Table of Contents

Invitation: The Immortal Diamond of the True Self vii

Preface xvii

1 What Is ‘‘The True Self’’? 1

2 What Is ‘‘The False Self’’? 27

3 What Dies and Who Lives? 59

4 The Knife Edge of Experience 67

5 Thou Art That 95

6 If It Is True, It Is True Everywhere 127

7 Enlightenment at Gunpoint 139

8 Intimate with Everything 159

9 Love Is Stronger Than Death 175

Epilogue 187

Appendix A The True Self and the False Self 189

Appendix B A Mosaic of Metaphors 193

Appendix C Watching at the Tomb: Attitudes for Prayer 199

Appendix D Head into Heart: ‘‘The Sacred Heart’’ 203

Appendix E Adam’s Breathing: Praying from the Clay 207

Appendix F Twelve Ways to Practice Resurrection Now 211

Notes 213

Bibliography 231

The Author 237

Index 239

About the Author

Fr. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province. He founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1986, where he presently serves as founding director. Richard is the author of more than twenty books, an internationally known speaker, and a regular contributing writer for Sojourners and Tikkun magazines and the CAC's quarterly journal, Radical Grace. He is the author of Falling Upward and Falling Upward: A Companion Journal.

Reviews

How well do we know ourselves? So many roles and identities shape individual lives that it's easy to be confused about what is authentically "us." Rohr, a Franciscan priest and founding director of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, N.Mex., leads a narrative excursion to the "True Self," the core of character that lies like a diamond buried within. Writing for secular seekers, the author claims that individuals need to allow the false self to fall away in order to get in touch with the true self, allowing it to breathe and flourish. Grasping onto the superficial identities of the false self, such as job, class, race, or accomplishments, can keep people from being the loving and generous conduits of the Divine that they are meant to be. God is always communicating with humans, but those who cling to ego and social position can t hear these divine messages. The author makes clear that it is not easy to shed this falseness for truth in the inner life, but it is a spiritual path well worth the effort. (Jan.) (Publishers Weekly, February 2013)