The “elixir” of which the title speaks is essence, the presence or substance which inspires and enables us to move toward “enlightenment”
Those who attempt to address the problem of their own and others' human suffering often confront barriers or impasses which are difficult to understand. This book explores and explains some of those barriers. It reveals how a precise understanding of the personality of the seeker can free a person's inner resources so that the essential being itself, in harmony with, rather than opposed to, the personal life, can move us toward understanding.
In addition, the author illuminates the reasons for the frequent failure of the various teachings to reach the “ordinary” person: as long as the material, emotional, mental and social realities which most of us identify with are rejected, rather than accepted and understood, we will not see the teachings as relevant to our lives.
The understanding communicated in this book is part of a larger context the author is the teacher of a school, described at the end of this volume, within which has arisen a synthesis of modem psychological knowledge and methods with ancient spiritual wisdom and techniques. But the relevance of this work is not limited to those who share this particular context. Any person who has been intrigued by, and yet ultimately frustrated with, the spiritual and psychological approaches to the issue of human suffering which abound in the current Western world, will find value in this analysis of the reasons for the limited effectiveness of these teachings, and in the unusual view presented here of the relationship between personality and true Being.
Alia Johnson
Berkeley, October, 1983