3 out of 4 stars
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The Unbound Soul by Richard Haight is a very relatable book in the beginning. I too have had the same idea about God for years before I met the love of my life who opened my eyes to a whole other God that I did not know that I could even fathom to know. Richard Haight opens up about his struggle early on in life, and the things that he learned about through his depression and suicidal thoughts. What he calls Isness is what I would call my God, but he does not call it God for his own reasons. Although he references the good parts of the Bible often to compare his Isness, but he compares it to other religions and faiths as well.
Haight goes on about his adventure into more understanding and consciousness, and the vigorous training that he goes through to achieve this understanding. It is hard to believe something that does not truly make sense to the reader, but I think that I can relate to it with my practice of yoga, meditation, and worshipping God together. My yoga practice helps me focus on the things my body can and cannot do, and the things that God has blessed me with. It lets me venture to a whole other feeling and understanding with this sort of practice.
What I do not particularly like about this book is that it feels like Haight is rambling on and on. He gives too many examples of what he is trying to explain to his audience, and I get that, but the reader is going to get quickly bored and want to move on or just quit reading the book entirely. I get that this is a new idea and you think you must give everything that you experienced and thought about through your process of understanding, but it needs to be simplified like we were new students in your class. And I get that this is already published, and this cannot do anything about it, you get my point. And as soon as I type that, I continue to read that I will have difficulty reading this book because of my consciousness interrupting and not wanting to interpret all of this information.
Haight wants us to be more conscious and aware of what we think, learn, and do everyday in our lives. Living day to day, we have to think about what we thought about that day. Was it all necessary? Or were our thoughts just filler? We think we must keep our brains active and moving all the time, but we can let our minds rest in a state of contentment. “As we tune ourselves to consciousness, we will find inspiration in our ‘ordinary’ lives because the ordinary becomes extraordinary when perceived through the light of Isness” (Chapter 16, Page 107).
Haight answers his question of “what are the essential teachings of Jesus, the bones of Christ?”, form his dream as a boy. His answer is the answer to all the things and different religions, beliefs and values in the world is that they all revolve around the same concept. I would rate this book as a 3 out of 4 because although it is very thought out and researched, I feel as if the book is too much for an introduction to his idea. I give it a three because the reader could easily get lost and off track and forget the point of the book while reading it. I know that I had to frequently remind myself the point of the book.
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The Unbound Soul
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