What is reality? As most seers in India like to say – this world is an illusion, nothing is real. What it means, perhaps, is that reality is what you make of it and based on the limited exposure you have.
You must, of course, have come across the story of Blind men and an Elephant. The world we move around is much like it. Every experience, occurrence, event, and action has multiple sides. We more or less ascribe the meaning to this act based on our already modeled understanding of the world.
In The Path Within, the author wants to tell us that our minds are extremely malleable and what we experience and see can change with time and right guidance. He also highlights that the emotions that you feel, your opinions about the world you live in, and the experiences are your own. And the only thing stopping you from living a fulfilling life is you.
Anthony Santen helps clients with his The path Within program, a blended counseling technique to help his clients unlock their true potential and lead a fulfilling life. This book is a product of his 15 years of work with various clients and research, in which he walks you through the questions you need to ask and helps you answer them by providing a strong framework.
The Path Within: Break Through Harmful Programming And Doctrine To Experience Happiness And 
Harmony In Your Reality
Author: Anthony Santen Paperback: 286 pages Publisher: BalboaPress (January 23, 2015) ISBN: 1504325206, 978-1504325202
The author raises many fundamental questions like What is Happiness? He questions the definition of being Happy as that shaped by the marketing departments of commercial products, who have vested interests in pushing this specific definition.
The book systematically builds from our evolutionary stages and the road our brain development has taken to be what we are. He then plunges into the world of feelings and emotions and critically examines each and dissects what people usually feel and why. For example, in Anger – A Feeling?, the author points out that we get angry because of our inability to cope with the current situation, because we cannot find a solution to the current problem, and we lash out on the world or those around us in frustration.
Similarly, the book deals with other common raodblocks like anxiety, depression, and melancholy. The last few chapter of Part I of the book talk at length about depression, its physiology, and connection to sleep.
Part II, Path Within Sessions, focuses on what you need to do to get out of your current situation and lead a productive life. The author does this by sharing his three-step process of Understand-Embody-Relate. The process asks you to understand your feelings and emotions, and to examine how much is from the external world and what is coming from a biased internal world. The second step, Embody, asks readers to connect with their true self and look at the world without the baggage of other people’s opinions and dogma. The last step, Relate, is to see yourself at par with everything around you – not above anyone or anything and neither inferior to anything.
The simple exercises in this section will help you look into the causes of your anxiety and unhappiness. They will help you look at your past in a new light and assist you in shaping perceptions in your present. Looking at things in a positive light, free from bias can help create better experiences and free you from negativity.
The world we experience today, is the product of our past experiences, inputs, and advice that we have received from multiple authority figures including teachers, family, friends and anyone whom we gave the power to influence. If you are unhappy about where you are, the unhappiness is withing you. The path Within helps you re-examine your unique circumstances and gives you the tools to change your world and find harmony, the state of equilibrium that we are constantly working toward.