The Eastern Path to Heaven: A Guide to Happiness from the Teachings of Jesus in Tibet

I own about a thousand works of non-fiction. I can count on one or two hands how many of those books fell far below my expectations and which I believe are not worth the money. This book is certainly one of them. I had high expectations, but was very disappointed. What this book gives you is endless psychobabble, vague and foggy notions which are never truly defined or explained, and impractical and fluffy advice that makes you feel warm and fuzzy but which lacks true substance. It's akin to a motivational speaker who endlessly says "you can do it" with a smile on his face and enthusiasm in his voice, but who gives no practical tips or genuine wisdom. The entire book is one giant repetition of the notion that everything in life is a result of you planting "good seeds" in your "deeper memory."There are some sections of the book which don't actually discuss the things mentioned in the chapter heading - they just repeat the bit about planting seeds. For instance, the entire section about love contains little about love. It discusses the concept of "higher love" without actually defining what that higher love is or what it looks like in a real relationship. It simply repeats the idea of planting seeds. It also purports that you can make your spouse - including their physical appearance - into the person you want them to be by "planting seeds" in your "deeper memory." It's as absurd as the old joke among missionaries that the more rain storms you walk through while preaching, the more beautiful your future wife will be.Here's another example of the vagueness I'm talking about. In the section on "pattern prayer" the authors chastise people for "useless repetition of words." The authors' solution? They recommend "pattern prayer," which they define as follows: "Pattern prayer means we very purposely review a certain picture or idea inside our mind, over and over, every day." I actually had to laugh when I read that. They want you to avoid "useless repetition" by having you repeat the act of visualizing an image "over and over, every day." It's absurd! And beyond that vague, laughable, and contradictory definition, they give no other advice on what pattern prayer is or how to actually do it. And again, they claim that by using pattern prayer you can quite literally make your spouse "exactly how you want your partner to be." They say you can "pray your partner into being." Ha!Another piece of hokum is their idea that you can always change the people around you by changing yourself. "There's nothing about anyone around us that we can't change - by working on ourselves first." Sorry, but this is patently false. God gave us free will and He will not force the human mind to do anything, including change for the better. True, it is the best thing for us all to work on ourselves rather than to pull the mote out of our brother's eye, but to believe that by changing ourselves we can automatically change others borders on the delusional.Another piece of psychobabble is this idea: "The simple act of knowing what we are doing, and why, makes it happen before our eyes." Sorry, but they're mistaken again. Knowing I am a child of God and knowing the commandments and why I should obey them doesn't guarantee me a spot in Heaven - nor does it guarantee that I'll actually follow them. Being a good spouse, loving your partner more than yourself, and working to make the marriage successful doesn't mean the marriage will work (because it takes two to tango - you can't force your spouse to hold up their end). Knowing how to pray and why we should pray doesn't make us pray or guarantee that our prayer will actually be any good. Making a loaf of bread to feed the hungry out of pure charity doesn't make the loaf turn out right or guarantee that the hungry will respect or accept your kind act. Knowing everything there is to know about driving a car and what the rules are and why you should signal before you turn doesn't make you a good driver. Perhaps I'm getting carried away, but I hope you see the fundamental flaw in the wishful thinking highlighted by the above quotation.Another ridiculous notion is this: "It's absolutely true that how someone else sees us depends on their seeds. But how we see them see us is coming from our seeds!" Once again, pure psychobabble. Firstly, you have to read that last sentence multiple times to actually understand what it's trying to say. Secondly, once you've read it multiple times, you realize it's not really saying anything and that it defies all logic and human experience. Just because I understand that someone is a fellow child of God with a precious soul doesn't mean that I get all warm and fuzzy when they spit on me or kick me or steal from me or call me names or excuse such actions. Just because I have love for another doesn't mean that it justifies everything they do. People are not always a result of their circumstances, as this would lead you to believe. This would have you pity everyone and excuse all their poor choices. It negates free will. The truth is, sometimes people just make rotten choices - hence the need for punishment. To benignly justify other people by saying everything they do is equal to everything everyone else does is to destroy justice. It doesn't mean we should hate people who make bad choices, but it definitely doesn't mean "our seeds" - whatever that's supposed to mean in this context - determines reality.I could go on and on citing teachings which, when examined closely, are devoid of substance. I also find it comical that the book claims science will one day be the way to end aging and death and all the world's problems (see section 88). Excuse me for wanting real truth which bears the divine approval of Heaven, not the approval of a laboratory.Finally, I was hoping at least to find credible documentation and sources for further study in this book, but instead it provides nothing by way of documentation, leading me to wonder how much of this the authors simply created out of whole cloth. Being an historian, perhaps I make more of sources than other might. But any text which purports to be authentic and true should make serious efforts to provide evidence.Don't get me wrong, this book has some good teachings and bits of real wisdom mixed throughout. But it's like panning for gold - you have to sift out all the junk to find the kernels of truth. Though I am myself a devout Christian and recommend people study Eastern philosophy - including the fascinating teachings which some in India and Tibet claim come from Christ or His disciples - but wouldn't recommend this book.

Simple, concise and easy reading book, with the most profound teachings which give insight to your life and your path. Great Masters teach the more profound things through the simplest words! A must-read book!

The key point is that this book teaches truth and brings Christ's teachings to life in a practical way. Behind this book there happens to stand an amazing history of canonical and extra-canonical gospels. But on a practical level this little book takes one by a storm and puts one in the eye of the hurricane of interpersonal peace and power. Unlike most self-help books "The Eastern Path to Heaven" opens the secret of exactly how to apply the golden rule in a meaningful and fruitful way and how to experience seeds thriving and growing in your life.Geshe Michael Roach and Lama Christie McNally's "The Eastern Path to Heaven" is, as its subtitle states, "a guide to happiness." It identifies the golden rule as the Mahayana tradition taught in India by Saint Thomas, especially in the Ghandara City of Taxila and transmitted ultimately to Nalanda and later, Tibet. The book stays its course in teaching the golden rule in a Christian paradigm with light strokes of compatible Buddhist ideas.It's focus is an extended contemplation on, and application of, the parable of the mustard seed in the context of planting those seeds in the soil of the golden rule. Although mildly like The Secret, here the positive principle is identified not only by how you think for and with yourself but, even more importantly what you do and how you act toward others. In that sense of hospitable manners, such as Jesus' open-table fellowship, it is truly a banquet of the exchange of beauty through practicing planting seeds of goodness in each others' lives. This is the real key to "The Secret:" doing for others what we wish for self.

A beautiful daily reader. Full of love and insight from Jesus' teachings as given by the apostle Thomas in the East. Be sure to read the history of how Thomas came to be in the East. Geshe Michael Roach adds The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Strategies for Managing Your Business and Your Life  his own special touch from his deep understanding of Tibetan Gelukpa Buddhist Tradition.

This is a wonderful and tremendously inspiring book-This book can change your life--and happily soIt changed mine.