"Is God in That Bottle Cap" Reviewed on The New Book Review

Title: Is God in That Bottle Cap? A Search for Truth

Author: John D. Sambalino

Publisher: Vanishing Circle Press

Publisher Address: 320 Washington Ave., Haddonfield, NJ 08033

Publisher Web Site: www.isgodinthatbottlecap.com

Publisher Email: vanishingcirclepress@gmail.com

Publication Date: May 14, 2019

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-7326578-0-9

Price: $16.95

Page Count: 284 

Formats: hardcover, paperback, kindle, nook

Originally published at SelfPublishingReview.com. 

 In Is God in That Bottle Cap? A Search for Truth, a lawyer writes about spirituality in an engaging combination of autobiography and philosophical treatise.

 Beginning as a child who resisted having to eat fish on Friday, to his adulthood as a world-traveler who sees that God is found not so much in precepts as in experience, John D. Sambalino has always been seeking truth, and so conveys a sense of exploration that is fortunately free from self-congratulation. The first glimmers of this search came with his interest in martial arts and the understanding that such physical practices have their roots in spiritual discipline. An early transcendent experience in which reality seemed to stand still while he was one with everything around him convinced him that there was a goal to be sought.

Studying engineering at university, he soon realized he must choose a career that would allow him to travel and pursue higher realities. He switched to a degree in finance, and ultimately became a lawyer, married his youthful sweetheart, had children, but never really “settled down.” Though that path may seem less spiritual on the surface, it is this story that makes it more accessible to the everyday reader. Sambalino is not a lone monk sitting on a mountaintop, but someone who has tried to mix spiritual discipline with modern life. Almost every year, in addition to work and faithful daily meditation practice, he made time to go to spiritual conclaves, take rigorous meditation courses, and travel – to India, Egypt, Nepal – and delve ever deeper into his inner landscape.

In this way, Sambalino’s book is part travel memoir, which is where the book becomes most alive. Traversing the Himalayas, visiting the site of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s one-time ashram, even lying still and corpselike inside the Great Pyramid, Sambalino has embraced each opportunity to understand who and what truth is, and who and what he himself is and might become. He introduces his audience to numerous masters and their spiritual pathways: Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Paramahansa Yogananda, and of course, Jesus, Krishna and Buddha. All in all, the memoir is more informative than the typical work about a spiritual journey.

Sambalino’s writing is intelligent and at times humorous, despite its heavy subject matter. The book is not a strict work of self-help, though Sambalino does exhort his readers to abide by many of these precepts, but he is careful to stress that all such advice and apparent wisdom offered in all the holy books of the world will not reveal the truth, which is, he says, “no where, yet every where.” This is refreshing in a field with books that are overloaded with authors claiming “I have the answer.” He leaves left few stones unturned in his search for what he calls “beingness” – but, as he emphasizes, that beingness is a quality or experience that can’t be explained or completely understood by reading or thinking.

 Obviously composed to help others make their way to the truth, Is God in That Bottle Cap? presents the example of one man’s striving, some of it seemingly haphazard, much of it sincerely aimed at an ultimate goal. By showing himself to be a regular guy gradually growing into this knowledge, Sambalino offers readers hope of success in their own personal journeys.

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Learn more about John D. Sambalino at his website at  isgodinthatbottlecap.com.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                          

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 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

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Poet Published Short Book of Philosophy and Religion

Strength to Be Human
Author: Mark Antony RossiLoyal First Books
2015 Kindle E-Book Editions
48 pageshttp://www.amazon.com

 Review by Sy Albright originally for Loyal First Books

Tackling the existential existence of humanity on a global scale would be a topic too large for even a War and Peace length volume, but Rossi’s Strength to Be Human manages to boil down his poignant distillations in less than fifty pages. Quite a feat when considering he neither dances around political opinions nor runs away from criticizing Science and Religion as potential negative elements that hold back humanity from its fullest potential.

In “What We Learned” Rossi states…..We waste our time building the better machine rather than raising the better child. The sum of our species is naught if we simply carry our fear and hostility to the Cosmos?

This is the first time I have ever read a book that successfully pushes back on religious thought and science philosophy without calling for extreme measures or proposing to exchange one idiotic ideology for another. He plainly points out that religion and science are most dangerous to peaceful coexistence when allowed to lament on humanity’s lack of superhuman or supernatural powers. Powers he clearly shows are unwanted and unneeded.

There is a certain poetry in these writings that ease the deeper thoughts into your mind as with the closing lines of “Prime Mover “--- “But the ultimate beauty of the human creation is the indomitable desire to rise above the sum of our shortcomings. In this journey the happiness of humanity stands the strongest chance of building a better world and finally finding a love capable of pushing back the primal instinct.”

These essays read like meditations for the well-being of four billion people. It’s a heady goal but likely a beneficial mission suited for the world-at-large. If Poverty and War have a permanent cure the medicine will arrive by natural means. No test tube or holy touchstone can bring people closer to peace until they settle the war raging in their own hearts. The mechanical and the metaphysical have a place in our dreams if humanity takes care to ensure our deepest decisions are made from personal experience and common sense.

About the Author:

Mark Antony Rossi is an Italian-American poet, fiction writer, playwright and future science author. His poetry, fiction, nonfiction and criticism have been published in Another Chicago Review, The Antigonish Review (Canada), Anak Sastra (Taiwan), Bareback Literary Review (Canada),  Black Heart Review, Brain of Forgetting (Ireland), Coe Review,  Deep South Journal, Dirty Chai,  Dogplotz,  Enclave, Entropy, Farther Stars Than,  Flash Fiction (Italy), Gravel, Heart and Seoul (South Korea), Mad Swirl,  Peaches Literary Magazine, Ploughshares,  The Muse (India) New Delhi Review (India), On The Rusk, Poetry Kanto (Japan), Petite Hound, Purple Patch (England), Japanophile, Satire, Scribble (New Zealand), SchitzoRealism, Scrivener Creative Review (Canada), The Journal of Poetry Therapy,  The Poet’s Haven,  The Sacrificial,  TransNational (Germany), Toad Suck Review, Tracer, Twisted Vines Literary Review, Yellow Chair Review and hundreds of others in ten countries. His poetry and fiction book titles include Tints and Timbres, Variations on Virtue, Songs the Season After, Church of Jazz and No Town of Mine.  His also the author of two nonfiction books Strength To Be Human and The Intruder Bulletins: The Dark Side of Technology a major bioethics paperback and ebook that became highly popular in American Colleges and Latin America after the Spanish-language version was released. He lobbied against Human Cloning Research was congratulated by then President George H.W. Bush for his ethical writings and principled stand on increased ethical consideration regarding biotechnology. A USAF combat veteran he devotes his spare time to supporting veteran causes in his community. And he has been a frequent radio guest (Weissbach, The Jeff Rense Show, X Zone, Across The Net, The Byte Show, Paranormal Front) to promote bioethics and veterans rights. His paper “Poetry as Therapy: Self and World Analysis” has been used a basis for poetic therapies to treat post-traumatic stress disorder in combat veterans.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Jeremy Griffith Seeks to Transform the Human Race

Title: Freedom

Author: Jeremy Griffith
Author’s website: http://www.worldtransformation.com/freedom/
Genre/category: Science/Philosophy
ISBN: 978-1-74129-008-0

A book for our time

The front cover boldly claims, ‘At last, the Liberation and Transformation of the Human Race Through the Finding of Understanding of the Human Condition’ (http://www.worldtransformation.com/freedom/).

Confrontation and compassion, exposed and liberated, discomfort and defensiveness, explained and understood, shock and excitement. These are the range of emotions I encountered reading Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith’s latest work, ‘Freedom’ – a book for our time with deep significance for all humans. It is the zenith of Griffiths 30 years spent studying, unravelling and explaining the human condition.

As early as the fourth paragraph Griffith gives context to and insight into the realm being explored - a realm few have dared penetrate. It reads, ‘To briefly explain what the human condition is, it arises from our species’ capacity for what has been called ‘good and evil’. Humans are capable of great kindness, empathy and love, but we are also capable of horrific atrocities like rape, murder and torture. Our human predicament or ‘condition’ has been that because we have never before been able to explain and thus understand where our species’ capacity for acts of shocking inhumanity comes from we each carry a deep, now almost subconscious, insecurity and sense of guilt about our value and worth as humans. Are we good or are we bad? Even in our everyday behaviour, why are we humans competitive, aggressive and selfish when clearly the ideals are to be the complete opposite, namely cooperative, loving and selfless?’

‘Freedom’ is our story, both as a species and as individuals told in first principle biology, truthfully, compassionately and comprehensively. It may leave you in a state of initial shock and awe; such is the nature of the subject matter and the power of the explanation being presented.

However these works cannot be dismissed. The importance of the claims and the implications for our future warrant full consideration and debate as Professor Harry Prosen, former President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association stated, ‘I have no doubt this biological explanation of Jeremy Griffith’s of the human condition is the holy grail of insight we have sought for the psychological rehabilitation of the human race. I cannot urge you strongly enough to listen to what Jeremy Griffith has to explain’.

Griffith’s vitae is impressive. Raised in rural New South Wales, Australia, Griffith- a biologist began writing about the human condition in 1975. Since then he has written six books, including the 2003 Australasian bestseller, the revealingly titled ‘A Species in Denial’. ‘Freedom’ the subject of this review, is Griffith’s definitive work, his comprehensive and complete treatise on the biological explanation and amelioration of the human condition. It was first published as an e book in 2009 with extensive additions and editing in 2012.

‘Freedoms’’ timeliness and significance cannot be underestimated. As Australian journalist Richard Neville ominously and accurately described the state of the world, ‘The world is hurtling to catastrophe: from nuclear horrors, a wrecked ecosystem, 20 million dead each year from malnutrition, 600 million chronically hungry…All these crises are man-made, their causes are psychological. The cures must come from this same source; which means the planet needs psychological maturity…fast. We are locked in a race between self - destruction and self-discovery’. (Good Weekend Magazine, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 Oct 1986).

We live in a world with levels of anger, desperation and despair not seen before; where greed is endemic and the gap between the have and the have nots has never been wider, a world where religious wars rage, where the left and right wing in politics seem irreconcilably polarised, where the nightly news is too horrific to watch, where children as young as seven are being prescribed ADHD drugs and where new age movements, band aid solutions and ‘causes’ have become rife, proclaiming to save the environment, save your soul or save the world.

For all of our species collective achievements in science, religion, philosophy and psychiatry in their endeavour to understand and explain our world and the polarities of life - good and evil, love and war, science and religion, men and women, left wing and right wing, instinct and intellect, socialism and capitalism our destructive..., the stark reality is we are still ‘locked in a race between self - destruction and self-discovery’.

The world is in desperate need for unifying and real answers and solutions to the underlying cause of these problems we face.

From this seemingly hopeless and despairing path to ‘self-destruction’, ‘Freedom’ presents this long sought after and desperately needed ‘self-discovery’. It presents the complete solution to real ‘peace on earth’ – through full biological explanation and understanding of our human condition that leads to the amelioration of that condition.

‘Freedom’ is broken into a number of sequential and easy to navigate parts taking the reader on a fascinating journey of discovery and enlightenment. Its explanatory power, grounded in first principle biology leads the reader through the psychological maturation of humanity, both collectively and individually. To try and summarise the close to 1000 pages in this short review can in no way do justice to the content but what I will say is that the profound questions such as what is the meaning of life, how we acquired our conscience or ‘moral soul’, the development of consciousness and the origins of the human condition are completely explained. Explained compassionately in a way that will deeply resonate with you about what it is to be human. Equally significant are the transforming implications addressed by Griffith in subsequent sections. The ability to now understand our human condition, in particular the dark side of our nature, liberates us from our underlying insecurity and sense of guilt, relieving and healing our condition, which ends the cycle of destruction plaguing our planet, transforming our world as we know it.

There are a handful of books that have withstood history’s litmus test – literary works that strike a deep chord in our psyche and transcend our day to day lives. They cut a swathe through life’s clutter and become timeless through generations by enlightening us, adding meaning to and explaining the world we live in and who we are. They leave a lasting imprint on the reader. Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection’, the ‘Bible’, Plato’s ‘Republic’ and the ‘Iliad’ attributed to Homer have all contributed to humanity’s knowledge bank.

In time ‘Freedom’ will not only stand alongside these literary monuments, it will have such a profound and transformative effect on humanity that its importance will be unsurpassed. This claim may sound preposterous, however it is only upon reading ‘Freedom’ that you are able to comprehend and experience the depth of truth that Jeremy Griffith has explained about our human condition.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.