Publisher's Synopsis
An excerpt from the PREFACE:
THE chief purpose of "The Essential Mysticism" is to make clear to the lay mind some of the spiritual problems of humanity-to interpret to Americans the real value of that Oriental mysticism which has been so much despised-to set forth the mystery of the soul of man in terms not of psychology but of the daily life.
There are many books on religion and mysticism. Their names are legion. And yet I wonder if there is one of them which in completely simple, modern terms makes clear the value and importance of spirituality in the daily life of man?
For it seems so plain, so self evident a fact, that spirituality works, that it is not a thing apart from life but life itself and the only clue to this existence;-that could this idea be conveyed to the American business man, so searching for efficiency in life, he would never rest until he had acquired spirituality.
It were too bold, too ambitious an aim, to expect to accomplish so much of good in this modest volume. But may the writer dare to hope that it will set on fire in the minds of some of its readers a few trails of spiritual gunpowder, which may, ultimately, cause explosions within the domain of their inner self resulting in a larger, freer, more farseeing life?
To the writer, the spiritual life seems the only sane, reasonable development of man, the only life which expresses man's whole nature. That it may seem so to some who have never seen it so before, is the greatest wish and errand of this book.
