Never to Return: A Modern Quest For Eternal Truth
A Newly Updated Multimedia MemoirA newly updated multimedia version of Never to Return is now available to read and enjoy online, with graphics, video clips, and audio touches.
Never to Return was first published in 1998 by a small press that has since gone under, and received critical acclaim from reviewers including Publishers Weekly, which said, “In this spiritual memoir, Janis records her own encounter with Swami Muktananda and his teachings. Her narrative describes the altered states of consciousness she experienced in close proximity to her teacher. According to Janis, these states are constant reminders that the spiritual life is filled with surprises and unexpected moments of enlightenment. In a larger sense, this memoir is a dialogue between Indian spirituality and Western psychology. The question that Janis answers in her memoir is: "Can a westerner come to know Indian spirituality and flourish in its depths, even when it is alien to western ways of knowing?'" She answers with a resounding ‘yes.’”
New chapters detail my post-ashram years in Hollywood as an editor and producer for many television shows, including Hard Copy, Candid Camera, X-Men, and the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, and also share some opportunities I had to play a role in beginning or upleveling the careers of several successful celebrities including Simon Cowell, Charlie Rose, and Suze Orman. The new chapters also deal with some very challenging events that came during and after my years in Hollywood. So for those of you who wrote in to say that something seemed to be missing in the tale of my life (as did this review of the first edition in RALPH magazine), you'll find that the book is more complete now. My goal is to share the experiences that come to bless and challenge us in our journeys and explore how we can consider and respond to them from a spiritual perspective.
CLICK HERE to Read NEVER TO RETURN Online
Facebook Updates
I've recently joined Facebook and have found it to be a great place to post updates and links to special free offerings, including new audio files and additional excerpts to read from the book Spirituality For Dummies.
If you'd like to keep in touch with these ongoing additions, feel free to "friend" me on Facebook HERE.
Best wishes always,
Enjoy the Night Lotus Website of free multimedia spiritual resources
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September 2008
(View this newsletter online at http://www.spiritual-happiness.com/nlpnewsletter10.html)
Dear Friends,
Best wishes to you! It’s been a while since our last Night Lotus Newsletter – we've changed the way we send the newsletters, so please let me know if you have any problem reading the newsletter in this format. If so, you can always click the link above to access it on the web.
We have many new additions on our Night Lotus website of free multimedia spiritual resources. I'll share a few highlights here.
Peace Pilgrim on YouTube for Peace Day
In honor of the first annual Peace Day, September 21st, we’ve uploaded the entire 1-hour peace pilgrim documentary, “Peace Pilgrim: An American Sage Who Walked Her Talk” to YouTube
Back in 2001, I spent nearly a year scripting and editing this video as a labor of love from over 200 hours of footage, including interviews with friends and family members of Peace Pilgrim, along with Maya Angelou, Dalai Lama, Dan Millman, Dennis Weaver, and others. I was just completing this documenary when the events 9-11 took place. While watching the McCarthy events shown in some of the video’s newsreel footage, I had wondered how such things could have taken place in a moderrn, intelligent, society. Post 9-11, I received a demonstration of how quickly delusion can come upon a country after completing this video and finding that somehow the word “peace” had been redefined by many as showing a lack of patriotism, leaving even churches hesitant to show the video.
But of course, every message has its time, and the inspiring messages and examples of Peace Pilgrim are as relevant today as ever, perhaps more so. Within the few days since we uploaded the video, hundreds have come to view it, and we invite you to check it out on Peace Day or anytime.
CLICK HERE to play the Peace Pilgrim documentary on YouTube
The Chidakasha Gita of Bhagawan Nityananda in Streaming Audio
Bhagawan Nityananda was a highly regarded spiritual sage in India during the 20th century. He was also the guru of my guru, Baba Muktananda. Nityananda spoke little and lived a very simple life, blessing the many devotees who would travel through jungle terrain to get to the small town of Ganeshpuri, which is now a couple hours drive from Mumbai, India. Some of Nityananda's rare enlightened words were written down by a devotee during his informal talks, and have been arranged by my friend and scholar Swami Nirmalananda of Atma Jyoti Ashram into 61 topics. Swami Nirmalananda explains:
The Chidakasha Gita is a transcription of random teachings of Nityananda, given when he would walk unannounced into a house, sit down, and begin speaking. Though the devotees did the best they could, writing frantically in hope of keeping up with his words, the resulting records are often disjointed and sometimes make no sense since something is missing. This of course is a defect of the transcribers and not of Nityananda who was speaking spontaneously in spirit consciousness without interest in polished expression. Nevertheless, a devotee collected these fragments and had them printed under the title of Chidakasha Gita. They have been translated into several Indian languages as well as English.
The swami painstakingly organized these fragments into topics and was kind enough to allow me to record and make available all 61 topics that can be be played in audio right on the web page. Each topic begins with audio of Nityananda's voice speaking. These teachings are very powerful and wonderful -- certainly different from the usual spiritual self-help books of today's new age culture. The page also links to a You Tube video of the topic “Self-Knowledge” with photos of Nityananda.
CLICK HERE to go to the Chidakasha Gita Audio Page
