In the October Author Spotlight ...
Antoine Bacha and Liliana Franco,
Authors of Cogito

Imagine being held captivity by Palestinian terrorists, regularly tortured and beaten, yet hearing a caring voice that allows you to move above the pain and reach another spiritual level. Then imagine meeting a woman who has heard the same voice and would share in your spiritual journey. In the new book Cogito, Antoine Bacha and Liliana Franco share their story and their journey toward spiritual liberation.

Inspired by the loving spirit of the Voice, Antoine and Liliana wrote Cogito (Latin: cogito ergo sum) “I think therefore I am”. Their journey takes them from the horrible imprisonment by cruel terrorists, through the anxieties we all face in everyday life, into an ongoing journey. "The Voice comes from a power deep within our selves," Liliana explains. "It’s a voice that has no distance and no specific sound, it communicates through understanding and it brings our awareness to a deep state of consciousness. The voice is a “Being” that transmits completion and absolute peace of mind."   

The journey began during Antoine's captivity. The Voice helped him get through the hell of beating and torture. "The voice told me, among other things, that I would meet an unusual woman who would also experience the very same kind of intuitive lessons from the Voice as I did," Antoine says. That woman is Liliana Franco. Perhaps the most compelling part of this story is how Antoine was able to survive his ordeal, and, how it is that Liliana is able to convey those very same principles heard by Antoine.

While Liliana was pursuing an acting career, the Voice came to her. "It was a voice that came very deep from within me and lifted me up to a state of absolute serenity and love. It said: “You are a spirit”, she explains. At that time she did not know what was happening. When the voice came again it was in the middle of the night. "I woke up from my sleep and felt an impulse to write. I wrote a few sentences, rapidly and automatically. The statements I wrote didn’t make a lot of sense, they were a bit too profound for my thinking yet I did not question.  For about five months I wrote every night. I wrote in the same manner, without questioning or analyzing what the voice was telling me. I only hoped that one day everything would come together and make sense," she says. It was then when she met Antoine. "A few weeks after that encounter, the voice told me that I was to write books with its message for the world. It was then when I started writing Cogito: The Separation."

At the beginning, writing the book was a slow process. "I wrote in the middle of the night, and in the morning, I read to Antoine everything that the voice conveyed," says Liliana. "Antoine explained what I read to him given that they were the same concepts he heard from the voice when he was in captivity over 20 years ago. We worked on the book for a total of two years."

The illustrations in the book were given to Antoine by the Voice. "The illustrations help a lot," Liliana explains. "Once the reader understands them, he or she will be able to open up to the voice’s message and comprehend it. Reading the book over and over will help as well, the more you read the more you understand."

Cogito brings a profound message that requires considerate thought and appreciation. "The readers should not be in a rush. He/she can take a paragraph, absorb it, and put it into practice on his/her day-to-day activities. It is not a quick “fix-me-up”. It is a journey that leads to the recognition of the true self, the ultimate reality. The practice and the work depend on how much the reader want to know," she says.

Antoine and Liliana share an existence of love, respect, tenderness and honesty. "We love to enjoy our time, our “dream” and we often travel," Liliana says. Cogito is their first in a planned series of books.

To purchase your copy of Cogito, visit
http://www.atlasbooks.com/marktplc/01870.htm

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