Coming to Life: Traveling the Spiritual Path in Everyday Life

On a trip to D.C. fifteen years ago I saw the book in one on these round book holders that you can spin around with 20 or more books on it and it stopped on this one, a spiritual book that that seemed interesting. I read it in two days and have it as my special book when I get lost in my world.I want to say that after this book " What more needs to be said" and I honestly feel like that. This mother of two boys has a grasp on the ungraspable spirit which is freeing with no " Must dos or go this way or that or you'll lose " If I had to take one book to an deserted island I'd take " How to build a boat " but if I could take two this one would be it.Everytime I lay it down I feel ok and supported in not knowing what I'm supposed to do. And that is freeing. It's a loving book with no sentimentality I guarantee you. Andy Waits

This is another of the books in my library that I find myself thinking about, and coming back to, regularly. It's just good writing, to begin with, and offers many evocative phrases to help readers name their everyday experiences of the sacred... "Universal firsthand realizations of Oneness" is just such a phrase, regularly confirmed in my daily rounds. A very wise book.

Berends speaks from experience, unlike many authors who just ruminate on the thoughts of others. She speaks of learning to float in Fundamental Mind, as she had learned in a college swimming class to float in water. Neither was easy for her, and she mastered both. She left this record of the process, and suggestions for those who wish to learn the same discipline. I read this book partway through a comparative religion Ph.D. program. Spending five years digging through the midden of human religion gives one a critical eye, and that eye tells me that Berends' book might endure. - Birrell Walsh