Now I’m not saying that if you don’t meditate you shouldn’t read this book, but chances are you might find it a little dry or hard to understand what he’s putting down. A lot of what’s talked about in this book is everything that comes along for the ride when you start to dive into meditation or take up a “spiritual practice.” The good and the bad, nothings left out. It’s a straight shot talk about how to navigate the rougher waters that are associated with time put into meditation. I don’t expect a lot of people to really go out and grab this book, however, if you do meditate or have a spiritual practice, then do not sleep on this book. I’m pretty sure I just about marked up every other page in this book and it’s also shed some useful light on some of the issues that I’ve been caught up in that have came through the results of meditation. I’ll leave the review at that and leave a good amount of quotes from the book to help you get a better idea of what’s going on.
Standouts: “You need to be willing to question everything, stop and ask yourself, “Do I really know what I think I know, or have I just taken on the beliefs and opinions of others? What do I actually know, and what do I want to believe or imagine? What do I know for certain” This one question– “What do I know for certain?”– is tremendously powerful.”
“While we may know that a thought has no validity, is absolutely untrue, we may find ourselves believing in it anyway.”
“That’s the choice you have– to be a victim to your own ideas and beliefs, or to feel into them until they drop away.”
“If you stay in a state where you’re not believing it, but also not pushing it out of your system, then a dissolving happens.”
“Make no mistake–to see a fixation within ourselves because someone explains it to us is not enough. It’s not enough to have somebody lay it out for you. It must be discovered in oneself, for oneself.”
““You’re just now becoming conscious of a grasping that you may not have been conscious of before.” At this point, a common question is, “How do I get rid of it?” This question is coming from the perspective of egoic consciousness. Egoic consciousness always wants to get rid of what’s not comfortable. But, of course, whatever yo try to get rid of, you tend to sustain. The very act of trying to get rid of something sustains it. By trying to get rid of something, you’re unconsciously granting it reality. You must perceive it to be real if you’re trying to get rid of it, so that unconscious granting of reality adds energy to the very thing you’re trying to get rid of.”
“The only thing we can do as human beings is to see that all holding on is futile; all holding on is a veiled form of rejecting who and what we really are.”
Rating: 10/10. So if I had to rate this book on a enjoyment factor it’d get a 7/10 but because I took away so much from this book, overall it’s getting a 10/10.
Recommended for: Anyone who has a meditation/spiritual practice.