Spiritual Intelligence: Paths to Awakening

From the New York Times bestselling author of Emotional Intelligence comes a profound reckoning with what he has learned over five decades as an explorer of consciousness

We’re all familiar with the concept of mindfulness, and most of us know that it is a harvest from Eastern thought, translated into an American psychological idiom. Mindfulness practice has benefited countless people.

But mindfulness is only the surface level of contact with modes of mind that are deeper and more transcendent. In many schools and lineages of Buddhist thought, there is agreement on an upward path to a pinnacle widely known as awakening.

This is not a subject that one can come at straight. Daniel Goleman is not claiming to be awakened; to say that you are may mean you are not. But for more than five decades he has investigated the path to this ideal and the special people who bear the marks of a remarkable inner ascent. We meet some of them here.

Spiritual Intelligence beautifully blends a personal account of Goleman’s journey, with a reflection on the crux of what this seeker has come to believe about the stages on the path to awakening—what they may be and what they aren’t. What the extraordinary humans, stories, and ideas of this book make clear is that it is only when self-interest falls away and an ethical orientation toward kindness, equanimity, and selflessness is embraced that the path before you truly opens. Though the outcome is not guaranteed, the commitment itself makes all the difference.