Original Goodness (book)
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| Author | Eknath Easwaran |
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| Cover artist | Correggio |
| Language | English (original); others |
| Publisher | Nilgiri |
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Publication date
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1989; 1996 |
| Pages | 240 (1989); 286 (1996) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 35174734 |
Original Goodness is a practical commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, emphasizing how to translate it into daily living with the aid of spiritual practices. Written by Eknath Easwaran, the book was originally published in the United States in 1989.
Subsequent editions of the book have been published in the US and India, and foreign (non-English) editions have also been published in several languages. The book's original subtitle was Strategies for uncovering your hidden spiritual resources. In its second edition in 1996, as part of a 3-book series entitled Classics of Christian Inspiration the book was subtitled Eknath Easwaran on the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount.
Across its various editions, Original Goodness has been reviewed in newspapers, magazines, and professional journals.
All editions of Original Goodness contain 9 chapters. After the first introductory chapter, each of the remaining 8 chapters offers a practical commentary on one of the Beatitudes, as shown in the table (below, at right).
The first chapter opens with a quotation from the 13th century Christian mystic Meister Eckhart:
I have spoken at times of a light in the soul, a light that is uncreated and uncreatable... to the extent that we can deny ourselves and turn away from created things, we shall find our unity and blessing in that little spark in the soul, which neither space nor time touches.
Easwaran states that these words, "addressed to ordinary people... testify to a discovery about the nature of the human spirit as revolutionary as Einstein's theories about the nature of the universe. If truly understood, that discovery would transform the world we live in at least as radically as Einstein's theories changed the world of science."
Easwaran claims that "if we could grasp the mystery of Eckhart's 'uncreated light in the soul' - surely no more abstruse than nuclear physics - the transformation in our thinking would set our world right side up." He explains that behind "Eckhart's passionate sermons, straining to convey the Absolute in the words of the street and marketplace," were "essentially, four principles that Leibnitz would later call the Perennial Philosophy, because they have been taught from age to age in culture after culture." These principles are that 1) there is a "divine core of personality which cannot be separated from God," 2) "this divine essence can be realized," 3) "this discovery is life's real and highest goal," and 4) "when we realize this goal, we discover simultaneously that the divine within ourselves is one and the same in all - all individuals, all creatures, all of life."
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