“The highest form of wisdom is kindness”
- The Talmud

Looking for Lionel

Dementia peeled away layers of how things should and should not be. It peeled away the surface that was concerned only with appearance. Over time it revealed someone I had never really met. Someone pure and sweet and filled with innocent gratitude. In the end, all that was left of Lily was love. How ironic that dementia gave me the mother I had always wanted.

With a growing number of people in Australia suffering from dementia, there is a good chance that all of us are going to have a family member, a friend or at least an acquaintance who suffers from the disease at some point in or lifetime. It is a diagnosis which cares most people, and an illness which affects everyone in the life of the sufferer.

Looking for Lionel is both a personal memoir of one family’s journey through dementia and a wonderful aid for the families and carers of other sufferers. With gentle honesty author Sharon Snir tells of the highs and incredible lows of her own family’s experiences, as well as sharing first hand experiences from others who she has spoken with, and offering gentle guidance based on those experiences, for others in similar situations.

This is an important and touching book whose ultimate message is positive.

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ABC Radio National Interview with Geraldine Mellett

Sharon's interview on both losing and finding her mother because of dementia. Listen to her interview on Afternoons with Geraldine Mellet.

ABC Radio National Interview with Geraldine Mellett

The 12 Levels of Being

In reading this book you will embark on a spiritual adventure which starts with Sharon's  channeled conversation and first “meeting” and with an Ascended Master called John the Beloved (JtB).  Sharon is flatly told by JtB that she had come to this life with a plan and a purpose about which she had forgotten.

This conversation became an extraordinary spiritual journey through awakening consciousness in which Sharon developed a model and a course called The 12 Levels of Being.

The model is made up of three pyramids, each containing four different, but energetically linked levels of awareness. Each pyramid represents a different dimension of Being: physical, soul and universal. In the book, we are guided through each level and  “As we open ourselves to insights, knowledge and wisdom we move towards self-realization and experience greater degrees of freedom.” (p.28) There are many more aspects of complexity to the model: Sharon's conceptualisation of the model is like a beautiful, three-storied castle with many floors and many rooms within each floor. She leads us from room to room, helping us to meet different aspects of our self, our soul and our spirit, all in preparation for the ultimate encounter with God and our own divinity. Her goal is to assist us to develop our personal powers of conscious awareness, contemplation and intuition and to ascend the twelve levels and in so doing  build an even stronger, interior castle of our own, inside which is profound inner peace.

Finding a joyful, effective and practical way to live a meaningful life is a struggle that each human being eventually must face. We come to grips with the forces of materialism and the drive for enjoyment, but these eventually leave us unfulfilled and unsatisfied with our lives. We eventually have to choose carefully what we do and how we live. This book carefully combines philosophical concepts with a very practical approach to living a spiritual life.

Sharon Snir is a spiritual seeker, a traveller and a teacher. She has shared with us her insights, her spiritual knowledge, mystical experiences and her enlightenment into a new world in which we can “step beyond the physical appearance of our lives and to see and appreciate the significance of our life events” (p.29). This, her first published work, will entertain, inform and enlighten the reader. It is a pure delight to read some very powerful, personal anecdotes which speak directly to our heart.  The 12 Levels of Being is a call to hearing and understanding the guidance of our soul and to trust and be guided by our own profound inner wisdom.

Reviewed by Ilona Nichterlein, Eduator and Counsellor, Canberra