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Gerald Jampolsky
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Gerald wrote a book called Love is Letting Go of Fear as well as other books like Shortcuts to God, Introduction To A Course In Miracles, and Change Your Mind, Change Your Life Summary: Based on A Course In Miracles, Jampolsky's book can be an inspiring and practical source of day-to-day guidance for those who are seeking "long-term treatment" from a neo-Christian perspective. For those who are not seeking this, his message will probably fall flat. Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D., a graduate of Stanford Medical School, is a psychiatrist based in Northern California and Hawaii. He is the founder of the first Center for Attitudinal Healing in Sausalito, California, which has since branched into more than 150 independent centers and groups in 30 countries. And he's been telling folks to "let go of fear" and "love" for several years now. Many years ago, Dr. Jampolsky ran across a book titled A Course In Miracles, a "channeled" work that offers, as some claim, an updated and more "modern" message of Christian teachings and their applications to life in today's world. After studying A Course In Miracles and being deeply impressed with its message, Jampolsky wrote his own work, Love Is Letting Go Of Fear, based on the Course. (Marianne Williamson.is another author who has also based her work on The Course In Miracles). Love Is Letting Go Of Fear has now sold over 1,000,000 copies and has a steady base of diehard fans.
Love Is Letting Go Of Fear is definitely not a quick-fix how-to on relationships, and doesn't claim to be. The basic premise is that there are essentially two basic states - "love" and "fear" - and the two can not co-exist at the same time. So, through regular, steady work on oneself and "attitudinal readjustment," one learns how to let go of fear and to remember that "our very essence is love." The book is actually more of a lifestyle than an "how-to" book, and is geared not as much towards repairing relationships as it is bringing the individual to a kind of gradual inner transformation. For those who are looking for this kind of long-term approach, then, and are open to a somewhat new yet very nonthreatening interpretations of Christian messages Love Is Letting Go Of Fear can prove to be a worthwhile investment. Ranging from the abstract and profound to to the concrete and immediate, Jampolsky's work can prove to be more practical and applicable than more poetically inspiring messages, such as the work of Thomas Moore, while still less "practical" in a short-term sense than, say, Michele Weiner-Davis. His work could be described as a much nicer, more gentle, more G-rated version of Roy Masters The key, then, to this work is knowing what to expect. It is something like a daily meditation or meditation-starter, with thought-provoking insights such as "This instant is the only time there is," "My present happiness is all I see," and "Everything that seems to happen to me, I ask for, and receive as I have asked," etc. The implication is that with a daily practice of relaxation, active imagination, application, and review of each lesson, more and more of our lives will be based on "fear," more and more will be based on "love". Of course, there are few faults that one can find with a work that encourages individuals to love more and that also provides a practical-yet-not-simplistic road-map for how, exactly, to do that.And of course, if more people in the world would actually do the exercises and practice that is recommended in Jampolsky's work, it's pretty difficult to say that the world wouldn't be a better place. Yet, if we just sat around talking about how great it was, that would really be pretty boring. One of the drawbacks of the "love-don't-fear" message of Jampolsky seems to be the occasional ring of an the antiseptic New-Agey tone of "the world is what you make it" and "we create our own reality" angle, which serves to sugar-coat many of the brutal realities of day-to-day life. Not to get sucked into this whole argument, but if everyone was really creating their own reality, and was really conscious of it, there wouldn't be so many people complaining about everything all the frigging time. And we definitely don't feel like we're in danger of that happening any time soon. Further, these types of "love-don't-fear" messages can tend to insulate oneself (and most notoriously, the Christian community) into a snug cocoon woven with positive thoughts ("don't think negative!" they wail with panic-stricken faces, when you happen to mention certain inevitable facts of life) - and far away from the tough decisions of life in the universe that exists outside of the Jampolsky's comfy worldview. In this regard, as with so many others, our LiveReal Dream Scenario, for example, would be a debate between Jampolsky and Tom Leykis, for example, where Jampolsky's lofty recommendations would collide headfirst with the ugly realities of how most people nowadays are actually living. In addition, some individuals can find reason to be skeptical of The Course In Miracles and its offspring, as is described here. And as always, the risk in even the best message lies in turning even the most positive and truthful insights and converting them into simplistic slogans and easy, bumper-sticker answers in the face of the messy realities of real life. And finally, other thinkers hold that the "fear-verses-love" dichotomy, for example, is somewhat simplistic and in need of clarification: " . . . balancing on the razor's edge - exploring what it is like to be present with another person without relying on old formulas or strategies - can be quite scary. In short, however, one can do much worse than delving into Love Is Letting Go Of Fear and some of the other works by Jampolsky. While the message may not be the most inspiring for everybody, it is for many . . . and even if it's not the final word and ultimate secret to relationships that really work . . . one can rest assured that . . . well, there is very little to fear from it.
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