For Seven Lifetimes: An EastWest Journey to a Spiritually Fulfilling and Sustainable Marriage

(Paperback, 2nd Edition, Revised and Expanded Edition of A Marriage Made in Heaven)

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Description

How to cultivate a successful marriage based on shared values and spiritual growth

With new chapters on their past 15 years together, stories of happy marriages modeled on the book, marital obedience, and the family way to world peace

Reveals how a couple can become an engine for higher spiritual experiences

Includes more than 60 letters written between the authors during their courtship and over 100 full-color photographs, including their traditional wedding in India

Defying the norms of her culture and tradition, a highly educated Tamil Brahmin woman decides to arrange her own marriage. Simultaneously, an American book publisher--disillusioned with love in the Western world--looks to India to find a wife by placing an ad in an Indian newspaper. A dialogue between two souls, two families, and two cultures, For Seven Lifetimes chronicles the year-long written courtship of this pair as they share their beliefs on sexuality, desire, gender roles, careers, parenthood, spirituality, and religion. By appreciating the similarities and differences in their worldviews, they initiate a union that reflects their ideals as a couple and the life they will create together.

Revealing the secrets to a fulfilling relationship based on shared values and spiritual growth, Vatsala and Ehud outline the principles needed to truly understand the roles of husband and wife and the questions to ask to recognize true spiritual compatibility. With new chapters on the 15 years since their wedding day, stories of happy marriages inspired by and modeled on the book, marital obedience, and how a couple can become an engine for higher spiritual experiences, this new edition shows how the successful marriage reflects the greater union between the masculine and the feminine.

Reviews

Full of inspiration and sage advice . . . a must read for anyone involved in or seeking a true partnership! * John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man *
Restores marriage to its eternal status . . . inspiring, challenging, and hauntingly beautiful. * Barbara Hand Clow, author of The Mayan Code and Liquid Light of Sex *
For Seven Lifetimes gives us pause to consider our own rituals of love, courtship, and child-rearing, and lays bare both the functional and dysfunctional beliefs held in our world about these issues . . . thoughtprovoking and personally transformational. * Thom Hartmann, author of Rebooting the American Dream and The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight *
An amazing chronicle by two brilliant mavericks of love. To witness these strong-willed, reflective, and tender souls weave themselves together allows us to discover the essential qualities that make relationships work. * Alex Grey, author of Sacred Mirrors and Transfigurations *
A unique, remarkable, and moving book, showing the growth of love and understanding in slow motion; an intimate chronicle of a literal marriage of East and West. * Rupert Sheldrake, author of Morphic Resonance and Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home *
The letters probe every aspect of a committed relationship, including attitudes toward raising children, sexual compatibility, the need for a sense of humor, decision-making, career, and conflict in the home. They find the intrinsic ideals and beliefs they share far outweigh the initially apparent differences in skin color, religion, and cultural mores. * Woodstock Times *
This book is just terrific . . . highly recommended. * ABC News *
. . . intimate and inspiring glimpse into the unconventional birth of their union. * Whole Life Times, January 2011 *
For Seven Lifetimes shows us that we can live with each other and have productive fulfilled lives regardless of our faith; all that matters is the love for each other. As it has been said before many times love conquers all and Vatsala and Ehud Sperling are ones that show us the true meaning of that statement * Irene Watson, Reader Views, February 2011 *
I started reading For Seven Lifetimes the day it arrived in the mail, and I stayed up half the night with it, thoroughly engaged, touched, and uplifted. What was so compelling that night - what makes up the bulk of the book, is a collection of letters exchanged between two beautiful people, over the course of nearly a year. These letters were an expression of a courtship unique in many ways. They were the way in which two people met, grew to know and love each other, and ultimately, the way they came together in marriage. . . I can't imagine anyone who would not come away from it enriched. * Nellie Levine, Mind Body Spirit Odyssey, February 2011 *
It [For Seven Lifetimes] beckons the reader to contemplate a values oriented relationship, rather than one based purely on attraction and romance. It offers encouragement to savor the getting to know you process, with their marriage as example. Together now for a decade and half, one could safely say that theirs is a marriage made in Heaven and lived fully here on Earth. * blog.beliefnet.com, March 2011 *
. . . an an extraordinary account of an unusual couple who are making it work despite wildly disparate backgrounds. Fifteen years means a lot of this day and age of 50% divorce rate, perhaps they have something to offer you * Lisa McSherry, FacingNorth.net, April 2011 *
. . . a beautifully-written narrative . . . * Awareness Magazine, May 2011 *

Author Bio

Vatsala Sperling, Ph.D., was the chief of clinical microbiology at the Child Trust Hospital in Chennai, India, from 1991 until she married and moved to the United States in 1996. The author of 7 childrens books, she is now a doctor of homeopathy. Ehud Sperling is founder and president of Inner Traditions International, one of the worlds largest publishers of books on spirituality, religion, and alternative health. Vatsala and Ehud live in Vermont with their son, Mahar.