Get Essential with Roger Walsh

After publishing the Croatian edition of Roger Walsh's "Essential Spirituality", I decided to follow the advice from the book and started a course based on the book itself. The course lasts 8 months and it's called 7Days (from April to November '06). Each month there's a day-long workshop. First month an introductory seminar with an overview of the material, which, in this case, consists of the book itself plus essential aspects of the integral framework aka AQAL. Every following month is based on one of the seven practices presented in the book:

1. Transform your motivation
2. Cultivate emotional wisdom
3. Live ethically
4. Concentrate and calm your mind
5. Awaken your spiritual vision
6. Culitvate spiritual intelligence
7. Express spirit in action

After the workshop, participants are encouraged to follow through a month-long discipline of specific exercises, developing a real-feel for each one of the practices. This is a great platform for a post-traditional spiritual framework, and Roger Walsh does a great job in making the subject matter clear even for beginners, while giving examples from major traditions to show the common core at their heart. It has given me a way to reach people who are not necessarily interested in following a specific path at this point in their life, while also assisting those who are (e.g. practicing Buddhists) to verbalize their experience in more transparent terms.

By adding the components of integral perspective I have done my best to unpack a new definition of authentic spirituality for the 21st century. So far, it's an adventure and an enlightening exploration for all involved.