3 out of 4 stars
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Richard L. Haight’s spiritual self-help book, The Unbound Soul , is an interesting foray into introspection, identification, and the fallibility of the human mind. I think the author would dislike a classification of philosophy or religion associated with this book, but in truth, the spirituality spans both without giving in to either label. At its core, we are exploring the mind, the heart, and the soul of man.
The book is organized into four parts. Part One, a memoir, takes us through the experiences of Richard’s own spiritual path from rural California to a vision quest, a psychotropic vision in the Amazon, studying martial arts in Japan, and many anecdotes from his life in between. He details his journey from hopelessness and despair to a teacher full of love and harmony. While Part One follows the author’s personal path of discovery, Part Two lays out more of the structure, principles, and application of his spiritual awakening. Part Three explores advice on keeping a healthy body and mind, and Part Four delves more deeply into the spirit and the soul.
Meditation techniques are difficult to teach via text, but the instruction in the book is clear, succinct, and easy to understand. This book makes it easy to put into practice and experiment with the ideas advocated, and there are a lot of great words to live by sprinkled throughout.
A major theme of this book deals with how we label ourselves, and the author tackles that concept even more broadly by using nontraditional words and definitions throughout the book. While I wasn’t bothered by new words or definitions, I felt that his delivery was a bit preemptively defensive. The way that he parried imaginary attacks on his writing made me more leery and annoyed than anything he had to say on its own. The approach came off as extremely condescending and unnecessary to me.
Similarly, the author seems to have written the autobiographical portions of the book as if no one would ever believe him. I myself found him to be quite genuine, but I was continually put off by the way he tells stories. I am sure the contents of his experiences are trustworthy, but they are written as if they are supposed to be mistrusted, and that was extremely frustrating for me. It felt like I was reading an entire book of normal, substantive content that had been packaged as clickbait.“I understand that you might not appreciate this word initially. Once you have had a true Isness inspirience, though, I suspect its value will be clearer,”
Another problem I had with his re-labeling of belief systems was that it introduced an unintentional level of non-transparency. In order to escape preconceptions, I’m sure, the author took many ideas and principles from existing religions and renamed them for his own purposes without ever explaining where those ideas came from. He will begin to explain a Buddhist, Taoist, or other religious concepts, give them different names, and not fully explain its context or import. He does this to break out of predefined thoughts and beliefs, but I found myself quite annoyed at the resultant subterfuge and potential confusion even though I genuinely believe this was an unintentional consequence rather than a nefarious ploy.“What happened next absolutely astounded all of the observers.”
The author also makes many assertions throughout the book without giving any reasons or sources. He will make factually worded statements based on his own opinions without anything to explain or back it up. This made the book a very difficult read for me. He did, however, give a warning at the beginning of the book that if you feel irritated or frustrated at anything you read, it is better to pause and come back later with a clearer perspective. I followed this advice, and it really made a world of difference. It also made this an incredibly long read in my case, but I would definitely recommend taking this suggestion. This book is one man’s ideas on spirituality, and he is unconcerned with the academic realm. This book doesn’t care about facts, figures, or logical reasoning. The author is quite upfront about that stance and had I understood and accepted it sooner, I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed the book much more.
I feel like the author included some potentially extremely dangerous views on abuse, and that part was the hardest for me to read. He doesn’t exactly blame people for being abused, but he says that everyone can prevent it and hints that you’re weaker if you are abused, although he magnanimously doesn’t judge you for it because maybe you needed to be abused to become a better person.
Putting my own opinions aside as advocated in the text, this book actually has a lot of great content and provides a lot of positive thoughts, ideas, and practices. The main concept that stuck with me was the idea that rather than adding things to yourself to find peace, you should simply get rid of all the things that you are not. We carry around a lot of excess opinions, experiences, and perceptions that hold us back from being our truest selves and finding peace. Meditation for me has always been about actively existing without judgment, and this book offers new approaches to that universal concept.
I would recommend this book to open-minded people who are honestly interested in a broadened perspective of spirituality and the soul. It has some sticky religious implications, and if you are a person who gets offended by other beliefs or religious assertions, I would skip this book. If you are interested in academia, this will probably be an extremely frustrating read, but worth the effort if you persevere and distance your own perspective. I’d also include a slight warning for referencing thoughts and plans of suicide. He doesn’t include anything graphic, but he is quite honest about his struggles and the book doesn’t include any warnings. He also makes an instantaneous and miraculous recovery that is not feasible for everyone with clinical depression. If this is something you struggle with, I’d skip the third chapter.
The book was extremely well edited, as I only found a few very minor typos that did not interfere with my reading at all. The writing style was not my cup of tea, but it was grammatically sound.
I gave this book a rating of 3 out of 4 stars because it is an interesting book and had valuable things to say concerning spiritual awakening. It was a very challenging read for me because of the condescending and non-intellectual way it was written, but putting my pride and my preferences aside, the content was good. It annoyed me on almost every level, but I think that anyone who can get through it will find themselves enlightened and with plenty to think about whether they agree with the author on everything, nothing, or any percentage in between.
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The Unbound Soul
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