Spiritual Delights and Delusions: How to Bridge the Gap Between Spiritual Fulfillment and Emotional Realities

Posner has a great intention: reconcile the loftiness of enlightenment with the day-to-day realities of minor pettiness and major suffering. The same question has prompted, and anguished, spiritual seekers at least as far back as Job, and produced countless books on the subjects of good and evil, of active spiritual response to life's challenges. Unfortunately the author, who cites many spiritual teachers, is better at questions than answers, in both the figurative and literal sense. The rhetorical question is so frequent a device of his (""Isn't all of reality worth grasping? Is our consciousness so fragile that it can't withstand the whole truth of human existence?"", two of 36 such questions in a single chapter) that it becomes annoying. A fair portion dwells on the need to respond to terrorism-frequently characterized as Islamic-a good question that isn't answered by much reflection beyond personal anecdotes about travel in Israel and China. Experience is authentic, but also limited. A macho spirituality (""This is not misguided patriotism or crude flag-waving fanaticism. It is a realistic spirituality..."") may have its fans, but many better books on this perennial subject are available (After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield; anything by Thich Nhat Hanh).