Dear Friends,
I hope you’re enjoying the summer. Now the activity surrounding the publication The Calm Center has faded away, and now that things are quiet at my university, I’ve been
focusing on my new book, The Leap. I’ve been writing it for three weeks or so now, and completed the introduction and first three chapters. Some people find writing books onerous, but I absolutely love it - I love the way the book seems to have a life of its own and seems to piece itself together as I write. I love the way that new ideas emerge as I’m writing. Obviously I have a fairly good idea of what the whole book is about - I like to have a rough plan of every chapter - but it
always emerges in a very different form to how I envisaged it.
I’ve said in the introduction that The Leap is a sequel - although unusual in that it’s a sequel to two books, both The Fall and Waking From Sleep. It’s a study of the state of spiritual wakefulness, or enlightenment, summarising all the research I’ve done over the last few years (including my PhD), as well as my investigations of spiritual
traditions and my own experience of awakening. Whereas Waking From Sleep was study of temporary awakening experiences, The Leap is a study of permanent, ongoing wakefulness. And it relates to The Fall in the sense that it’s a study of the collective awakening the human race may be undergoing, a transcendence of the narrow ego-centered consciousness which we developed through the psychological shift I called ‘the fall.’
It also feels great to be writing the book because it’s been inside me for so long. In fact, I remember putting the idea of the book to publisher Hay House back in 2008. So it feels a bit like a catharsis, or a kind of birth process, a release or offloading….
Two weeks ago, I did a talk/reading based on The Calm Center at Alternatives in London, at St. James’ Church in Piccadilly. It was a great
experience. The church is one of the most beautiful buildings in London, and there was a wonderful atmosphere, with around 200 people present. The pieces I read - and the meditative exercises I read - had a powerful effect on the audience, and there was a profound sense of stillness and spaciousness. I had so many positive comments afterwards, and it made me realise that my poems/reflections are more effective when read aloud. This has made me keen to release an audio book of The Calm
Center, which I will hopefully be recording next month. I’m hopeful that Eckhart Tolle will record his foreword too, and perhaps a couple of the pieces, but haven’t heard back from him yet.
Here’s a photo from my talk (I showed it to my mother and she said, “Oh Steven, why didn’t you tuck your shirt in?”)
