A Religion of One's Own: A Guide to Creating a Personal Spirituality in a Secular World
Written by Thomas Moore
Narrated by Donald Corren
4/5
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About this audiobook
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore is the author of the bestselling Care of the Soul and twenty other books on spirituality and depth psychology that have been translated into thirty languages. He has been practicing depth psychotherapy for thirty-five years. He lectures and gives workshops in several countries on depth spirituality, soulful medicine, and psychotherapy. He has been a monk and a university professor, and is a consultant for organizations and spiritual leaders. He has often been on television and radio, most recently on Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday.
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Reviews for A Religion of One's Own
42 ratings13 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Spirituality is personal, chosen, not imposed or dictated...
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved this book! I am a survivor of colonization. I visited and shared with many different churches and belief systems in my search for connection to the numinous. At this point in time I have found the best way to connect is not through a middle-man, but directly, through our own experience. This book was very supportive in this sense. I recommend it to anyone who may be looking for a home-made spirituality that fills the spirit and feels authentic.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Thomas Moore inspires readers to create their own unique spiritual practices. He recognizes a need for spirituality butnot necessarily "religion" in the sense of a set of rules and dire consequences of not following those rules. Moore encourages the use of journaling, art, meditation and study. I found this book to be informative but repetitive. Moore is atrustworthy and reliable teacher having spent years as a monk before leaving the monastery to marry and become a practicing psychotherapist. It is a worth while read for those who are discouraged by organized religion but feel the call to find a spiritual practice that restores and sustains them.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In this book, Thomas Moore advocates going beyond what he sees as the inflexible path of formal religion and finding what is deeply meaningful to you. One of his basic premises is that one needs to grow beyond the idea of religion as 'truth etched in granite'. In this, he is the epitome of post-Christian spirituality.The linguistic root of the word religion means to bind together the body, soul, and mind. This can occur whenever one is deeply engrossed in one's passion, whether one believes in a God or not. He uses the example of an atheist pianist deeply engrossed in his music as an example of non-theist religion.He does believe that religion can be found in the formal paths of various forms of belief. He believes that established religions offer beauty and wisdom and whatever parts of them that speak deeply to you should be practiced. An interesting point to me was that he feels that the beauty of a formal religion is found only in its practice and can not be grasped by merely reading or talking about it.From the book: “So what are our choices? One option is to stay with the shallow religion of the materialist sciences and another to go back to the formal religion that so many have abandoned. We could also make do with some vague and bland option of spirituality. I opt for religion rather than secularism, but I think we need a religion that comes out of our hearts and mind and is tailor-made to our own values and sensitivities. This new approach looks to formal religions for insight, but it takes root and flourishes in an individual life.When I speak of a religion of ones own, I'm not talking about a selfish, ego-centered loosely patched together spiritual concoction. I'm recommending a courageous, deep-seated fate-driven, informed and intelligent life that has sublime and transcendent dimension”.There is lots of food for thought in this one. Its opposition to finding absolute truth in any religion will not make many adherents of a specific religion happy, but it's recommended for those who have left traditional paths and are seeking a deeper way of being in the world.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What I appreciate most about A Religion of One's Own is that it shows how one can meld traditional religion, spiritual intuition, and personal discipline into a deep and meaningful practice without it being kooky. Unlike so many new age forms of spiritualism, Moore's approach also requires something deep of the participant - in mind and in action. I'm still figuring out where to take it from here, but that's really the point.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5"A Religion of One’s Own" is a confusing book. While its stated purpose is to guide readers in “creating a personal spirituality in a secular world,” I found it to be more of a manual for self-analysis and self-therapy. It is composed of the typically eclectic “cherry-pick your beliefs” advice that seems to dominate modern spiritual guidebooks.While there is much to agree with in Thomas Moore’s rejection of legalism and his encouragement to find the sacred in everyday life, his methods are unsettling—and sometimes utterly antithetical to orthodox theological practice. Encouraging people to decorate their homes with shrines containing images of random gods is … unsettling, to say the least.But it was a footnote that put the capstone on my concerns about this book: “… I see no evidence that Jesus ever intended to create a formal religion and that he wasn’t talking about the afterlife or another life. He was teaching how to live at a higher level in this life.” (page 173) Any half-trained Christian apologist or theologian could poke dozens of holes in this conclusion, with multiple quotes from the gospels to prove the point. Characterizing Christianity as a “members-only religion” and saying that crucifixion art leads us to “think too much about the person Jesus” is both wrong and heretical in the extreme.While there is much to be praised in a book that encourages people to explore their religious beliefs, test them, and be willing to learn from the traditions of others — to allow art, music, and historic artifacts to speak to our souls —these are good things. What is not good is to encourage people to turn God into a sort of self-serve delicatessen from which one picks the rituals, observances, and concepts that one likes and feels comfortable with from all of the religious and pagan traditions of the centuries, while leaving the rest on the counter. Many of the sacred writings of various traditions condemn this sort of practice, notably the condemnatory statement in the book of Judges (from the Jewish and Christian traditions), which states that at the end of the period of the judges, there was no king in Israel, so everyone did what he or she thought was right. (Judges 21:25) It is also interesting to note that in the same traditions, it was when men chose to worship God in their own way that they got in trouble. (See Numbers 10:1–2, Genesis 4:3–7.)I agree with Moore that we should focus our religious efforts more on the pleasure of relationship with God than on the pain of wrongdoing, that the common religious pattern of “rules, punishment, fear, submission, authority, and male dominance” is an unfortunate devolution from the religion of love, peace, compassion, and mutual respect taught by Jesus and other religious figures. But I do not agree with his methods for abandoning the old traditions and creating new ones.In the end, Moore speaks like Pilate at the trial of Jesus, “I recommend giving up the word ‘truth’ altogether. It only gets you in trouble. I would suggest that the precise opposite is is true. While we ought not fight about the truth (as Longfellow said, “Who dares to say that he alone has found the truth?”), I submit that it is crucial that we recognize that there is truth, it is not relative or subjective in nature, and it is neither negotiable nor self-defined.While Christians may be able to glean some useful ideas for spiritual practice from this book, they should read it with great caution. It is too accepting of heresy and paganism, and it does not make the proper distinction between gleaning truth wherever it is planted and accepting all doctrine as “true” for some, if not for all. As C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity, “If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. … you are free to think that all these religions … contain at least some hint of the truth. … But, of course, being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong.” Moore fails to make this critical distinction and seems to embrace whatever one finds spiritual value in as “truth,” regardless of what the Bible says about it. And while he intimates that one need not leave one’s cherished traditions behind, his methods contradict this idea. Ultimately, and with a frightening lack of humility, he rejects the clear teaching of Christianity with his final statement: “I don’t want anyone telling me why I’m here, how to live and what to expect at the end of my life. I have enough information in my own experience. Who else can speak for me? For this reason alone I need a religion of my own.” This is hubris, pure and simple. And hubris is the greatest of the cardinal sins.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Moore's _A Religion of One's Own_ is a refreshing take on the "spiritual but not religious" phenomenon that has become popular over the last two decades. The book is almost exactly about what the title says, the development of one's own religious practices and beliefs. Moore eschews the use of the term "spiritual" and does not, as most writing in this genre does, attempt to defame religion in favor of a nebulously, and politically, defined "spirituality." He does advocate the need for the abandonment of traditional religion, though does not do a particularly good job explaining why this might be necessary, it simply is. At the same time, he does not push for a complete abandonment of traditional religion, as he finds it to be useful for developing one's own religiosity. That is, he recognizes that religions that have successfully survived for thousands of years might actually have answers to the same questions people have been asking all that time and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Importantly, though Moore tends towards eclecticism, he does so in a respectful manner, insisting we understand and revere the elements of the religions from which we draw, rather than the more common approach of taking what we like, even if we don't really understand it, and then decontextualize it until it is almost unrecognizable, and largely meaningless. If you are looking for a more thoughtful approach to the "spiritual but not religious" discussion, one that is in fact both spiritual and religious, Moore's _A Religion of One's Own_ is a good place to start.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading this book. It gave me a lot of things to think about and helped me explore a few avenues I had never gone down before. It motivated me to dig deeper into my spiritual life and look for answers. A very powerful book.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I haven't read any of Thomas Moore's other books, but have always known of them... This book, for me, was wonderful. I have struggled with organized religion, searched for spirituality and now, have found a path to creating a practice that works for me, includes elements from many traditions and beliefs and is fulfilling.The book, I felt, acknowledged the value of many religions and spiritual teachings and values each.That one can create a practice that is their own was empowering. I found truth in the pages and inspiration.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I was drawn to this book mostly out of curiosity. I do have access to what Moore would call a "personal spirituality" and it has tremendously enriched my life,. This is an important book, which has disturbed me, comforted me and inspired me. One of the facets of my spiritual practice is organized religion. I have been an active member of the Episcopal Church for most of my adult life, and it has given me a huge number of gifts. In this age of spirituality that seems fueled by anything and everything that you can find on the internet, I have found the local parish to be an important benchmark in my life. I think Moore would probably agree with me that participation in a local congregation is useful for some people, but he is also trying to help those who can't accept it. So that's the underlying theme here that was bound to upset me. I am what Moore would call a mystic. I have a regular connection to something outside myself that I choose to call God. This is an unusual book because it affirms that part of my personality, and reminds me to trust my intuition. He offers a broad spectrum of techniques for cultivating that part of my soul which vibrates on that level. So that's why I found it comforting and inspiring. He affirms many of the things that I have worked for me in the past. He certainly inspires me to keep pushing at the boundaries. He has added to my reading list.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I didn't know that I was looking for this book until I found it. I have been so involved in studying it, that I forgot to review it. A Religion of One's Own is not a quick read, but rather a journey of self-discovery."Religion binds us to the faint, transparent and untouchable bloodstream of the divine, the mystic ichor, that flows through all things, not making them divine, but making them receptacles of divinity."If you could get out of the way, who knows what you could become?"Moore explores other religious traditions without the need to judge, drinking deeply of that which nurtures and then passing on. In this, he is much like Charles Fillmore who studied multiple religious traditions to distill that which would become Unity.I have not completed this book as yet because it makes me think and reflect.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It will take longer to finish this book than I want to take to review it. I need to say that A Religion of One's Own is an exhilarating trip through many paths which helps explore your own credo and ethics. God or no-God, religion is an important part of a human life. This book, so far, has served as a useful guide.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a guide for how to create one’s own religion. The book is meant for all those wanting to deepen their spiritual life. It does not matter whether you are committed to a specific spiritual tradition or you are a seeker. It doesn’t even matter if you are an agnostic or atheist. Moore guides the reader on how to come in contact with the mysteries underlying life. He draws upon literature, art, music, myth, mysticism, nature, sex—all aspects of life—to help the reader discover a personal spiritual path. Moore provides practical suggestions for creating one’s own religion, but this is not a how-to book. Moore takes on more the role of a spiritual guide. He gives the reader permission to find one’s own spiritual path and suggestions on how one may go about it. Moore provides in this book a process for taking ownership of one’s spiritual development. Even if you are loyal to a particular faith tradition, by following Moore’s guidance you will come to a true commitment to your faith rather than simply accepting it unthinkingly. This book is for all those who want to put religion at the center of their lives and experience the multilayered richness of life.