Eli Jaxon-Bear is an American spiritual teacher and author who worked as a mail boy, dishwasher, steel-worker, teacher and organic farmer. He was a community organizer with VISTA in Chicago and Detroit and was in a doctoral program at the Graduate School of International Studies in Denver, Colorado. He founded and teaches through The Leela Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting world peace and freedom through universal Self-realization. He has written “Wake Up and Roar,” “Sudden Awakening” and “From Fixation to Freedom.” “An Outlaw Makes It Home: The Awakening of a Spiritual Revolutionary,” his new book, is a memoir that recounts his life from a young man involved in a civil rights march in Alabama to his search for fulfillment in Japan and Morocco.
“An Outlaw Makes It Home” begins as the author shares his earliest childhood memory that influenced his life and character for years to come. The neighborhood kids were beating up his friend Mark and he decided to intervene, but it made the matter worse when one of them got hurt and his friends retaliated. “Now I was terrified of violence, of hurting someone else again, and of being hurt again myself…I credit this handicap with keeping me from a successful superficial life. It drove me to despair and beyond.”
The entire book is divided into six parts: Call to Adventure, Crossing the Threshold, The Abyss, The Odyssey, The Kingdom Appears and Freedom. The first two parts chronicle his activities during the civil rights era the Vietnam War. From there, his adventurous and nomadic life takes him across the world in search of happiness and fulfillment and eventually he discovers spiritual awakening alongside his wife and constant companion. The attached pictures chronicle his life from childhood to the file the FBI opened on him and the times spent with spiritual leaders in Japan and China.
This deeply personal and insightful memoir is an excellent example of a life spent in pursuit of a meaningful life. At an early age, he decided that he was solely responsible for his life and did not let family or friends influence him and instead took control of his own destiny, for better or worse. He faced life head-on despite the dangers he faced, including violence and drug experimentation. The language is easy to understand as he welcomes the reader along on a rollercoaster ride of emotions and adventures.
One standout part is in Part I Chapter 4: Which Side Are You On when he was in Montgomery when Dr Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech and the chilly experience afterwards when the Klan moved in on the gathered crowds. “We were shocked into stillness by the horror of what we were now seeing. Riding towards us…. came the Klan. The only sound we heard was the clip-clopping of the [horses’] hooves.” The other is on Part III: Chapter 12 Dying for Life when he describes in vivid detail his experience when he took LSD on his 25th birthday. “An Outlaw Makes It Home” by Eli Jaxon-Bear is a fascinating read that combines the turbulent era of the 60s and 70s with spiritual awakening and enlightenment. It has something for everyone and is recommended for readers interested in a first-person account of a life’s journey from troubled teen to spiritual adult.
*A copy of this book was given for an honest review. The opinions expressed in this article are solely the author’s.
SA Examiner 