Beyond Awakening: The End of the Spiritual Search [Paperback]

Jeff Foster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 14, 2007

This is a book about the utterly obvious. It's about the spiritual search, and the frustrations surrounding it. It's about those ultimate goals we set ourselves: enlightenment, awakening, liberation, and how those goals can never actually be reached, because - and here's the great discovery ¿ the person who seeks them has no more reality than a presently-arising belief. That is to say, "you" are just a thought, happening now. A sequel to the bestselling " Life Without A Centre: Awakening from the Dream of Separation", this book is packed with clear and vibrant expressions of nonduality. Time and time again, the text gently points back to the futility of both the spiritual search, and the "search to end the search" (another game the mind loves to play). With great humour, compassion and clarity, the book will draw you into a direct confrontation with your own absence, an absence which, paradoxically, is also a perfect presence. This may be the last book a spiritual seeker will ever need.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jeff Foster graduated in astrophysics from Cambridge University. Soon after graduation, life events lead him to an intense two-year spiritual search, culminating in the realisation that there was never anything to find in the first place. He currently writes and talks on what some people have called "non-duality", but which he just refers to as "the utterly, utterly obvious".

Product Details

• Paperback: 141 pages
• Publisher: Non-Duality Press (June 14, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0955399971
• ISBN-13: 978-0955399978
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #881,549 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jeff Foster graduated in Astrophysics from Cambridge University in 2001. Several years after graduation, following a period of severe depression and illness, he became addicted to the idea of "spiritual enlightenment", and embarked on an intensive spiritual search which lasted for several years.

The spiritual search came to an absolute end with the clear seeing that there is only ever Oneness. In the clarity of this seeing, life became what it always was: spontaneous, clear, joyful and fully alive, and Jeff began to write and talk about "nonduality" (which he often calls "the utterly, utterly obvious").

He holds meetings and retreats in the UK and Europe, clearly and directly pointing to the frustrations surrounding the spiritual search, to the nature of mind, and to the Clarity at the heart of everything. His uncompromising approach, full of humor and compassion, shatters the mind's hopes for a future awakening, revealing the awakening that is always already present, right in the midst of life.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crystal clear, cuts like a razor through the mind., October 16, 2007

By 

eleanor p (edinburgh) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond Awakening: The End of the Spiritual Search (Paperback)

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'."

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jarred into clarity, February 20, 2008

By 

Jakela (CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Beyond Awakening: The End of the Spiritual Search (Paperback)

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.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear and direct - pointing to your true nature, December 26, 2007

By 

Randall Friend - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond Awakening: The End of the Spiritual Search (Paperback)

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