One Heart: Universal Wisdom from the World's Scriptures

by Bonnie Louise Gillis (formerly Kuchler) (Editor), Andrew Harvey (Contribution by), Sylvia Boorstein (Preface by)

The purpose of One Heart is to illuminate the common sacred ground at the heart of seven faiths: Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Taoism. Its method is to identify 65 essential principles, among them: Feel what other people feel; Don't harm others; Lead with virtue and concern for others; Be honest; Practice what you preach; Be content; Don't let anger take over; Choose your companions wisely; Accept the existence of spiritual beings; Seek and you will find. Illustrating each principle are one, two, or three quotations (adding up to more than 600) from a wide variety of texts sacred to each of the seven faiths--including the Old and New Testaments, the Talmud, the Mahabarata, the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, the Analects of Confucius, and many other sacred sources. In addition, each chapter also provides guidance on a spiritual theme or practice--prayer beads, a home altar, labyrinth walking--to enhance our understanding of these wise words and universal principles.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Spirituality

246 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 2004

About the author

Bonnie Louise Gillis (formerly Bonnie Louise Kuchler) is the author of 28 gift books, with over 400,000 copies sold. She lives on the wildly beautiful Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, where the mountains touch the sea and ancient trees breathe.

Reviews

[Patrick Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did you ever think that it was possible that in the beginning there was only one message? That over time, the message was sorted to different cultures and languages to meet their needs and yearnings. Could we all be of the same spiritual being? Is there any proof that this might be possible? This book by Bonnie Louise Kuchler is quite a feat and puts a lot of information out here.

The book does not preach or even analyze, what it does is present the scriptures of the world's major religions side by side for comparison. Ask a question, for instance drinking, and you will see the scriptures from Native American Religions, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Taoism and Confucianism.

This is an outstanding book, for education and enlightenment for anyone that is interested in this type of quest. It's nice to have everything in one book, easy to read, easy to reference. It is the best book on this type of subject that I have yet to read and a good starter point too.

Bottom line, buy this one, read it and keep it

[Ginger Poulsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book. It had scripture quotes from various religions, all on the same topic. It was interesting to see how similarly-worded some of them even were. The book shows that all these religions have the same basic lifestyle tenets of charity and kindness and forgiveness.

[Laserone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really, REALLY neat book. Love this book.

[C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A resourceful and enlightening collection of scriptural quotes.

[Kaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

An inspiring and lovely collection that underscores the commonalities of all the major world religions, and a couple of the less known ones too.