Brave Souls: The Survival Guide to Staying Conscious

Hi Everyone,

Apologies for my relative silence over the summer period. I know I have not posted a blog for a while, but I have been busy writing. In fact I have now finished my new book “The Survival To Staying Conscious”, which I am delighted to say is now in print and available.

Brave Souls: The Survival Guide to Staying Conscious

A Book that Speaks To the Challenges of Today: The Survival Guide to Staying Conscious

It has been a fascinating and challenging project to complete this book while keeping it as current as possible and as accessible as I can. I wanted to write a book that speaks of the challenges we are facing at a consciousness level as a result in the tremendous and accelerated changes we have made in the way in which we function, engage in life and process our experiences. The human mind/psyche is in the process of a deep transformation, and I feel it is important that we recognise the changes that are coming about in us as a result of the way of life we are choosing or adopting. I feel that we are at an axiomatic point as a species, at so many levels, and that how we respond now to what is happening to us, will define us and our world for a very long time to come.

I do hope you will find the book stimulating, thought provoking and ultimately inspiring. It is designed essentially to help people find the courage to embrace the changes and make the choices that will lead to a growth and expansion of consciousness and not a degeneration or contraction.

Essentially it tells the story of how we have replaced our capacity for deep awareness and subtle perception and feeling with a more cerebral interaction and mental attitude towards life. This I believe is profoundly changing the essential nature of who we are as human beings. Ultimately it asks whether the developments we are making with our minds and the lives we are leading is actually turning us into more contented, happy and considerate beings.

Brave Souls: An Album Based on Themes in The Survival Guide to Staying Conscious

Together with the book, I have also published a new album of discourses and inspirational music to help draw out or give a more experiential connection to some of the themes and topics developed in the book. The Album I have called. “Brave Souls.”

Both of them are now available for you to buy. I would love to hear your feedback and comments. If you have read the book or are doing so, do please take time to leave some feedback on Amazon also. That is most gratefully appreciated.

An Extract From The Survival Guide to Staying Conscious

To give you a flavour of the book, I have included with this blog a sample chapter entitled: A Momentum for Positive Change

“When we look into the challenges before us, the tendency is to assume that it is an economic or an environmental crisis that we face. I am suggesting that it may be a spiritual and moral crisis as well, and that if we can address this, our chances of resolving our others challenges are hugely increased.

At almost every level of our lives, there are clear indications that we might have to embrace a wholesale change in the way we approach life. The signs are not hard to see for any of us who are prepared to pay attention. And yet so far, we have either been unable or unwilling to find the determination required to seek the solutions that are being asked or demanded of us. The solutions that will ensure our well-being in the here and now and the well-being of those who will follow in our footsteps. The more time I spend in the UK, the more I sense that people are increasingly numb and disconnected. I can feel this numbness creeping up on all of us, myself included. And it is often hard to spot it happening.

By numb, I mean we are losing our capacity to feel deeply and meet our experiences with full awareness. In short we are becoming desensitised, and the result is that we become increasingly willing to accept things in our lives, and in the world around us, that we would find unacceptable if we were not numb. This cuts deep, and it is profoundly upsetting. While we are more connected than ever before through technology and social media, it has encouraged us to become intoxicated with ourselves and for many has exacerbated a need to be seen. We have become so distracted by it all that we are losing touch with that place in the heart where we’re all connected and what it is that we are connected to.

I am always being asked for advice on how people can improve their feeling of contentment and personal meaning. I can honestly say that in fifteen years I can count on one hand the number of people for whom the answer to this question isn’t just; “simplify your life and get rid of what you don’t need (preferably by giving it to someone who does)”. The Buddha used to say that, “One who is of few needs and easy to serve is close to being happy, one who is of many needs and hard to serve is far from being happy”.

It seems so clear the world so needs each of us to start giving back. Every day that we take out more than we put in, our soul withers in some small way. Every day we put in more than we take out, our souls shine a little more brightly. Perhaps it is time to stop asking what’s in it for me, and start asking what have I got to give?…..”