When I was in my 20s, a friend/mentor told me that all addictions are pale substitutes for a sense of the sacred. There is some overlap in this perspective from 20+ years ago and Jeff Foster's perspective that we are all addicts in that we are seeking ways to numb ourselves from pain, from anger, from ourselves being present to our feelings in the present moment.
Sounds True has published Foster's newest book, The Deepest Acceptance: Radical Awakening in Ordinary Life.
ADDICTION: A Spiritual Search? - Jeff Foster
Jeff Foster offers an alternative perspective on addiction. He suggests that all human beings are 'addicts' to some extent - we are all trying to escape or distract ourselves from the present moment in various ways - through drugs, through shopping, through alcohol, through work, even through spirituality - seeking contentment outside of ourselves, seeking wholeness in the future. What goes to the core of all our addictions is our addiction to "me", our misidentification as a separate wave in the vast ocean of life, and the ensuing search for That which we already are. Addiction is a war with the present moment, and discovering deep acceptance - the acceptance that you are in your essence - is where this war can end. We simply stop seeking contentment outside of ourselves.... Jeff's new book The Deepest Acceptance: Radical Awakening in Ordinary Life is published by Sounds True.
For more:http://www.lifewithoutacentre.comHere is the publisher's information about the book (from Amazon.com):
How can we bring an effortless yes to this moment? How do we stop running from "the mess of life"-our predicaments, our frustrations, even our search for liberation-and start flowing with all of it?
In small venues throughout the UK and Europe, a young teacher named Jeff Foster is quietly awakening a new generation of spiritual inquirers to the experience of abiding presence and peace in our ever-shifting world. His informal gatherings, blogs, and "kitchen-table video posts" have created a rising tide of interest in his teachings.
With The Deepest Acceptance, Jeff Foster invites us to discover the ocean of who we are: an awareness that has already allowed every wave of emotion and experience to arrive.
While Jeff delightfully admits the irony of writing a book to convey something that is beyond words to teach, here he confirms his ability to guide us in unexpected new ways to a space of absolute acceptance and joy, no matter what's happening in our lives.
Candid, thoughtful, humorous-and deeply compassionate toward those searching for a way out of suffering-this refreshing new luminary inspires us to stop trying to "do" acceptance . and start falling in love with "what has already been allowed."
Jeff Foster writes and speaks from his own awakened experience to help show the way out of seeking fulfillment in the future and into the acceptance of "all this, here and now." He studied astrophysics at Cambridge University. Following a period of depression and physical illness, he embarked on an intensive spiritual search that came to an end with the discovery that life itself was what he had always been seeking.
"Just as the ocean accepts every wave, so too has our awareness already allowed and accepted what is here."-Jeff Foster
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