By Lalia Wilson
Books: Instructions for Spiritual Living by Paul Brunton and Spirituality for Everyone: Based on the 2nd Edition of Spirituality for Dummies by Sharon Janis
I received a review copy of Paul Brunton’s Instructions for Spiritual Living and had some problems getting into the book. Thus I bought an entirely different book, Sharon Janis’s Spirituality for Everyone, which covers the same subject in an entirely different way.
First, Paul Brunton (1898-1981) was an English writer on Yoga and esoteric subjects. The first copyright date on Instructions for Spiritual Living is 1984, three years after his death. The chapters of this book are independent talks given by Brunton. The cohesion and clear progression through this book is opaque.
To contrast, Sharon Kumuda Janis is a living person, born in 1959, female and of a different generation than Brunton. Janis’s book follows the Dummies organizational style with clear and obvious paths through the information conveyed.
It would be inaccurate for those seeking spiritual enlightenment to say that Brunton’s wordy treatise is superior to Janis’s clear discourse. Both cover the same territory. Readers will differ in which style they prefer. Both books purport to give the reader a leg up on finding enlightenment within their lifetimes. Both authors have respectable credentials to source this material. Was Paul Brunton an enlightened being? Is Sharon Janis? I’m not sure that anyone can discern enlightenment from reading a book written by a person. And most of us would not be able to so determine if we were in the presence of the person. But each individual may be enlightened. Both show knowledge of the path to enlightenment. Both will assist the diligent seeker to find his or her way.
Spirituality for Everyone: Based on the 2nd Edition of Spirituality for Dummies by Sharon Janis, 374 pages, Night Lotus Books (2018).
Instructions for Spiritual Living by Paul Brunton, 256 pages, published by Inner Traditions, copyright 1984, 1985, 2019.