Description
About the book
Dr Glenville Ashby’s Finding Mother: Lessons in Spirituality – East and West, is a refreshing work that delves into topical issues surrounding spirituality. Reincarnation, fire ceremonies, death meditation, sex, and spiritual healing, are just few of the intriguing subjects discussed. Moreover, Dr. Ashby explores the Goddess concept in eastern and western religious traditions and offers a series of exercises toward self-awareness. Using his background as an analytical therapist, the author examines the role of the subconscious and psychopathologies in our spiritual journey, and views the womb as representative of the Goddess to which we all connected on a psychic level.
The Goddess or the Universal Mother, according to the author, is the sin qua non for spiritual development. The author, given the name, Sri Gyananda by his guru, recaptures his childhood years as a devout Roman Catholic and the ineffaceable bond his mother shared with the Virgin Mary, whom he compares to the Mahavidyas (The Wisdom Goddesses). He draws on his comprehensive spiritual training emphasizing introspection and self-knowledge. He cautions against seeking siddhis (spiritual powers) and self-serving gurus who usurp the individuality and will of their sadhaks (students).
Finding Mother closes with the cursory look at St Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, and two in-depth sadhanas, one for Bhuvaneshwari, and the other for 4 goddesses: Saraswati, Lakshmi, Kali and Chamunda. If these are practiced in earnest, Finding Mother offers enlightenment, if not spiritual liberation.
About the author
Glenville Ashby (Sri Gyananda) is a graduate of the University of the West Indies, The London School of Journalism, The College of Media and Publishing (UK), and Euclid University (USA). He received his doctoral degree in Interfaith Dialogue and Diplomacy and postgraduate certifications in Psychoanalysis from the Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies (California) and the Society of Applied Psychoanalysis (France). Glenville is a certified hypnotherapist and a member of the International Federation of Hypnotists.
He studied at The Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, The Pontificia Academia Pro Vita, Vatican City, Rome, and St. Gall’s Seminary in Switzerland.
Glenville is a certified Kundalini Tantra Yoga teacher (Yoga Village, Rishikesh), and has completed several Mahavidya sadhanas,including Sri Vidya.
ShenWork International, his online holistic therapy school is accredited by IPHM, UK. Also, QiSynthesis, his in-person training system that combines qigong and psychology has been approved by the Australian-based Qigong Chinese Health Institute.
Glenville is a member of Oxford University Philosophy Society and the Canadian Bioethics Society.
Glenville has authored five books, including the critically acclaimed, The Believers: The Hidden World of West Indian Spiritualism in New York, the award-winning Anam Cara: Your Soul Friend and Bridge to Enlightenment and Creativity, The Mystical Qigong Handbook for Good Health, and Conflict of Identity: One Man’s Healing in Benin, Africa.
In 2012 he received an award for his contribution to philosophy from Plessey Academic in the UK. That year, Glenville was awarded a citation from the New York State Assembly for his contribution to culture. In 2017 he was the recipient of the IMD (International Men’s Day) award for his contribution to the arts.
Glenville resides in New York with his wife Deborah.
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