Beyond Awakening: The End of the Spiritual Search

by Jeff Foster

Book Overview

Arguing that any search for spiritual awakening, enlightenment, or liberation is ultimately futile because it rests on the premise that there is a self that is engaged in the search, this introduction... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0955399971
• ISBN13: 9780955399978
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Non-Duality Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 2.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Jarred into clarity

I noticed that I was becoming very upset reading Jeff's new book. And how great is that!? After all the searching and hundreds of non-duality books and teachers, here was a book that made me feel so insecure, hopeless, disappointed to the point that I had no alternative but to relinquish any idea of ever "getting it". Whatever "it" is. The result: I was jarred into clarity. This is not to say that Jeff's words are harsh. Quite the opposite. They resonate with honesty, integrity, and love--which imbues them with the power to go beyond just words--and mind. I highly recommend this book to you. My wish is that it will make you as upset as it made me! They say that "The Truth hurts". But it also sets you free. Victor Davich author,8 Minute Meditation: Quiet Your Mind. Change Your Life.

Ending the Spiritual Search

A sequel to LIFE WITHOUT A CENTRE: AWAKENING FROM THE DREAM OF SEPARATION (which I have not read), this present work is a singular collection of telling essays, witty reflections, an instructive interview, and even a beautiful cover photo. Foster--who graduated from Cambridge University, with a major in astrophysics--came to the end of his spiritual search a couple of years ago while walking through the cold, autumn rain one afternoon in Oxford. Suddenly, he realized that the very effort to reach enlightenment "obscures the enlightenment that is always already present." The 26-year old author goes on to astutely note that this was not an experience at all; but rather, "the ground of existence itself." Though the book is only 140-pages long, it is dense with topics. They include love, death, nonduality, the myth of choice, and our essential and ever-present clarity ("Everything arises, does its little dance, and dissolves back into the nothingness that I am...and I remain untouched by any of it"). This handsome and affortable volume will make a fine addition to your spiritual/nondual library.

Clear and direct - pointing to your true nature

Jeff's book, Beyond Awakening, is one of the clearest and most direct texts in pointing to your true nature. Jeff points out that THIS, this present moment, is all there is. And in this present moment, the "ME" we've always taken ourselves to be is nothing more than a presently-arising thought, a belief and an appearance. But Jeff says, let's not deny this appearance but see through the habitual seeking of the mind. If you've been seeking for years and have only found frustration, this book explains why. Jeff debunks the myth of enlightenment and points directly to this open space which holds the infinite potentiality and immediate recognition of our beingness as Oneness, that which is already ever present prior to the seeking. This is an AWESOME book and a must-read for the spiritual seeker. love randall http://avastu0.blogspot.com

Stunning book on non-duality

this is not a book like any other book, it's a outpouring of joy, shimmering with crystal-clear clarity and brutal spiritual honesty, destroying the mind's confusion and pulling it back into oneness, I absolutely loved the trip!!!!!! the author appears to be absent, and it's almost as if Spirit is expressing itself through him. I especially resonated with the final chapters, when the whole book build to a crescendo and explodes with love, dissolving the reader with it!!!!!! my oh my oh my!!!!!!

Crystal clear, cuts like a razor through the mind.

Well I thought Jeff Foster's first book was good, but this one blew me away! Beyond Awakening ("the end of the spiritual search") is just crammed with exquisitely beautiful and mind-blowingly clear pointers to the non-dual reality (the Only reality!) which has been spoken of through the ages by all the religions and by nondual/Advaita teachers (Ramana Maharshi, Nisgardatta, and more recently Tony Parsons, John Wheeler, etc.) But this book makes it all so damn accessible and the writing has such power that it cannot help but change your reality. There is such compassion and love flowing through the book, something which I haven't really found in other nondual texts. I felt that by the end of this book, the search for me was really being seen through - in other words, it was clearly seen, this moment is all there is! As I read and re-read the book, the clarity becomes more and more obvious. The author has done an amazing job using words to point beyond words. As Jeff says: "Words will never capture it, the absolute freedom of this, the undeniable and mind blowing clarity that is life itself.. and yet, the utter ordinariness and simplicity of it all, and how a mind locked in the search will never understand." I think Jeff's writing has definitely improved since the first book which I loved (he's young for a spiritual teacher, only 26 I believe..) and I think this guy will just get better and better [...] I have read several other nonduality books (Tony Parsons, John Wheeler, Krishnamurti, etc etc) but I think this really is the last word. After you've read the last page it's so clear there is NOWHERE to go!!!! As Jeff says: "Your whole life, all your hopes and dreams and ambitions and goals: everything comes down to this. Sitting on the toilet. Attending the funeral of a loved one. Listening to Mozart. Reading your favorite book. Screaming with pain in the middle of the night. Crying your eyes out. Laughing so hard your stomach hurts. Being diagnosed with cancer. Holding a newborn baby in your arms, looking deep into its eyes, shocked and saddened for a moment by the beauty and the sacredness and the fragility of this overwhelmingly mysterious thing we call 'life'."