Radical Wholeness: The Embodied Present and the Ordinary Grace of Being Kindle Edition

Essential read. Loved this entire book, especially the sections on redefining intelligence. I never write reviews but since I believe every human should read this book I want to help spread the word by contributing to its rating. I’ve never done that before and I am an avid Amazon book purchaser/reader. This one gets my highest recommendation!

It isn't too hard to find books about being more present or checking in with our feelings, but this book presents a 'radical' understanding that if we are living entirely in our heads (which is the dominant viewpoint and experience of our culture) then even well-meaning approaches like these are still a bit misguided, with our heads still directing and controlling the experience. The book argues clearly and convincingly that a different approach is needed for us to heal ourselves and our world, and includes exercises at the end to help us start to have a different experience of ourselves. As someone with years of research and experience with various mindfulness and mind/body practices, I found this book profound and powerful!

This book, or shall I say the way this book speaks a truth that brings me to tears at times, is deeply impactful. Philip is such a wordsmith and somehow finds a way to describe what our english language doesn't have much vocabulary for. I was moved to take some training with Philip and in doing so experienced real ways to feel the embodied present - the grounding, clarity and wild peace that comes with it. it is challenging to live in that connected state (which at one time was natural to us) due to our frantic way of living, yet every moment that I practice brings me closer to feeling more connection, more compassion for myself and others, for out planet, and feeling of inter-relationship will all. The most important book I have read in a long time. I will read it again...

The book was a pleasure to read and offered many insights.

What an excellent book. I've had the pleasure of meeting Philip and hearing his story. The book and Philip's work help me to understand what it feels like to show up. By slowing down and reading and completing some of his exercises, the knowledge that the body holds but is forgotten is unreal and amazing. I love the work and will continue to see Philip where possible. Thanks for commiting some years to this wonderful project!

A must-read, must-feel book.

Fans of Philip Shepherd will love this book. Buy it and read no further. His writing and his thinking have clearly reached a level of clarity few of us will ever attain. As the title suggests, however, his model of being and the universe is radical, to say the least. That doesn’t make it wrong, of course, and I think much of his thinking is spot on. I do have to wonder, however, how many of his most ardent supporters accept and live by his model with the level of surrender advocated here.It is, without a doubt, one of the most intriguing books I have read this year. By the time I finished I had highlighted far more passages than I would normally highlight in a dozen books. The content is raw and rich and extremely well thought out and presented. Really well done.To understand the “radical wholeness” concept you must have the context. And even though Shepherd is an articulate and efficient writer it took him almost 300 pages to lay it out. I couldn’t do it justice here and won’t try. The author deserves your effort.To give you just the whiff of a flavor, however, he argues that Western culture has become completely head-centric in its worldview, distorting our understanding of the world in a direction that is male-dominant, segmented, obsessed with control, and far too pre-occupied with abstract reasoning and the accumulation of knowledge and data. We have, as a result, created a culture built on boundaries, analytics, the supremacy of mechanics, domination, and acquisition in which we are disconnected from our female selves, where connection is achieved, understanding is felt, and self-knowledge is realized and retained through attunement and the achievement of harmony. (Again, take my summary as a clumsy and infantile attempt to express what you must really read in its entirety to understand.)He makes a very convincing case, which I admit I was predisposed to embrace, that “science cannot save us,” we are generally not attuned to each other or the world around us, the universe is not knowable in any entirely objective way that we currently comprehend, the self and the universe are living processes rather than things, the human conscious is not mechanical, and that there is some binding element to the universe that gives it a kind of consciousness and intelligence but which we don’t currently understand and have no language to express.Science can’t save us, in Shepherd’s view, because the knowledge it provides only reinforces the myth that “humankind is evolution’s crowning achievement and was born to rule the earth and command nature—and that the role of science is to provide us the means of fulfilling that destiny,” through knowledge that is not self-knowledge.In the end, however, I found Shepherd’s expression of his model to be challenging, if not problematic. He maintains that there are many centers of intelligence in the body, but that the two main ones are the brain, where the analytical male resides, and the pelvic bowl, centered by the perineum, where the feeling female resides.It is in the pelvic bowl, moreover, where awareness, through surrender, finds and experiences wholeness. “Bringing the center of your awareness to rest on the perineum carries it into the realm of your consciousness that feels wholeness.”In the beginning, Shepherd quotes Dr. Jonas Salk. “What people think of as a moment of discovery is really the discovery of a question.” And I believe that is true. There is nothing that is dividing Western society today more than our sense of false certainty. And much of this has to do with what biologist Rupert Sheldrake describes as “the science delusion”; that reality is a giant machine that we can understand and manipulate through scientific discovery.The world is not discrete or static, in my experience. Self, I genuinely believe, knows no boundaries and that it is our attempt to divide, control, and manipulate the self that is at the heart of our current alienation, disillusion, and rancor, documented quite fully by the daily news.I further accept that everything is inter-connected, as the Buddhists have long maintained. I stop short of accepting, however, that “the universe is observing us,” that “The energy of the world flows through your senses, nourishing your being,” or “By flowing through your senses, the world’s energy enables you to experience its reality,” in any literal sense.In the end, Shepherd relies heavily on etymology to make his case, but even that ultimately fails him. As he points out, English just wasn’t designed to support his worldview. This is, as a result, not a book to skim and you will have to slog through the terminology with patience and an open mind.Because Shepherd is offering us a worldview, there is, by necessity, a political agenda. And it is decidedly progressive. And you might be inclined to conclude at times that he puts aboriginal and Eastern culture on a pedestal. I honestly believe, however, that he is not denigrating Western culture so much as he is offering an alternative perspective (although he dislikes that term).So, should you read this book if you haven’t attended one of his workshops or read one of his prior books? Why not? It is decidedly out of the mainstream but I think it is intellectually sincere and it is certainly well researched and coherently presented.He didn’t quite get me over the goal line, pelvic bowl-insensitive as I undoubtedly am, but I do believe the time and money I invested in the book was well spent. He certainly made me think, and that’s why I read.

I was stunned by the power and beauty of Philip Shepherd's first book 'New Self, New World', so was looking forward to his new one. It did not disappoint. 'Radical Wholeness' is an elegant and clear unearthing of 'what the hell is going on' with our abstraction of reality and narrowing of our already limited sensing abilities. I read this as I was recovering from the flu and it was such a great opportunity to come back to health with the book deconstructing our culture and putting it back together. We will all eventually need this kind of world view to heal our societies seduction away from our natural state of being. So, highly recommend. It's good to have a primer for what's next.