Making Your Wisdom Come Alive
A Guide to the Source of Your Wisdom and Joy
by
Michael Gluckman
Copyright 2011 Michael Gluckman,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0099-0
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book was published with the help of a generous grant given in memory of Florence Levenson.
Ramana Maharshi
When the mind unceasingly investigates its own nature, it transpires that there is no such thing as the mind. This is the direct path for all.
Ramana Maharshi
The Essential Teachings Of Ramana Maharshi
Edited by Matthew Greenblatt
© Sri Ramanasramam and Inner Directions Publishing
A Note of Thanks
Although I enjoyed writing this book, I needed help from many sources.
I would like to thank all of my teachers for their knowledge and wisdom, which they so generously imparted to me.
There are many people who gave me comments and feedback. I would like to thank all of them.
I would especially like to thank Cathy Weiss-Boucher and my wife Brigit Ananya for their inspiration as well as their patient and thorough proofreading of this book.
I would also like to thank George Fine and Christopher Bowman for their careful proofreading, and for their help in pointing out thoughts that I just left hanging in mid air, so that I could clarify them.
As for the second edition, I would like to thank Robert Flanagan for his expert eye and help designing the book, and Brigit Ananya, who edited it and took charge of proofreading and organizing the styles. She also helped to clarify my presentation as I polished this book.
I hope that this work will inspire many people to deepen their meditation practice and obtain the highest state of freedom.
Foreword by Kevin Loucks
The Title of This Book Says it All
I’ve wanted to write a review of this book since I first read it more than a month ago, but I had so many thoughts in my head that I really didn’t know where to start. Finally, I realized that what I had to say was really very simple, and the title to this book says it all.
Michael Gluckman has a wonderful writing style that allows him to explain complicated ideas in a very accessible, conversational fashion. For me, however, the best part is that his premises are demonstrable through personal experience. Yes, that’s right, you can prove the truth of his assertions with the benefit of your own experience.
I personally came upon “Making Your Wisdom Come Alive” after many years of reading, studying and rereading other books, from the Bhagavad Gita to the Tao Te Ching, and many others. I understood and enjoyed on an intellectual level the things that were being said, but I always had trouble bridging the gap between my intellect and my experience. Finally, there came a point in time when I needed to experience what I was reading about first hand, but I wasn’t really sure how to do that. Michael Gluckman, and “Making Your Wisdom Come Alive” helped to start me on my way.
In the past month, since I first read Michael’s book, I have begun to see progress in applying the reality that I had been studying from a dry, scholarly perspective for so many years. This is a journey that requires patience, and attention to detail, but with Michael’s help, I am on my way.
In the meantime, the texts that I have been reading for all these years have “come alive” in new and wonderful ways, and I am seeing things all around me that I never noticed or appreciated. Also, my behavior is better generally, and the little silly things that I used to waste too much time worrying about are not so important any more.
Needless to say, all of this is not bad for the price of one small book....
I highly recommend “Making Your Wisdom Come Alive” because, as I said in the title to this review, the title of this book says it all. Michael Gluckman’s book does make your wisdom come alive, and much, much more.
Introduction
Sitting here in my chair in my little study off the main room of my house, I am thinking about what I would like to pass on to you from my meditation practice.
For the past 40 years I have been on the path of meditation. But this is a unique meditation. It unveils the deepest secret of the universe, a secret so simple that people just overlook it. A secret that not only takes you to the core of your own being, but to the very core of the universe itself, and once you discover it, you experience it directly; where you get the feeling that you knew this all the time.
In this book I am going to pass on the secret of standing as Wisdom and Happiness. The depth of this wisdom constantly amazes me. It’s no exaggeration to say that when you know this, it is like knowing what everything is.
If you wanted to take a guess as to where this secret lies, here is a hint. If you were God and wanted to put Wisdom and Happiness in the world, where would you put it? Now I know that like God you are a compassionate being, and since you are compassionate, you would put it where the maximum number of people could experience it — where it wouldn’t matter if they were rich or poor, young or old, sick or well, or Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian or Jew. That no matter what difference seems to distinguish people, they could still be happy and at peace. Maybe the same place that you would put this Wisdom and Happiness is the place where God put it.
However, if I were to tell you that you could stand as the source of Wisdom and Bliss, could you believe me? How would you know that this book is not written from a figment of my imagination? How would you know that it comes from real experience accessible to anyone?
I would like to propose three tests to show the validity of the knowledge contained within this book:
First, is what I am saying reasonable? Does it make sense or is it some mystical mumbo jumbo that is incomprehensible? After reading this book, I think you will see that the sages of old actually wanted you to understand what they were saying. You’ll see that spirituality and reason are not opposites.
Second, can you experience this? If you can’t experience what I say, what good is it?
Third, am I the only one to experience and write about this, or has this knowledge been passed down throughout the ages?
If while reading this book you find that it passes these three tests, I would encourage you to open your mind. Perhaps here, in this little book, you can discover the secret teachings, passed down from antiquity, that when discovered have made many people exceedingly joyful.
Preface to the Second Edition
This book is written in two parts. Step by step, the first part starts with what you experience right now, and from there points you to the source of wisdom and bliss in the last place you would expect. To help understand the process of waking up, please read this part in the order that it’s written.
After you open your eyes to this blissful freedom, in the second part, we allow many different masters from different cultures