What Really Matters - Hardcover

Schwartz, Tony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553093983 ISBN 13: 9780553093988

Publisher: Bantam, 1995

Synopsis

Seeking meaning in everyday life and wisdom in America, a journalist records his search, creating a guide to the best techniques for self-discovery, a social history of the consciousness movement, and a journey to the center of the soul.

About this title

About the Author

Tony Schwartz was a writer for Newsweek and a reporter for The New York Times before becoming a contributing editor at New York magazine.

Reviews

Feeling empty despite the success of The Art of the Deal, which he coauthored with Donald Trump, Schwartz began meditating in 1988, thus embarking on a four-year quest in which he crisscrossed the country meeting mystics, psychics, philosophers, healers. He took breathing classes with LSD researcher Stanislav Grof, joined a dream-analysis workshop led by psychoanalyst Montague Ullman, did body exercises at California's Esalen Institute and was hooked up to biofeedback machines at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kans. He tapped an "ideal performance state" while playing tennis in a Florida training academy. He reports that a mind/body technique cured him of chronic back pain. Schwartz benefited most from use of the Enneagram, a system of classifying personality types said to help people overcome self-destructive behavior patterns. His spiritual odyssey, reflecting a smorgasboard of approaches, incorporates an insightful social history of the human potential movement with profiles of key figures like Esalen founder Michael Murphy, transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilber and psychologist/guru Richard Alpert (aka Ram Dass).
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Schwartz, a reporter for the New York Times, has a nice wife, good kids, plenty of money. So why does he feel so bummed? In attempting to answer that question, the author set off on what turned out to be a four-year journey in search of the contemporary Holy Grail--peace of mind. As he crisscrossed the U.S., he encountered all aspects of the consciousness movement, from meditation and dream therapy through personality analysis and Eastern spirituality. Naturally, he met a few gurus along the way, including Baba Ram Dass and others less well known to the general public but just as revered among their followers. This is not just the story of a whiner holding out his bowl and asking for more. Schwartz offers a serious, analytical look at the whole phenomenon of self-discovery, appraising what he finds as both a reporter and a searcher. In addition, he brings to the process a liberal dose of humanizing humor. Schwartz's final chapter, in which he ties together what works and what doesn't, will certainly touch readers on their own spiritual journeys. His bottom line is hardly new news, but it bears repeating: "To live a complete life requires drawing deeply on all of one's potentials--mind, body, heart, soul, and spirit." Ilene Cooper

Edition details

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0553093983
• ISBN 13: 9780553093988
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 472