Meditation As A Way Of Life Reviewed By Michelle Kaye Malsbury of Bookpleasures.com
- By Michelle Kaye Malsbury
- Published February 1, 2016
- Self Help
Michelle Kaye Malsbury
Reviewer Michelle Kaye Malsbury:
Michelle was born in Champaign, IL. Currently, she resides in Asheville, NC
and is in her second year of doctoral studies at Nova Southeastern
University in Ft. Lauderdale with specialization/concentration in
conflict resolution and peace studies. She has over six hundred
articles published on the web and one book published thus far with
many more in the wings. Hobbies include; reading, writing, music, and
playing with her Australian Cattle Dog, Abu.
Author: Alan L. Pritz
Publisher: Quest Books,
ISBN: 978-0-8356-0928-9
In 2008 Alan Pritz, author of Meditation As A Way Of Life, founded Awake-in-Life. (2015, back cover).
Pritz’s Awake-in-Life focuses on meditation teaching and training, spiritual counseling, and work-life balance programs. Alan Pritz is an interfaith minister who has taught a variety of things for nearly fourty years. You can learn more about him at www.awake-in-life.com.
In Chapter 1 Pritz talks about his calling to meditation and all it entails, but also his reluctance to fully embrace it as it was a life style change. His fears at this change were waylaid via a fortune cookie fortune. From that moment forward he began learning new things that could expand his knowledge base and enhance his spiritual self, it was meditation.
In Chapter 2 Pritz squares meditation with religious dogma. He says that “A dedicated relationship with God subsequently forms the basis for a happy, insightful, and successful life…”. (2015, p.15) To which he adds a statement from Ramana Maharshi “Happiness is inherent in man and is not due to external causes.” (p.17) The premises of meditation move from what is within to what is without. Therefore, if we can find happiness from within we can exude happiness outside too. In order to do this successfully Pritz thinks you need a guide which is the topic of Chapter 3.
Chapter 5 provides the reader and meditation student with “The Twelve Principles of Spiritual Understanding.” (2015, p.45) These are “…universal realities rooted in cosmic law.” Pritz speaks a lot about spirit and the laws of spirit in most of his chapters. “Love is the secret power of devotion…”. (p.51)
The following Chapters deal with the application of meditation and the exercises associated with meditation. There are lengthy pictures and descriptions associated with each exercise and each step of the meditation process. All of which are key to achieving this oneness with spirit that is the purpose of engaging in meditation and learning it from a meditation master. Pritz provides the mediation student with definitions of the various chakras and what giving tribute to those can do for our human body and mental spirit. Pritz suggests fasting with orange juice on time per week and longer if possible as a means for cleansing body and spirit, as well as, enhancing our ability to commune with a higher being that can, and will, literally change your life.
I enjoyed reading this book and learned quite a few new things. I have meditated on occasion, but not with the instructions Pritz has designed, and may now approach that process with a renewed sense of purpose and energy of spirit. The idea is to be at peace with yourself and the world, filled with happiness, love, and communion, and feeling a quiet sense of spiritual energy for a long time to come.