Product Description

Do you sense that you are overflowing with gifts you don't know how to express? Have too many opportunities passed you by? Maybe it's time to "leap before you look," suggests Arjuna Ardagh. "Simply begin," he teaches. "Don't wait for the perfect time and place, or until you've accumulated the right amount of knowledge." With Leap Before You Look, he offers a collection of practical tools and meditations that will help you jump-start any spiritual practice, including: * "Just like me"--a simple exercise to dissolve judgments and accept others * "Explode with anger"--a healthful way to experience and harness this much-maligned energy * Asking "Who am I?" to reveal the mystery of divine presence right there behind your thoughts * "Be still in sex"--a yogic exercise for partners to transform lovemaking into a portal to the divine Available in two formats (softcover book and CD) Leap Before You Look offers more than thirty practices and techniques to practice in the home, office--or even the supermarket--to help us surf the waves of our emotions, let go of the stories we tell ourselves, and fearlessly soar into the vast spaciousness of life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #220922 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 188 pages

About the Author
Arjuna Ardagh is an international teacher and the author of five books, including The Translucent Revolution (New World Library, 2005) and Awakening into Oneness (Sounds True, 2007). He founded the Living Essence Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the awakening of consciousness within the context of ordinary life. He lives in California.

Customer Reviews

Peace Be with You
Mugged at the bookstore again. And, so so glad I was.

Wandering through my local bookstore, as I often do, this book jumped into my arms and cried, "take me." Although unfamiliar with the author, the subtitle "72 shortcuts for getting out of your mind and into the moment" resonated with me.

What a gem of a book! The author has compiled 72 delightful ways to get into the moment. Every one of his offerings may not be right for you, but I suspect that few readers will not quickly find a half dozen techniques that will work well.

Let me give a concrete example of the power of this wonderful book. My wife and I are the caregivers for a multipli-disabled man who has been blind since birth. I often think what it must be like to be blind from birth. For me, and likely most of those of us who can see, our idea of blindness is as if lights were suddenly turned off. But, we are still left with vivid impressions of what this world looks like as a result of our years of sight. Blind since birth means one never got those impressions.

So wtih that backdrop, along comes the author with a meditation practice (one of his 72 practices) that he calls "Enter the Darkness." Wow...did this excite me. Later today, I will be joining my dear friend for some shared time in the darkness. How powerful for my own peace of mind, and hopefully how wonderful for my dear friend. I fully expect this will be a practice I embrace for years to come.

Other equally impactful connections were made with the described practices.

I am stout believer in the importance of personal PEACE. My construct for personal peak performance has PEACE as one of three foundational elements. As such, I am always looking for processes that can help me to create more PEACE in my life. Well, this gem is chock full of ideas to do exactly that.

So PEACE be with YOU. Let this book show you how you don't have to adopt some norm of meditation, but instead can adopt any of one of a number of rituals that will help to keep one centered in a world that too often seems lacking in PEACE.

Arjuna Ardagh (the author)...I am deeply grateful.

Great audiobook!
This is a fantastic audiobook for anyone interested in meditation, buddhism, yoga, mindfulness practice. I listen in the car, and always have a neat, fun meditative exercise to practice. It really makes the driving time worthwhile, and keeps me in a better state of mind! I love this audio and highly recomend to all listeners!

delightful and inspiring spiritual shortcuts
Is it really possible to achieve a full experience of self-acceptance and clear-sighted realization in a single moment? Without being trite or superficial this slender volume, Leap Before You Look, presents spiritual practice "shortcuts" that do indeed take us into an immediate experience of being in the present--and into all of the richness and possibility each moment affords us. Author Arjuna Ardagh refers to these exercises as "the art of a translucent spiritual practice." It is a practice without a goal, and translucent because "translucent people...are lit up by their deepest nature, yet they remain fully engaged in their daily personal lives. Translucent people appear to glow, as if from within themselves."

Leap Before You Look is an original compendium of useful and simple exercises that precipitate a shift out of our mind and into an awakening that embodies ordinary, day-to-day life. The book is divided into twelve sections, each focusing on a particular aspect of practice: meditation, insight, daily routine, body, feeling, intimate relationship, sex, family, nature, devotional, compassion, and community practices. Most of the exercises (more like tools, really) take only a few minutes and can be done anywhere. A brief explanation or anecdote follows each exercise, filling in the gaps of understanding that our mind inevitably yearns for, although such a practice is inherently one that we live, rather than understand. Although the shortcuts are primarily designed to assist us in transforming habits of the personality, the greatest value from any spiritual practice is how it enhances our collective mind and compassion for others, and ends up in service to the whole.

Readers can decide for themselves how they use the book: randomly, by practice subject, in sequential order, with friends or alone, daily, or as called to. The practices are rated according to their level of difficulty, but I'm sure each reader will uniquely determine this for herself; the greater challenge may be to freely give ourselves the gifts offered within the present. This is a delightful, practical, spiritual book and one that I intend to return to time and again.

Arjuna Ardagh is an international teacher, author of five books, and founder of the Living Essence Foundation dedicated to the awakening of consciousness in the context of ordinary life.

Review by Julie Clayton