Customer Reviews

The Bardo of Waking Life

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This book is a poetic description of both the joys and challenges that we find our selves in every waking second. For me this book was in tune and on time. Combining an honest look at everything; himself, mankind, the earth and the whole universe, the author takes us on an amazing journey of interwoven (though sometimes seemingly random) imagery that makes everything dreamlike. For me the best part was that he transformed my inner feeling of "what is the point? if it is all an illusion" to perceiving the wonder that allows anything to exsit at all.

A complex book. a different book. Richard Grossinger is a bard, a minstrel who wanders and wonders over the entire universe and beyond. He is the chronicler of our times. If you want to know where the world is going, read Grossinger. If you want to know where the world would be going, read Grossinger in this book. If your children are in their forties and you do not understand them, read this book. And if you are interested in nature, loath George W Bush, want to think the deepest thoughts, and more, read this book.
Don't expect to read all of it in one go.
Expect to come back to it.

A fascinating cornucopia of insights into the mysteries of life and living. Grossinger makes great bold leaps of imaginative insight and mostly succeeds at conveying things that most others wouldn't even know how to try to say, things that most of us are only half aware lay within the range of human experience. He's bumping up again and again on the borders of unspeakable mysteries. I found a great deal to ponder here. Some of the transitions are quite jolting and some sections dealing with the Author's personal history seemed a bit out of place in the context of the other non-personal pieces. Sometimes while trying to be self deprecatory, he still seems to be projecting egotism. Sometimes the language is saying something that could be said in one sentence with 50 sentences. And some of the information is off track. I don't know exactly what to make of it as a whole, but many individual sections were striking and thought provoking.

If you can get through the author's high-brow egoitistical prose, you can find a gem or two. Not worth the search.