Introduction
This book is the account of one person’s journey from a crisis of devastating emotional pain to an experience of profound joy and peace. It is about the discovery of those workable principles that, when applied, always permit a return to an experience of inner peace, love, and the pure joy of existence, despite the ups and downs of “real life.”
At first, I thought I should write this book without reference to my own experiences. It seemed too self-absorbed to talk about my life, and uncomfortably revealing. But as I reviewed what I had written without including the process that led to my realizations, it seemed that something important was missing.
It occurred to me that perhaps my own difficulties, and the solutions that had worked for me, might actually be the most useful thing I could write about. It seemed clear that they must be universal experiences that other people could relate to as well. Maybe describing what had gotten me out of my hole would help others out of theirs.
The book’s title—The Grand Illusion—is the phrase that occurred to me as I was trying to describe the mass of negative emotions, thoughts, and false beliefs that keep us from experiencing our natural state of love, compassion, kindness, joy, and connectedness to life.
This book is about the path away from this “Grand Illusion” of suffering, and into the light of joy and contentment. The path has been made accessible and understandable as 20 habits which when practiced in daily life will bring about spiritual transformation. This book is an introduction to the Spiritual Laws of the Universe, which exist, just as gravity a the speed of light do in the physical universe, without regard to our opinions or judgments. I invite you to test the workability of the principles in this book in your own life.