About the book
The book begins with a diagnosis: surrounded by ever more intelligent tools, the person of today is losing the capacity to be alone with themselves, to pay attention, and to ask who they are. The author calls this loss forgetting and sets against it an old word, theosis, the deification of the human being, as Athanasius the Great formulated it and as it appears, under other names, in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism and Hermeticism.
The five parts follow a single road. The first asks why we would still seek deification, starting from existential boredom and the illusion of separation. The second describes the metamorphosis in two steps: cleansing the mirror of the soul, through work with the shadow and the wounds, and awakening the inner witness. The third speaks of attention, humility and daily practice. The fourth descends into work, beauty and relationships. The fifth describes the state the road leads to, and freedom placed in the service of others.
The text sets psychology, with Jung, Frankl and the research on meditation, alongside Eastern and Western mysticism, Vedanta and Buddhism. Each chapter opens with a short meditation, and most close with a sentence that gathers their core.
It is a short book, to be read slowly. The note at the end says plainly what it is after: not to answer the question in the title, but to show that it deserves to be asked with full seriousness.
Who it is for
For readers interested in spirituality, psychology and the contemplative traditions, who want an overview rather than a manual of techniques. For those who feel that something is missing even when nothing is missing.