Head, Heart & Hara: The Soul Centers Of West And East (Soul Centres of West and East)

So, this review is a long time coming. I have read and re-read this book. I pour myself over it's pages, only to re-collect my reading, and want to re-view it yet again. Here in lies the most sophisticated response to trends in the new age, in humanistic psychology and philosophy, to the many variations on eastern meditation practices and the many appropriations by modern westernized social sub-cultures, of generations old, methods and theories of eastern philosophical progress. I have not come across such a well researched, and articulated, method for the realization of the primacy of awareness, over soul, spirit, matter, energy, etc. Though to be fair, I myself have been following the path to the observations made by the author through numerous authors, and techniques, for almost a decade, never quite making sense of what I'm listening for. The Hara is no "energy center" it is the 'center' of Being, and as such, is the extension point of Awareness of Non-Being. This is grasped through identification with the Field-Dynamic Aware Center of Being, within the subjective space experienced as the abdominal space, termed tanden or hara in traditional Japanese culture. The ease with which what this implies is communicated, has peaked a great amount of personal interest in the corpus of Mr. Wilberg, and in Mr. Wilberg himself. I look forward to posting more reviews of other works of his.

A OK.

I skimmed long excerpts on Google books. Attempts to cover too many divergent topics. Doesn't get to practice until page 134. Enthusiasm for the subject is not sufficient for a scholarly work. "Hara: The Vital Center" was much more satisfying to me.

Arrived promptly. Clean unmarked book-as described.

This is a unique treatment of the by now common lore around energy centres. Wilberg takes pains to refine the understanding of what 'energy' entails, laying emphasis on what he focuses as 'the awareness principle'. Here his mature understanding of phenomenology plays a part, as well as his native realization of ancient nondual yogic practice. But it is also a pragmatic text for meditation practitioners, where he consistently uses diagrams to couch the reader into experientially grasping the relation between outside-inside/inside-outside, in relation to meditation using centres, body awareness and wider field awareness.

This book makes the reader resound with the inner self.