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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 100
EAN num: 9780738809113
ISBN number: 073880911X
Label: Xlibris Corporation
Manufacturer: Xlibris Corporation
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 536
Printing Date: May 15, 2000
Publishing house: Xlibris Corporation
Sale Popularity Level: 6722860
Studio: Xlibris Corporation
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
I guess I've always known that one day I would return to this place, after madness had healed, to look for the truth that had frightened the child.
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Rated by buyers -
At very first I found the title Apology: A New Age Meditation a bit off-putting. But the title brought back memories of college philosophy courses, and so I did some investigating.
The Greek word apologia means "speech before". In Plato's terms, "Apology" was an account of Socrates' defense before his fellow Athenians, and an examination of the value of philosophical examination.
In the same way, Robert Arias' Apology is an account of his own examination of the meaning of life and consciousness, and the very first steps in the search for "truth".
Written in the very first person, and chronicling Arias' passage through psychedelic drugs, comparative religious thought, and meditation, the book is a series of richly interwoven narratives. Conversations held in the past weave threads similar to those held in the present, and at each moment the fullness of truth is but a hair's-breadth away.
I was particularly impressed with the detail and clarity with which Arias' psychedelic trips are described. Few people would endeavor such a description. Fewer would do it well. Arias' trips leave the experienced reader with a "morning-after", kinesthetic remembrance, and the inexperienced reader with a small taste of the pleasure and danger of psychotropic investigation.
The novel moves like a Socratic cyclone, tearing down dogma and doctrine, leaving nothing but emptiness and uncertainty in its wake. And yet, in that emptiness and uncertainty lives a hope and possibility that can not be expressed in words.
Rated by buyers -
I imagine this book bouncing around the traditional publishing circles for years, no doubt garnering interest, though invariably meeting with rejection. That is the only way I can fathom a work of this caliber coming to market through a POD publisher. For this is a unusual book that defies simple description and categorization. Nonetheless, Apology is an extraordinary achievement, as both literary art and philosophical meditation. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the authentic mystical experience.
Apology requires multiple readings to be fully appreciated. This is not to say that the writing itself is difficult to manage. Its beautiful composition serves a touching personal story that is by turns sad, funny, terrifying and ecstatic. The writing is elegant in an almost symphonic sense, the thematic elements layering and intertwining as the story methodically builds toward its magnificent climax. But the true complexity of the arrangement is only more deeply illuminated by subsequent readings.
The cultural landmarks, sacred and secular, noted along the story's journey are familiar to most of us. But here we find them transfigured by the blazing light of ... well, of something ultimately inexplicable. Apology is the uncompromised record of one person's life-altering encounter with Transcendence, offered up in all its gritty psychological detail.
Rated by buyers -
...brings him to a place where the treasures are in the Here and the Now. "Every story must have a beginning." Rob asserts in both the beginning and the end of this novel. As if he is still being renewed, still being born. And the reader is exposed to his many, many revelations on the way to that final page.
His soul aches for answers to the question of why...? When he brother dies, why? When his mother does not understand or relate to him anymore, why? When his pal Jake or his girlfriend must move on, why? Why does living have to be so confusing, and so painful? And if God is such a good God, why has he allowed so much suffering in my life and others? And so he gleans from the masters of eastern and western religions, numbs and sucuumbs to maddness, wild pharmaceticals and hallucinogens and to Moebius strip like electron micrographs. To endeavor to get the answers, to help himself deal with the pain. He has heady discussions like of the way of Jesus, original sin and the how to of Meditation. It all makes for a compelling read. The casual reader, however, may find his consumption of cigarettes all through out his various travels and reinventions quite paradoxical, but, like he puts it, tabacco is good for brooding intellectual types.
My opinion? It is a well-written How-To disguised as a bio. But the reader does not really have to do what he has done to come to the same answers. Rob serves as, like, the ultimate test subject in a self imposed set of clinical/spiritual trials. As a scientist--he is a neurophysiologist--he just may have come upon just what us neo-millenium searchers may require. A proxy for the spiritual realms. Not too unlike...?
Rated by buyers -
This book is great, it has been extremely hard for me to boil down my thoughts about this book and about where it took me in religious thought, down familiar roads, but further down those roads than I have been before. It compares with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?
The author's description of the use of psychedelic drugs as a lens resonates with my own experiences. The drug elements of the book are interesting and important because of the paranoia that they precipitated and the centrality of the ensuing madness to the story. But the drug element is ultimately incidental to the major themes of the book. What struck me repeatedly while reading was that I learned so much from the book's perspective of the big issues? reality, family, friends, religion, love.
I've tried to come up with some brief blurbs about the book that would draw in other readers. Such as: Few books have been written with the power to enrich one's thoughts about religion, love, relationships, and the nature of reality. This is one of them.? Or: this extraordinary author is able to drop all walls of privacy and allow perfect strangers into his soul's view of the BIG questions: How do we help family and friends? What is real.? Are the central truths of all religions the same? His depth of feeling and vision will help many to arrive at new insights.But I fall far short of doing this book the justice it deserves.
If you like feeling that you've grown from reading a book, Apology by Rob Arias is a good choice.
Rated by buyers -
Having recently experienced the death of my father, I found this book to me most enlightening. Its gives me hope, and helped me accept my despair. Mr. Arias simply stated is a genus.
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