Introduction
BEGINNING THE RETREAT
Today I embark upon a journey unlike any I have taken before. It would be fair to say that I am somewhat experienced in spiritual matters, but this day marks a new chapter in my life, a daring departure from the adventures of my youth. It is only now, after long years of deep meditation, traveling to meet honored sages from distant lands, and after sharing my insights with thousands of thirsty aspirants, only now am I ready to enter this strange labyrinth. To have sought such high lessons before this may have led to my demise, for only now I am ready to sidestep the possible snares and temptations I am sure to encounter. Were I to have begun such a journey in my youth, there is no telling where it might have ended or what my fate would be. I am ready now, and so I step forward to begin my retreat, opening the door that leads to the hallowed hallways where my journey begins and ends - the mall.How did I end up here to begin with? Oakville Place, forty minutes outside of Toronto, seems a strange place to begin this odyssey. I am better known for my foreign travels to countries like Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo and Northern Ireland where I have promoted peace and sharpened my own spiritual methods and insights. I have written books on these great adventures, lectured around the world, and have performed my concerts in cathedrals and national theaters. I cannot decide if this new phase, the one that begins today, is a step forward or a step back. After all, I despise the mall... always have. I have gone to great lengths trying to avoid these walls and to dodge the effects of its seductive vapor. But also, it seems that I am no different than those who have gone before me, all the millions of shoppers who grace the corridors of malls such as this around the world. And it is precisely for this reason that I have decided to stay, for in the end this is how we prove ourselves. I must be willing, I have decided, to dive into the place where my resistance is highest, for it is here, on the branch furthest from the trunk of the tree, that the greatest lessons lie. Many years ago I heard this call. When I was eighteen, a month after I had graduated from high school, I determined to leave the world of common desires and enter a monastery. I had been raised according to a strict Irish code that decreed a single recourse for a child bent upon the spiritual realms I enjoyed-priesthood. To this day, my mother regrets the day that, a year and a half later, I left those sacred corridors, as if she had somehow failed her son, her family, and God. After all, a mother such as mine measures her worth by a standard that may seem strange and foreign to most... for in the end only one thing matters giving at least one son to the church. And yet the day I became a candidate in the order of Friars Minor is still etched in a favorable manner upon my brain. I remember opening those massive doors and being greeted by the other brothers. I remember rising early and joining the community for morning prayers and mass. And I recall how happy I felt to eat my meals in the penetrating silence of the monks' refectory, thinking that I had found my life, my purpose and the answers to every question I could ever have hoped to ask.
About The Book
In Ten Spiritual Lessons I Learned at the Mall, James Twyman takes a humorous and insightful journey through a place where few would ever go to attain enlightenment. He discovers that we can find ourselves anywhere, even in a place where we would rather not be... especially in such a place. You will be with him as he spends five days at a mall in Toronto, acting as if he was on a retreat in a monastery or an ashram, asking the big questions and finding some amazingly simple answers. This book will change the way you experience your ordinary environment. James F. Twymas, also known as the Peace Troubadour, is an internationally renowned author and musician who travels the world performing Peace Concerts in some of the areas of greatest violence and discord. His ministry is to help bring peace and harmony to all people through music and the growing number of his books.
Hindu (1765)
Philosophers (2327)
Aesthetics (317)
Comparative (66)
Dictionary (12)
Ethics (44)
Language (350)
Logic (80)
Mimamsa (58)
Nyaya (134)
Psychology (497)
Samkhya (60)
Shaivism (66)
Shankaracharya (233)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist