Reviews

GIVING BIRTH TO GOD: A Woman’s Path to Enlightenment, by Mother Clare Watts. (iUniverse, $16.) Raised by Christian missionaries, Clare Watts spent much of her life running from her roots. Like many Christians born during the past four decades, Watts decided her parents’ religion was unhip, and that it would never lead her to God. So Watts spent years—most of them as a midwife and a mother—on a fiercely independent journey to find her inner light. She spent time at a yoga ashram and a Sufi school before finally discovering enlightenment on a path she had actively resisted. When she committed to working with a teacher, Watts accepted her spiritual destiny: She joined a religious order of Christian Mystics, melding her Western religious background with her Eastern leanings. Watts’ detailed but reserved storytelling offers an accessible explanation of Christian Mystics, who concern themselves less with dogma than with encountering God at the center of their being. She writes of her intense connections with Jesus and his mother Mary (“the first woman to take on spiritual mastery”) and of her dedication to developing her spiritual sight. She offers readers a few concrete steps, but Giving Birth to God at its best is a well-told reminder for struggling seekers that each person’s path is ultimately a journey within. (Mandy Burrell) from DragonFly Media Magazine


A deeply moving story of one woman's spiritual path through yoga ashrams and Sufi training en route to becoming a Christian Master Teacher. Gripping, moving, and inspiring!
- I Universe, Book Publisher


Excerpts

"I offer this, my spiritual life story, with the hope that it will be a blessing and help to others. My voyage took me from missionary parents through yogic ashrams and a Sufi school, through ups and downs in mystical Christian training, through deep and holy initiations and powerful mystical ordinations into the priesthood, and later, into spiritual mastery. I now serve as a founder and a director of the Order of Christ/Sophia. My work is to give to others what was so freely given to me. I therefore offer this story of my path to God for all those who are seeking, longing, or simply wondering what the spiritual path is all about. I give it as a beacon in the night, to point a direction and to give hope to the travelers along the path."

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"At the end of the solstice service Master Peter brought me up to the altar and called down the light of Christ into my being until it completely filled my body, my heart and my mind. Master Peter had mentioned the initiation of illumination a few times and had somewhat explained how he and the other teachers in this mystical Christian order initiated students when they became ready. He said that there is a strict taboo against saying too much about any of the initiations, to prevent the initiate from having concepts and expectations that can interfere with their ability to be open and simply receive what is given. The experience was unimaginable and quite indescribable. The spiritual light transported me into another state of being which was peaceful and clear, and in which I felt so very loved by God, by Jesus and by Mary. I felt safer than I had ever felt before and filled with a certainty that I would always be provided for as long as I stayed in and near this light of Christ. I spent the night in the chapel, overwhelmed with the reality of the light that now had taken up residence inside of me. I felt with immense clarity that this light was a gift of God's grace, rather than something I could have ever earned. Though I had been meditating for years, this new state of being filled with light clearly was immensely greater than anything I had ever experienced. Gratitude flooded my being and I sat back in the seat contemplating the glory of God and how little I had known about who God is and what God does."
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"The night felt like the greatest battle of my life. I prayed and struggled to understand why I could not clear all these intense negative feelings. I wanted to know what was I to do to give over my life to God. Around three a.m., during my sleep, I was told to get up and read the vows I was going to take the next day. I knew this directive came from the God-Self. I got up and re-read the vows. They were to be vows of poverty, humility, obedience, service, and chastity. I felt the movement of the Spirit heightening my awareness to a crystal-clear state. All the noise in me stopped. Then, before my eyes, unfolded the meaning of the vows and what I was to give over:

Poverty: I was to have no Gods before the one God, the Self within me. That was to be my only treasure and was to matter to me above all else.

Humility: I was to have the humility to bow to God alone and to
accept God's directives as true and good without caring about my
own opinions on the matter.

Obedience: I was to be totally obedient to God-within.

Service: I was to serve only God and the people God gave me to serve.

Chastity: I was to be chaste, i.e. pure in my complete giving over to God, as pure as Mother Mary, who gave Herself over to carry the Christ within her being."
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"It is surprising to many people what the effects of being on a spiritual path are in one's day-to-day life. As I began working with Master Peter I believed that I would become so full of a high spiritual peace that my marriage would instantly become serene and wonderful and that Sal and I would be in bliss just being together. All of our previous issues would surely dissolve in my new state of enlightenment, and he would be glad that I brought this light into our family and our life as a couple. He would, of course, want to join me on my path and we would have this blessed life of moving together into greater and greater light, love and consciousness. Things did not quite turn out that way."

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"One day during that period when Pascale was four she came into the kitchen and said to me, "Mommy, it is time that I teach you about God." I looked at her half amused, half curious, and asked, "You want to teach me about God?" She said, "Yes. Put me up on the counter so I can teach you." Not sure how I was to respond to this, but certainly with some air of amusement, I sat her on the kitchen counter where she was now eye to eye with me, which seemed to be her intention. She then said, "To get to know God you need to do three things: You need to think about God a lot, so God's thinking becomes your thinking. You need to love God a lot, so that God's heart becomes your heart. And you need to start acting like God, so that God's life becomes your life."