What Really Matters, by Tony Schwartz, offers insights from all the recent great thinkers, psychologists, mystics, philosophers, and scientists. The result is a wonderful guide to techniques, self-improvement, pitfalls, including a bibliography, that you can use on your own answers to two primary questions: “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?”

In What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America © 1995, author Tony Schwartz set out to write about his own quest or longing to feel more at home with himself, to be more deeply comfortable in his own skin, and to become more connected to something timeless, essential, and real. In his quest, he spent five years looking for answers to two primary questions: “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” His book culminates this search for meaning in which he learned many different answers from very wise people. What he learned in general though is that “the way people define the nature to self dictates how they envision the purpose of life.” Read more about his journey in his book.

Schwartz begins his quest examining the nature and definitions of reality as defined by Ram Dass, the psychedelic research and Eastern religions. He continues with an examination of the mind-body connections and those notable researchers and authors in the field. Lastly, he concludes with an examination of the integration of the heart and consciousness in the integrated picture of mind and body.

A sweeping book, What Really Matters, offers insights from all the recent great thinkers, psychologists, mystics, philosophers, and scientists. The result is a wonderful guide to techniques, self-improvement, pitfalls, including a bibliography, that you can use on your own quest for understanding.