So it's heartening to hear a teacher who insists, with passion and a clear voice, that we haven't been left behind. This is only one of the messages to be found in these pages. Andrew has the pulse of modern life at his fingertips. His diagnosis of the demands and distractions of our noisy, busy world shows the accuracy of a skilled diagnostician. But long ago, when I spent many hours a day diagnosing patients, I learned that none of them would take any advice until they understood, quite basically, what the first step to healing needed to be. That first step was always the same: “You're going to get better.” Reassurance is medicine, even if it can't be bottled, and in this book Andrew touched me with a deep sense of reassurance: Don't worry. There's a place for the seeker. The universe has collaborated to bring you here, to this moment, so that you can wake up.

The famous adage is wrong: The journey of a thousand miles doesn't begin with the first step. It begins with the assurance that you can take the first step. Many people lack that assurance, for all kinds of reasons. Some feel unworthy to seek beyond the limited territory of the known; some feel trapped behind walls or inwardly blocked; some feel paralyzed by timidity, fear, doubt, and skepticism in all their dubious coloring. When Andrew asks, Why do some people develop a passion for spirituality while others don't?, the answer he gives agrees perfectly with my own perspective: they haven't awakened to the evolutionary impulse within.