Searching for Tara: The Goddess Who Became a Buddha

It is obvious to anyone who cares to look that our world is facing an unprecedented environmental and social crisis. We are poisoning the air, the land, and the water, and driving tens of thousands of species to extinction every year. Our economy pours forth undreamed-of wealth, yet we seem to grow ever more frustrated and angry as the bonds of family and community dissolve and the wreckage piles up around us.

There are countless political, economic, and social theories about what is happening. But they only seem to add to our confusion because they ignore the deepest spiritual roots of our problems. If we are to find our way forward, we must look within. We need a new understanding of ourselves and our past that places our psychological and spiritual evolution at the center of the human story, not its periphery.

My book, Searching for Tara: The Goddess Who Became a Buddha synthesizes insights from a host of different fields — history, archaeology, sociology, Jungian psychology, philosophy, mythology, and religious thought — to explore the fascinating evolution of human spirituality from our primal ancestors to the uncertain future that lies ahead. On a more concrete level, it explores the changing kaleidoscope of spiritual practices our ancestors developed, and presents some simple practices that can help us bring about the transition in ourselves that we hope to see in the world.

Ongoing thread. More from James Coleman to follow.