Book Reviews

 You Don’t Have to Die to go to Heaven
by Derrick Sweet
Warwick Publishing Inc., 2004

This engaging title is one of several review submissions to Vitality, designed to foster getting in touch with non-tangible qualities. It is as though there is a groundswell afoot to wean us away from material preoccupations and modify our energies. Predictably this is not just about us as individuals but about how we relate to others. Becoming familiar with our higher self is very much part of Derrick Sweet’s plan.

Beliefs and expectations, crafted by our lower self squirrel minds, shape our points of view. The author helps us review attachment, fear, criticism, and judgment, some of the negative elements that have landed us in our present uncomfortable predicaments. Awareness, compassion, and gratitude are keys to turning this around.

Sweet is well able to undertake this philosophical journey. For years he worked as an investment broker, advising clients from Canada to Japan, Spain to Australia. His observation of the fast-paced life and stress-filled situations prompted him to “retire” at the age of 38. He decided to help people recover balance and perspective, gain inner peace, and live life to the fullest extent.

The heaven of which Sweet writes is not a geographical location but a state of mind. We reach it by dropping our self-defeating thoughts and habits, and adopting new attitudes. If our bodies are what we eat, our souls are what we have fed them by anticipating how life is “supposed” to unfold.

Sweet created the Healthy Wealthy and Wise corporation and moved into the woods of Ontario’s Kawartha Lakes district. Now he shares his insights on humankind’s age-old questions of being and of purpose. Participants from government, business and schools who have attended his programs report that he is an inspiring speaker.

He steers us away from the notion that we are all isolated beings. Too many of us are so busy that we have neither time nor energy to interact properly with other members of the human race.

You Don’t Have to Die to go to Heaven offers us new ways of being present. This means, among other things, bringing us to the concept of Now which is the only real place there is for any of us. Like it or not, the past is over. The future has not yet arrived.

Three practices enable us to make a spiritual shift in how we view the world and our place in it. These are meditation, silence, and going into nature. Sweet believes we need plenty of all three. This is what his Kawartha retreat is all about and why he fled the turmoil and clatter of a big city. The lakes and woods of the area serve as soul food to nourish one’s higher self now.

By becoming transformed, we slip more easily into a consistently positive mindset. We gain a heightened sense of interconnectedness and being one with all things. This also brings more compatible people and events into our lives. In changing, we shed the miasma (real or imagined) of poverty, ill health, and bad luck. At last we can turn our lives around and make room for abundance, a better career, and glowing good health.

Sweet confirms what many wise teachers have maintained: Mind is a powerful and precious tool. With it we can bring about a multitude of improvements into our lives and relieve stress. No longer need we let fears become self-fulfilling prophecies that gouge deep scars in our souls.

Visualization and affirmations conclude the book. We are encouraged to see, feel, and experience the new creations of our mind. The author also suggests that when we use affirmations they should be worded as if they were already true. This means a much deeper impression on the subconscious mind which drives our real thoughts, feelings, and actions.

You Don’t Have to Die to go to Heaven is rich in common sense and wise advice. Quotes from other centuries adorn the main text and support Sweet’s observations. Noted author Henry Miller just about says it all: “The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

Reviewed by Gerry Shepherd

 Letters from the Dhamma Brothers
by Jenny Phillips
Pariyatti Press, 2008

On the cover of the book Letters from the Dhamma Brothers by Jenny Phillips, there is a quote by American Congressman John Lewis: “No human being should be considered beyond the reach of redemption.” It is this conviction that inspired the book, which tells the gripping story of 36 high security prison inmates in Alabama whose lives were transformed through meditation.

When a Vipassana meditation course came to Donaldson Prison for the first time in 2002, 20 men participated. They were all criminals accustomed to a life of aggression and violence; many were serving life sentences. Critics immediately cast their doubts on this new form of therapy – the first of its kind in North America. Could inmates truly be rehabilitated through meditation? Would their transformations be genuine and long-lasting?

Donaldson prison is an overcrowded maximum-security penitentiary – the end of the line in Alabama’s correctional system, complete with high security towers, a double row of barbed wire and an electrical fence. In fact, many of its inmates will never see the light of day. The extended Vipassana retreat is an emotionally and physically demanding course of silent meditation lasting ten days. The rigorous routine begins with a wake up bell at 4 a.m. and ends with lights out at 9:30 p.m. According to the book’s author Jenny Phillips, the technique of Vipassana meditation is a simple, practical way to achieve real peace of mind and to lead a happy, useful life. Vipassana means “to see things as they really are” and is a logical process of mental purification through self-observation.

Phillips visited the Donaldson prison for the first time in 1999 and initiated the Vipassana program there. Over the years, the inmates involved in this program began sending her letters about their lives and their quest for inner peace. Those letters, published here, were also the inspiration for the award-winning documentary film The Dhamma Brothers, also produced and directed by Phillips. Phillips is currently a practising psychotherapist in Concord, Massachusets and has received over 200 letters.

These letters cast a light on the deepest thoughts and struggles of the inmates who participated in this voluntary meditation program. They called themselves “the Dhamma Brothers” because of the experience they shared. Dhamma is a word in Pali (Dharma in Sanskrit) which means the Way, the Truth, the Buddha's teachings. Pali was the language spoken by Gotama the Buddha.

This book is said to provide the reader with hope for the human race and shatter commonly held stereotypes about men behind bars. Its strong belief in the powerful effects of meditation has helped reshape the ideas of many citizens and opened the door to the possibility of a more humaine and effective rehabilitation for prisoners everywhere. It is a story of hope in the darkest of times and renewal in the deepest of cells. It is proof that transformation and enlightenment are not restricted to gardens and sun-lit rooms. Most of all, it is a testament to the human ability to grow, persevere, and change despite all odds.

Reviewed by Vanessa Rodriguez

vanessaruns.wordpress.com