Five-star Reviews

From www.bookideas.com By Marie Jones

Rating: *****

When I picked up Karen Bentley's The Book of Love, I thought for sure I was about to read a flowery manual on having a better relationship with my spouse, or how to meet someone and get married, or loving myself more. Instead, I found myself being challenged with the concept of what love really is in a way no other book has done. I also found myself being stretched to think in new ways about the forces of justice, forgiveness, anger, surrender and a whole lot more in this stunning and transforming book.

Based upon the principles taught in the famed A COURSE IN MIRACLES (ACIM), Karen Bentley, who also wrote 10 Radiant Ideas and is the founder of Heart Mania, uses the COURSE foundation to present her potent and often provocative concepts of love and harmlessness as the ultimate human spiritual achievement. She gives us a new way of looking at love, from our higher "Christ Self" perspective, and presents each new element from the standpoint that our Christ Self cannot truly experience love unless we live a life totally free from harming ourselves, others, and God.

Each chapter focuses on a different challenge, such as anger, forgiveness, guilt, gratitude, developing our higher self relationship, and these topics are covered in ways I for one have never seen before. I've read just about every spiritual and self-help book out there, but none really got the hair to raise up on the back of my neck quite like this book. I constantly felt myself being prodded to rethink my ideas of love, of forgiveness, and of whether or not my anger did me any good. The author does an amazing job of getting down to the bare bones of each matter, presenting a foundation truth that often gets lost in our quest to satisfy our egos.

We learn that forgiveness is more about completely letting the incident go than actually saying, "I forgive you," which implies we are in judgment about a situation. Oh, and the stuff about judgment will really make you think about ways we often sabotage our good by passing judgment, even in the most subtle of ways. We simply cannot love when we judge, because judgment implies right and wrong and is totally ego-based. Nor can we claim to love when we engage in hate in any size, shape or form, as the author so succinctly points out.

The chapters on finding real peace, and asking for what we want from others and from life, really excited me, with ideas and concepts, many from A COURSE IN MIRACLES, that I had not considered before in my own quest for peace and prosperity. The chapter devoted to Communion also taught me the importance of taking more time to listen to God for answers, and less time talking AT God. No wonder so many of us don’t get our prayers answered. We don't let God get a word in edgewise! I also loved the author’s abundant use of quotes from ACIM. I have never read ACIM before, but plan to do so right away, thanks to The Book of Love.

This truly is a book I will read again and cherish. The author totally convinced me that my idea of love was really more ego-based than heartfelt, and that my ego was doing nothing to bring me the happiness I seek. The Book of Love really is about being the most spiritually evolved humans we can be, and of course the end result of that being totally loving and harmless to others. I think the author should change the title in the next printing, and call it The Book of Life.