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Rebecca Lilly is a poet and author of works on spirituality. She holds a B.A. from The College of William and Mary, a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton, and an M.F.A. from Cornell. She has taught courses in philosophy at various universities, and currently works as a writer, giving readings and talks periodically at academic institutions and other venues.
Her poetry collections include, You Want to Sell Me a Small Antique (Gibbs Smith), winner of the Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize, and Shadwell Hills (Birch Brook Press), a book of haiku. Her poems appear widely in literary journals, including The Iowa Review, London Magazine, and Verse.
In addition to her poetry collections are two books on spiritual philosophy and practice: The Insights of Higher Awareness, and Ego and the Spiritual Self (Humanics). Both books take aware-ness to be the core of spirituality. Awareness is distinct from ego, or mind-based knowing. Ego is our separate self-sense, while our deeper self is our awareness, or unity consciousness: an intuitive knowledge of our oneness with everything else.
The pivotal distinction between mind, which is conditioned and dualistic, and awareness, which is unconditioned and nondual, is discussed at length in the books mentioned above, which focus on our awareness as the source of well-being. Intuitive knowledge of our oneness with all things is inherent to that well-being, while our identification with mind-based ego is the root of our separate self-sense and unhappiness.
Both books investigate the core problem of the ego: an "I" that defines itself against what it isn't, which maintains that definition through attachment and resistance. Like a pendulum, the ego has two opposing movements: what it likes and draws toward, and what it doesn't like and pushes away. Both books suggest practices for moving beyond ego, and into awareness. Readers will find common ground with the works of
other writers, researchers,
and spiritual teachers, such
as Eckhart Tolle and
Adyashanti. Visitors are encouraged to read excerpts by clicking on the appropriate category box.
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