Customer Reviews

The Experience of No-Self: A Contemplative Journey, Revised Edition

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Bernadette Roberts is quite simply one of the most extraordinary contemplatives of our time. Her accounts of her experiences, and her reflections on them, are invaluable to anyone pursuing a similar path beyond the notions of God into the mystery of the divine nothingness. But this is not the Roberts' book to start with; for openers, one should read Roberts' "The Journey to No-Self," which traces Roberts' own dark night and emergence into Union, the preparatory stage, in her view, for the even more radical experience of no-self. There has been no Christian advaita philosopher, previously, that i know of--at least none that did not get burned at the stake. Meister Eckhart danced in this neighborhood, however. In any case, for anyone engaged in the emptying journey into God, Roberts' is crucial reading; her books are like the companionship of a wise and seasoned friend.

I read this book a number of years ago and still get inspired by it. Bernadette Roberts is an excellent writer and does a good job at conveying experiences that are in a lot of ways beyond words. People who are not intuiting or experiencing what she is talking about would likely have a very difficult time understanding what is being said, and possibly, as in a previous review, assume that Bernadette Roberts is on the edge of insanity and living a very unjoyful life. I had the opportunity to attend a talk by Bernadette Roberts a few years ago and I found her an absolutely warm, humorous and loving person, without guile of any sort. The Experience of No Self can be a challenge to read, but for those who are ready for its message, it is a blessing.

This is an extraordinary account of our journey with God. In it, Bernadette talks of a milestone in the spiritual life that lies beyond union with God. After years of living a life united with God and given completely to God, she comes upon an event in which the entire self falls away. There is now no union, no center, and strictly speaking no experience at all. What remains is Christ and the Resurrection and a knowing (without subject) that to me speaks of the beginning of a beatific vision of God--a vision without mediator.

In "The Path to No-Self" Berndette writes of the first part of our journey--the transformation where God replaces self at the very center of being. She speaks of this as the falling away of ego distinct from the later falling away of self.

In "What is Self" a work that I hope will be printed again she speaks in much greater detail about what is known after the no-self event--about God, self, Christ, the Trinity and the Incarnation.

There is no truer account of the spiritual life than these works by Bernadette Roberts. They profoundly illuminate the truth of the Christian revelation, and also provide insights for contemplatives of all backgrounds.

"The Experience of No-Self" is a fascinating book for anyone interested in mystical states of consciousness. Bernadette Roberts describes her own experiences through the often harrowing journey of a modern day mystic. What makes this book so unique is that there is very little written in the classic literature that adequately addresses the state of consciousness which Bernadette herself attained. With the exception of a few passages by Meister Eckhart, the author of "The Experience of No-Self" could not find a frame of reference with which to compare her experiences. This book raises many stimulating questions and provides a great deal of clarification concerning previously uncharted territories. For those readers familiar with Buddhist teachings, it is interesting to contrast Bernadette's descriptions with those found in the Buddhist literature concerning emptiness and the concept of no-self. Of all of Ms. Robert's books, I found this one to be the most accessible, despite the fact that it engages the reader in a very complex topic. This is a testament to the profound depth of Ms. Robert's experience and her commitment and skill in communicating a difficult subject. The book is subtitled, "A Contemplative Journey," and even the great adventures written about in fiction can scarcely compare with the breadth and scope of this mystic's journey.

This book came at the right time for me. I have just re-read it for the third time, each time more eagerly than the last. The universal soul journey you read about in the scriptures of all the great religions, Mrs. Roberts describes in her own words from her own experience. And she has a knack for rendering the indescribable into everyday language. This must be an all-time classic of its kind.

This is simply one of the most significant books on the spiritual journey written in our time-- indeed, one of the most important books of all time.

Unfortunately, the book is often misrepresented by its admirers and critics alike. Some Christian critics of Roberts' paradigm fail to see its patently Trinitarian, Christian perspective. They dismiss her work as representing a Hindu or Buddhist advaitic ("nondualist") perspective-- which it manifestly does not.

On the other hand, many non-dualists (Advaitins, Buddhists, and otherwise) have promulgated the claim that "The Experience of No-Self" is a Christian analogue to their nondualism-- but often with the caveat that Roberts' work is unneccessarily freighted with "mythic" Christian ideas based on her "Catholic conditioning."

But this, too, is incorrect. Having attended many retreats given by Bernadette Roberts over a period of nearly twenty-five years, I know for certain that her paradigm is completely different from "nondualism"-- advaitic, Buddhist, or otherwise.

As to her alleged "conditioning": she is a Christian not by way of "conditioning," but by way of direct Trinitarian revelations that were part-and-parcel of her journey.

Indeed, she calls the nondualist misconception of her paradigm "forcing the fit," which she defines in a recent book as "redefining, clipping, pasting, twisting-- to make the original fit a dissonant paradigm" (Roberts, "Forcing-the-Fit" self-published, Foreword, 2008).

Again, in her essay, "Nondualism," she writes: "It is unfortunate that those who aspire to a nondual state will never reach it-- because it doesn't exist. In truth it is just another illusion to be dispelled. With or without self, there is no state in the journey truly 'nondual,' neither in our earthly journey nor in heaven" (Roberts, "Essays on the Christian Contemplative Journey," self-published, 2007, p. 71.)

In sum: many admirers of her work, and critics of her work, simply misunderstand it. Additional clarifications of her views on these matters can be found on the site, "Bernadette's Friends."


Joseph Conti, Ph.D.
Dept. of Comparative Religion
California State University at Fullerton

The descriptions in this book relate a mystical experience of the author, an experience that she had in spite of her beliefs. Buddhist meditators will find the book illuminating and a much better account of the experience of no-self than I have ever seen in any book by a Buddhist.

Most people who find them selves out side the cave disappear from their old world. Some reappear and try as they might to explain about the source of the light. Bernadette Roberts explains and we stretch to be insiders to her experience. Some times more successfully and other times not. Bernadette like Krishnamurti and Bernard de Montreal become foreign to the world's viewpoint. Understanding them requires translation and transformation. Their works may really be guide books for the moment we find ourselves in that different place.

Bernadette gives a very personal, if not somewhat choppy, story of her experience of self transcendence. Although not very well schooled in the terminology of the Eastern traditions she does an adequate job of describing the states and stages she goes through on her 2+ year ascent beyond self.

This book is of value to the spiritual seeker who questions and doubts everything, including spirituality, God, bliss, lights, visions, you name it. It's for the reader who questions and doubts their own existence, love and hate, compassion and responsibility, values and virtues and action itself. It is for the reader who has looked into the most sublime teachings and remains doubtful, unsatisfied, not quite empty ENOUGH. It is for one who questions their self, their identity, their very name, their Guru too, most especially their oneness with God. This book takes you beyond all that. What happened to the author was that her self and its oneness with God, disappeared. They were no more. The book is about the stages of the disappearance. Roberts talks about where Christ fits into the picture, Eucharist, and how it is ONLY Christ who dies and rises again. She reveals that Jesus on the cross, asking God why He forsakes him, was the same as her experience of the disappearance of the self's oneness with God, and that others can, must and will know both the union with God and the stage beyond that. Roberts exerts much effort in describing the self, which is what disappeared, and here the book falters for a short while before clarity is restored. This book is for the spiritual seeker who is not satisfied with promises of visions, love and bliss. It's for someone who intuits or has seen beyond.