author.

CLICK HERE to Play the
Spirituality For Dummies Music CD Tracks

Additional Works by Sharon Janis

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