Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
AN URGENT COVID-19 ALERT FROM THE AUTHOR
In this challenging time of contagion and social distancing, this book offers a vital message of hope and resiliency as we rediscover the power of connecting within and holding together as a community. Our immunity extends to the information we consume. Health, kindness, and generosity are also contagious. Please spread the word.
aah ... Discover the Seven Laws of Pleasure
And master the art of truly enjoying life:
- You are born for pleasure; it is your origin, source, and birthright.
- Pleasure comes in four colors: red (physical), green (emotional), blue (mental), and white (spiritual).
- Pleasure is relative and continually changes.
- Pleasure is separated from pain by a threshold of intensity.
- Pleasure comes in waves.
- Pleasure is an inner dance of effort and relaxation.
- The highest quality pleasure is that which you exchange with another being.
In this groundbreaking book, physician Jia Gottlieb revolutionizes our understanding of pleasure and shows us how to use it as a reliable guide to health, happiness, and a meaningful life. Drawing on insights from history, cutting-edge neuroscience, philosophy, and ancient wisdom, he reveals how our brain has evolved through three distinct stages (reptilian, mammalian, and primate) each seeking their own form of pleasure (physical, emotional, and mental). With specific practices, we can learn how to integrate these three aspects to enter a fourth level of spiritual pleasure and the sublime realms of ecstasy, bliss, and equanimity.
Written in an intimate style,
aah...The Pleasure Book invites us to accompany Dr. Jia on his personal quest to find the cause of human disease and suffering. We come to a number of startling realizations. Most important, pleasure is far more than a base instinct; it is a fundamental, organizing principle of life that defines who we are, what we do, and how we do it. The problem arises when we attempt to deny this biological fact, which causes our internal GPS to go awry. Without reliable coordinates, we can easily fall into self-destructive pleasure disorders such as overeating, anxiety, depression, sexual dysfunction, and drug addiction.
To master pleasure, we must become intimate with it. This book provides the knowledge and practical tools to liberate ourselves from two thousand years of shared shame, guilt, and ignorance and reclaim our original intelligence to live an aahsome life on our own terms. In the final chapter, he offers a powerful vision of renewable pleasure for a sustainable world as we expand to the next level of human evolution, Homo spiritualis.
Featuring 23 illustrations/diagrams, 8 photographs, 5 original prints, and an extensive glossary, this provocative work will change not only how you think about pleasure but how you experience it and, as a result, how you live your life in accord with nature rather than against it, for the benefit of all.