The Holy Longing: The Hidden Power of Spiritual Yearning - Softcover

Zweig, Connie

4.12

91 ratings by Goodreads

9781591810179: The Holy Longing: The Hidden Power of Spiritual Yearning

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1591810175 ISBN 13: 9781591810179

Publisher: Sentient Publications, 2004

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Many of our feelings of desire and disappointment can be traced back to our yearning to know God. This longing can be a powerful positive force. We need to understand our desire and begin to listen to it to turn it into an opportunity for greater spiritual development.

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About the Author:

Connie Zweig, Ph.D., has been a student and teacher of meditation for 40 years. She works as a therapist and spiritual counselor in Los Angeles and is co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow and author of the novel A Moth to the Flame, the life story of Sufi poet Rumi. She can be reached at conniezweig.com

Review:

The longing to know God is probably the most powerful innate force among humans, according to Zweig. The longing is our guide, she explains; in many it is our raison d'ếtre. The trick is to stop trying to satiate it, and instead listen to what it is trying to teach us. Zweig devotes her final chapter to specific ways readers can integrate this yearning into their spiritual development, such as using imagery, shadow work, and creative expression. She is a resourceful teacher who offers many tools for living with our ‘holy longing’. -- Publishers Weekly

In this substantive follow-up to Romancing the Shadow (cowritten with Steve Wolf), Connie Zweig takes a hard look at holy longing and the spiritual abuse that can occur when disciples project their highest hopes on leaders, teachers, or gurus. Zweig believes holy longing is ‘the drive toward self-transcendence that fuels evolution in the physical, mental and spiritual worlds.’ This book plumbs the depths of the widespread problem of spiritual abuse in a time when fundamentalism, which is prone to this kind of surrender of self to an authoritarian power, is on the rise in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
--Spirituality and Health Magazine

This book is a welcome guidepost for psychologists, scholars, and seekers concerned with a mature, honest, and penetrating spirituality. Rather than presenting a one-sided glimpse of the heights and the benefits of spirituality for psychological well-being, Zweig embraces the holy longing, riding it through the peaks and down into the dark underbelly of today’s spiritual realities.
--Perspectives, The Journal of the Association of Humanistic Psychology

How does the quest for spirit go awry? Is the spiritual drive in humans innate? How do we balance abuses of power by spiritual teachers and organized religion, and still nurture our soul? These are some of the questions addressed by Connie Zweig, therapist, minister and long-time seeker. Born of personal experience and balanced by study, research and practice can help anyone contemplating serious spiritual practice. For those who may be struggling, disillusioned, or apathetic because of past experience Zweig renews hope that one can find understanding, perspective and renewal.
-- Institute of Noetic Sciences Review

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