Applied Spirituality: Seeing Through the Illusion of Our Separateness

About the Book

This volume is a compilation of six smaller books that were published between 2012 and 2014. They were written as though I were taking dictation. Some higher power unlocked the gates of inspiration and articulation, and I wrote almost continuously for three hours every day without ever fi rst composing an outline for any of these books. Instead of coming out as gibberish, they form a coherent, and I feel, cogent whole, and so I have grouped them together in one volume. Performance excellence in any fi eld requires, among other things, a clear goal that can be methodically approached incrementally in manageable steps and stages. Without a clear goal, there can be no cogent methodology. Accomplishment in the practice of a spiritual discipline that leads to excellent results is no diff erent. Together these books off er a clear goal and method for accomplishing what I feel is the universal target of every valid form of spiritual practice, namely, seeing through the illusion of our separateness. This goal is universal to every form of spiritual aspiration. The methods outlined in this book, therefore, bypass every form of sectarianism. They can be applied and practiced by anyone of any faith who is sincerely motivated to deepen in the spirit that unites us all.

About the Author

With this book, Robert Colacurcio has brought the series of his previous nine books full circle. The concept of the “virtual self” from his first book, The Virtual Self: Beyond the Gap in Buddhist Philosophy, is now used to give the reader a way to ponder the question, “What is it that takes rebirth?” This question takes its place in a long line of questions that have guided the author’s approach to spirituality from an early age. He trained as a Jesuit for eleven years, earned a doctorate in philosophy from Fordham University, and explored every aspect of the Human Potential Movement available in NYC in the seventies. After practicing Zen and the methods of G. I. Gurdjieff in a Sufi commune, he discovered the spiritual technology of the Buddha. For the past thirty years, the Buddha’s methodology has provided his path to deeper study and contemplation of life’s most important questions. He currently lives with his wife, Carol Jo, on a mountaintop in Virginia. Together they share a partnership in the spirit, which they believe was begun many lifetimes ago.