Will and Spirit

Gerald G. May draws on his psychiatric practice to examine how personal willpower continually collides with the deeper impulse toward spiritual surrender. The text assesses how modern coping, happiness, and growth mentalities attempt to manage human emotion, contrasting that driven effort with the quiet discipline of willingness.

Tracing insights from ancient Eastern and Western contemplative traditions, May investigates the roots of attachment, the reality of unitive experience, and the lessons of silence.

For the person looking for an intelligent and clear presentation of the relationship between psychological and spiritual growth, this is the book to read.'--America

• Contemplative Spirituality: Explores pure awareness beyond mental chatter through practices like shikan-taza and the clear-water metaphor, illustrating how stillness restores intuitive knowing.
• Transpersonal Psychology: Examines the four dimensions of love—from narcissistic and erotic attachments to filial compassion and divine agape—revealing why demanding unconditional acceptance from human relationships fosters resentment.
• Spiritual Direction: Investigates the classical discipline of discernment to help seekers distinguish authentic movements of grace from psychological defenses, authoritarian control, and subtle spiritual pride.
• Also by This Author: Addiction and Grace, The Dark Night of the Soul and The Wisdom of Wilderness.