Unlike many that find their way to the spiritual path by happenstance, author and Harvard alumni Barbara Du Bois knew by the age of ten what she wanted to do in life. When questioned by her mother, she replied without hesitation, “I want to understand mind.” Although initially Du Bois thought this was the study of psychology and philosophy, later in life she realized her true interest was the desire to “realize mind itself: the true nature, the absolute.”
Du Bois spent many years as an educator, social scientist, and psychologist. Her efforts included working with refugees in Africa, international development work with the United Nations, disarmament and sociopolitical activism, as well as doctoral collaborations with other feminist writers. It was not enough, though, and the mystical side of her nature led the accomplished scholar to seek out the teachings of a spiritual path.
Light Years, the spiritual memoir by Du Bois, chronicles thirty years of a very personal journey of spiritual awakening. Journals kept from around the age of forty to sixty years old form the foundation of the book. The reader is led into an intimate world wherein we are the observer of an individual soul coming into self-awareness. Poetry and prose intermingle. This book does not lecture to us, or presume to know more than we do. Author and Dharma teacher Du Bois openly reveals her vulnerability, fear, and uncertainty. It is a guidebook for the modern seeker of truth allowing us our humanness, imperfections, and ultimately, the celebration of our true nature.
Light Years: A Spiritual Memoir by Barbara Du Bois
Prescott, Arizona: Laughing Vajra Press, 2011, 392 pages; $27.00
ISBN 978-0615511184, Available online at http://barbaradubois.org
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