Acknowledging Spiritual Teacher and Teachings

Justin Stone is an authentic spiritual teacher. His is a remarkable non-preaching teaching! Justin’s true teaching is continually reflected and effortlessly demonstrated in the way he lives.

Justin enthusiastically conducts seminars and delivers brilliantly informative lectures in order to fulfill his students’ requests. He has authored several spiritual books that offer inspiration and practical direction. He is also a gifted painter and musician. Justin is a man of many talents and accomplishments, which hints at the quantity and quality of creative energy flowing through him. Beyond all his wonderful capabilities and engaging personality, Justin Stone is an unusually rare kind of teacher. He is one who lives the spiritual life. And though his life appears to be quite ordinary in many ways, when rightly understood, it is recognized as extraordinary and deeply profound.

(His books) contain substantial spiritual messages that help remind us of the proper and advantageous relationship we can have with life. Justin reveals, with a flavor of obviousness and candor, that ours can be an existence of continuing creative expression and joyous enrichment, if we so decide.

Justin’s apt(ly) title(d) Climb the Joyous Mountain, admonishes and challenges us to earnestly begin our quest for true self-understanding and fulfillment. Climbing a mountain is an appropriate metaphor for embarking on the journey of spiritual remembrance. We aspire to attain the ultimate satisfaction of living wholly, of actualizing our deepest potentials, through a persistent effort to overcome all that seems to restrict.

This uphill path is arduous and difficult until we come to the point where we are able to discern that actually, we have always been “That” which we have been attempting to apprehend! What we truly are, at the core of our existence, prompts our spiritual journey so that IT may realize full expression through the mind-body. The spiritual quest is nothing more than the conscious act of encountering and resolving the self-created limitations we have superimposed upon our “core nature.” Our core nature or essential identity is ever joyous. Justin explains this fact by stating, “Joy is your natural state, though it is usually covered over. When the Mind returns to its natural condition (free of restrictive conditionings), you are joyful.”

At the foundation of our challenging mountain of difficulties lies pure Joy. May we traverse this mountain of promise skillfully, as we symbolically climb toward our lofty spiritual aspirations, until we joyously hit bottom! Perhaps it is from this foundation that our true spiritual odyssey begins.*

*The above excerpts are from Steve Ridley’s “Foreword” to Climb the Joyous Mountain by Justin Stone