Book excerpt: How do we end suffering in our own life and on the planet? How do we bring about seemingly impossible outcomes such as miraculously healing our self from a fatal disease, saving the environment or ending violence and war? In his second book, Edward Mannix takes on our assumptions about what is possible and impossible for us as individuals and as a species, and he provides us with a new paradigm and new tools that enable us to achieve that which was perviously unachievable. The new paradigm he presents includes two key concepts the author calls metaphysical causation and interlocking karma. Metaphysical causation at first sounds a lot like the Law of Attraction but ends up being quite a bit different. According to the author it is not our thoughts that create our reality, but rather it is our karma or karmic imprints that are projected onto the movie screen of our life by the powerful projector of our soul. By moving the discussion away from the potency of our thoughts to something more difficult to observe - our karmic imprints - the book reveals to us important hidden aspects of the creative mechanism of life, and offers us the opportunity to intervene in this causal process in a new and powerful way. For those readers who have tried the Law of Attraction and found it sometimes effective and other times ineffective, it is likely that the information presented in this text will illuminate why those techniques often fall down. Impossible Compassion provides a missing link of sorts, helping us identify and change our karmic imprints through the use of simple tools and processes that fall under the heading of what the author calls directed compassion. By utilizing our own compassion to alter the karmic imprints on the film of our soul - which the book teaches us how to do in specific detail - we can literally re-write the script of our life, leading to rapid and potentially miraculous changes in our external world. And, while according to metaphysical causation we each sit at the center of and in some way create our own universe, we are also all connected to one another and part of each others' created universes. In his discussion of what he calls interlocking karma, the author illuminates this critical paradox that is so often misunderstood or entirely missed by students and teachers of modern spirituality. In so doing, he gives us further insight into the process of reality unfolding, and it is with an understanding of interlocking karma that we can see how giving our self compassion can influence the physical health of a loved one or help bring about major changes in our collective reality, e.g., ending violence and war. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Edward Mannix has been on a conscious path of personal and spiritual development for over 20 years. He has practiced Vipassana meditation in a monastery in Burma, travelled to Nepal to receive teachings and empowerments from Tibetan Rinpoches, and worked with hidden masters from a number of traditions and geographies, spanning Asia, Europe and the United States. Throughout his journey, Edward has focused on a form of practical spirituality - integrating his spiritual pursuits into ordinary life, not leaving worldly endeavors behind, but instead using them as a vehicle to go deeper into awakening. While on his conscious path and prior to becoming an author, he worked in the private sector as a management consultant and social entrepreneur. He holds an M.B.A. from Columbia University where he studied Sustainability and Social Enterprise, an M.A. from The School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, and a B.A. in Psychology and Economics from Indiana University. He has been helping others use directed compassion to reach their physical/material/emotional/spiritual goals since 2009. OTHER BOOKS BY EDWARD Reinventing Truth: A New Map of the Spiritual Path and Reality As It Is