Journeys in Lands of Awakening and Sainthood

What convergence is there between the spiritual path of the Theravada master Ajahn Mun and Madame Guyon, the still largely unknown great Christian mystic? Between Gerta Ital, who took the path of the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism, and Swami Ramdas, who practiced bhakti yoga, the path of devotion? What are the denominators common to these out-of-the-ordinary beings who, in such apparently different ways, have climbed the ladder leading to the ultimate realization? Is this not a question of the greatest importance for a seeker in search of Truth? Is the crux of this not to interrogate oneself over what is at the heart of a spiritual practice, beyond factors that are particular to a culture, an era, or a religion? Finding the universal behind the particular is the approach taken by science; it is also the approach necessary in order to disentangle the essence of spirituality from its various cultural and historical contexts.Five women, five men, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, ten different journeys, ten different paths. The lives of these inspiring beings are retraced here, firstly, to show that there are and will always be, in no matter what era, people who commit totally to responding to the inner call and, secondly, to shed light on what they had in common, not in order to define a single possible path, but to find what one must pass through without fail, the necessary steps, if one wishes one day to approach, as these beings did, lands of awakening and sainthood.