INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION

I’d like to be interviewed about my book Universal Spiritual Philosophy and Practice: an Informal Textbook for Discerning Seekers—how it came about, what it says, and why its message is important. Its intent is to bring the reader to a deeper understanding and experience of the profound truths at the heart of all faiths. Here’s a brief description of the book:

This 200-page book presents all the central insights of mystical experience, and relates them in a practical way to psychological understandings of spiritual maturity. Topics covered include the unimportance of belief, the “deep structure” of religion, rebuttals of orthodoxy, cosmologies and theories of enlightenment, types of spiritual teachers and groups, the mechanics of alternative healing and dreams as they relate to spiritual progress, and more. Over 20 different spiritual practices are reviewed, and 48 illustrations and lively, word-balloon graphics make for easy reading. The book is intentionally succinct, clarifying only the most important core truths in each chapter area. Readers who are sick of all the fighting and politics around religion, and who      long to experience something deeper, will appreciate USPP’s systematic approach, which takes them to a deeper experience by starting to dissolve the cultural and linguistic conditionings which confine us spiritually as we grow up. Short appendices are devoted to more detailed understandings of meditation, and crucial, usually overlooked philosophical understandings connected with the religions.

During the interview, I’d like to be asked the following questions:

1. So what gave you the idea for this book? How did it come about?

2. There are lots of books that talk about how all the religions say the same thing. What’s unique about yours?

3. Who did you write it for? What would the average seeker get out of reading it?

4. What do you mean by spirituality? That’s a really vague term.

5. So, I guess there are some things about the religions that really bug you. What are those things, and how did they motivate your writing?

6. So, you’re frustrated that people are so conditioned by their cultures.

7. Can you give me an example of an underlying similarity between all the religions?

8. You go over all these practices that people can do on their own to get in touch with God.

9. What can we do about the attachments we have to our own opinions about things? For example, a conservative might say, “I think everyone should own a gun so they can protect themselves,” or a liberal might say, “I think everyone should get an organic diet.” What do we do about that?

10. What have some of your own experiences been?

11. Do you think that you’re enlightened in some way?

Plus anything else the interviewer would like to ask that we have time for. I assume you will need a copy of the book; I can send you one.