Customer Reviews

Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment

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With Scott Kiloby's characteristically light and effortless touch, this book offers one mini-essay for each day of the year. The overall message is that enlightenment is your birthright, as well as your nature at this very moment.

Scott's primary image in these reflections is space - the space between objects, the space of objects, and the space from which objects take shape. Using this image, Scott points in many different ways.

Some pointers offer encouragement and practical tips, such as how to understand the common experience of "getting it" then "losing it." Or how to understand the ego usurping the spiritual search. Other reflections focus on dealing with everyday ups and downs, such as family issues, rejection, social pressure, criticism, worry, resentment, anger, anxiety, illness, and taking things personally.

Other pointers offer relief from conceptual confusion. Scott provides clear and loving antidotes to false ideas about enlightenment, including the goal of being in a thought-free state, or attaining spaciousness in the future, sneaking up on "this," experiencing only pleasure and not pain, trying to stay present, maintaining an enlightened story, and other occluding notions.

And other pointers are simple celebratory songs about topics such as spaciousness, being, openness, un-caused joy, peace, simplicity, direct tasting, compassion, love, liberation, thisness, seeing truth in all things, and freedom from the path itself.

The book would be perfect to place on your nightstand and use for daily reminders. Each one of its 365 reflections is a gentle, light-hearted, person-to-person gift.

In this wonderfully clear book Scott Kiloby gives us a daily reflection which reminds us that enlightenment is not difficult or far away in the future or something to be attained after long years of struggle and effort. He is so skillful in pointing out that it is our concepts and insistence that there is something to get in the future that stand in the way of 'This' - simple awareness of what is, here and now. He de-bunks every fundamentalism and trap that the mind can latch onto even when it thinks it has got hold of the one and only interpretation of non-duality or enlightenment. I have been listening to Scott's refreshing communication of this subtle subject for some time, and this book will repay reading and re-reading if you finally want to be rid of the seeking game.

"Reflections of the One Life" is the book to read every day and to keep beside you, helping you to see through the fog of distorted appearances. At the same time, this work takes on all of the issues of everyday life that appear as obstacles to such clarity and to joyful living. A most deep and clear challenge to conceptual, mental constructs as a true reality, Scott Kiloby's book will point you beyond a reified version of phenomena. "Reflections of the One Life" is an inspired and brilliant spiritual work that guides the reader toward penetrating realization and peace.

This is Scott's second book on non-duality, and it contains 365--one for each day of the year--pointers toward enlightenment. Each page lists a day of the month, a title, and a few paragraphs explaining and fleshing out the title in more detail.

Scott's writing is hardcore, pure, and potent. Whereas his first book, Love's Quiet Revolution, contained personal stories about a person named "Scott," this book is all business. Each page is loaded with landmines that have the potential to completely eviscerate the "I" that most of us take ourselves to be.

Of course, as the book's title suggests, these are merely "reflections" of "the ONE Life." The true essence of what Scott is pointing to can never be captured in words; just like the sweet scent of a rose can never truly be captured in words. However, Scott does an amazing job in painting a picture of what he is pointing to. To give you a taste, I picked a date at random:

January 18

More on the question of choice

Do take this question of choice seriously for one
moment. Simply look. What thought is going to
arise next? Can awareness know what thought is
going to appear before it appears? No, it cannot.
Therefore, there is no choice or control. Thinking
merely happens. The end of thought cannot be
found through thought. The end of seeking cannot
be found through seeking. In the story of you, you
believe you are going somewhere, to some future
moment of awakening. But you are not going
anywhere. More precisely, there is no "you" to go
anywhere. There is only thought happening. That
thought paints a picture of past that you call, "Who
you are." It paints a picture of future that you call,
"Who you are going to become." But you are not
thought. You are not the past or the future. Because
you are not thought, you cannot find yourself
through seeking, which is a dream of thought.

In seeing that the spiritual search is happening
all on its own, there is the possibility that awareness
will start to see it for what it really is--a dream of
thought. When awareness sees the dream of thought
known as "you and your spiritual search" and sees
that it is happening spontaneously and involuntarily,
all of the mental and emotional effort drops out of
the search. There is a natural resting into what is.


Not only are the above two paragraphs chocked full of powerful pointers, but you may find, as I have, that each time you read a passage a new insight may arise or a previously understood one may deepen. And this is just one day's worth of text... there are 364 more! Other topics covered include: The searching mind, Emotional traps, Anger, Achievement, Seeing versus Doing, Peace, Humility, to name a few.

In just a few short years, Scott Kiloby has emerged as one of the clearest non-duality teachers on the planet. This is no doubt due to his deep understanding of how the mind works, his clear seeing of reality, and his unique ability to give lucid explanations of "that which cannot be spoken of." Like a fine wine, this is one non-dual book that is to be savored slowly... and before you know it, you just might discover that the "I" you thought you were is slowly disappearing right before your eyes. And then, in a flash, you may just realize that it never existed in the first place!

Namaste,

Michael
(p.s. you can read more spiritual book reviews on my website)

If you have not yet been introduced to Scott Kiloby, then I envy you. I say that because you are about to have the exquisite pleasure of meeting one of the brightest stars and clearest lights in the ever-expanding universe of non-dual teachings.

I remember almost a decade ago when I read the first few pages of Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. I immediately sent out an email to everyone I knew, declaring that there was a new Buddha on the planet. I've not had to apologize for that.

A few of the many milestones since that time have been my initial reading of Nisargadatta's I Am That, the first time I heard Adyashanti in satsang, the first time I did Byron Katie's The Work and every time I listen to her virtually sing the text of A Thousand Names for Joy on audio.

Scott Kiloby is one of these rare few, a Teacher among teachers, a Buddha among buddhas. Like Adyashanti, and unlike so many other good, kind and helpful teachers, Scott's view of Truth is not only piercing, it is broad, incredibly thoughtful and generously inclusive. He is also a very well read, smart-as-a-whip guy who is a good writer drawing from a wealth of spiritual context, all of which helps nail his message down like a comfortable hammer in a fine carpenter's hand.

I discovered Scott quite by "accident"--his second book was an Amazon-suggested buy for me. I took their advice and haven't looked back. I opened the Amazon box, pulled out the book, sat down, and the very first page I read of Reflections of the One Life, Daily Pointers to Enlightenment sat me against the back of my chair. I put the book down in paused reverence. That happens pretty much every time I read it, which is every morning, since it's a gentle, page-a-day spoon-feeding of Pure Reality, or about as close as words are likely to get. It's five stars, it's ten stars, it's as many stars as you can get on a page.

I liked One Life so much that I immediately went in search of his first book, Love's Quiet Revolution: The End of the Spiritual Search. It was temporarily out of print and being hawked around the Internet for $50 and $75. I damn near paid that for it, but frugal wisdom just wouldn't quite let me pull the trigger. A week later it was available new from Amazon for $17.99 and I scrambled to get it into my shopping cart. It is head and shoulders above and well beyond most of what's available. I say that as someone who has read a heck of lot of spirituality during the past thirty years. If it's not the end of your spiritual search, it's sure to mark the beginning of the end.

I say welcome to a new Buddha. Hats off to Reality for this one. And do check out this website.


AUGUST, 2011

I got a nice comment from a reader who just bought this book tonight, so I thought I'd add something to my standing review. I hope it convinces someone else to buy this wonderful book, Reflections of the One Life.

It has been just under a year since I bought my first copy of this title, something less than that since I reviewed it here. Besides Loves's Quiet Revolution, which is wonderful as well, I've since also read Living Realization, which is an e-book Scott has out, and for which he's actually best known. LR is a masterpiece of spiritual understanding put into print. ALL of Scott's books are. I know I sound like a fan-boy, but hear me out, if you will. I am not throwing words around. Words are my business and I never, ever take them lightly.

I have been on this path for twenty-nine years. After an initial seeing back in 1992, I went 14 years without another. I was a drunk a lot of that time, which didn't help, but that ended--I hope!--back in 2000. Through sheer "grace and grit", as Ken Wilber would call it, a broader, deeper, awakening at last occurred here,via a FIERCE GRACE while I was under bone-crushing,life-altering pressure in 2006. There was another in 2007, about 14 months after the first. I found those openings to be not the END of the spiritual journey, but rather a new beginning. I was a lot more free, and I could SEE much, much more, but still I was confused. That lessened over time, but a LOT of the four years following that "event" was not pretty.

EVERYONE IS SO BUSY LOOKING FOR THE LIGHT IN SPIRITUALITY THAT THEY FORGET TO LOOK FOR THE DARK. FORGET THE LIGHT. LOOK FOR THE DARK AND THE LIGHT WILL FIND YOU.

In 2010 I had the great good fortune to speak with Adyashanti--twice on the phone and again in person some months later. Everything changed from that personal contact, even though I had been listening to him for years. One-to-One really is quite different. I had never believed that. I was wrong. Again. I advise anyone reading this to find a good teacher.

Oddly enough, I wrote Adya earlier just tonight to thank him for "kicking the walls out, blowing off the roof, and really opening me up". Still, however, there was confusion even yet.

When I read the first page of Reflections of the One Life I knew it was a special book coming from a special view. Now this is twisted, but it really beat my ego up that Scott had not been awake for as long as I had been. (As if there were two of us.) Anyway, I thought he had a lot of nerve!

I am confessing this depth of my egoic illness here in print, in public, in the hope that it might help someone else. I am not too worried about what anyone thinks of me as a result. I've seen that my thoughts mean nothing and I know that yours don't either. Nothing personal, that's just what's seen here.

At any rate, I immediately told a friend, "I could call this guy teacher." No matter how LONG Scott had been awake, it was undeniable that he was speaking from a MUCH clearer space than I enjoyed. Time, it seems, CAN be a factor in clarity, but it's not an across-the-board thing. And of course he has to be younger than I am, too. And better looking. And a lawyer. Salt and more salt in the wound, you know? Probably he's secretly a better bookseller than I am, too, but he's too nice to tell me about it.

Anyway, for an "enlightened ego" like this Fredness to suck it up and approach this Midwestern Buddha was a pretty big step! Just the taking of the step probably did me a world of good, simply admitting, "Hey, I don't know." Thank goodness I could at least RECOGNIZE clarity when I saw it. So I threw my ego to the curb and followed up.

Thank God.

After reading this book and then Love's Quiet Revolution, I began to spend a lot of time on Scott's website and watching him on You Tube. Next I began to email him. We started talking on the phone. We did group meetings on the Internet via webcam. We began to email back and forth a LOT. And nothing has been the same. Nothing at all.

Through intense personal inquiry and discussion two things happened. First, everything collapsed, which was beautiful. You have to be there to appreciate it. It really accelerated not long ago. Scott called it "free-fall" and that description seems right on the money. Secondly, after free-fall, everything came together. This is better yet. But only by about a million percent.

There is an old Zen story that bears repeating, I forget the monk's name. No matter. He heard his butcher telling a picky customer, "EVERY cut of meat that I have is the best cut of meat." The monk heard the Truth in that, and woke up. Well, in a similar way, since this "coming together", every breath is the best breath; every heartbeat is the best heartbeat. The universe can be found in a cup of black tea.

This is not to say that everything is going my way. It's just saying that I DON'T HAVE a way, so the way things are already going seems pretty good!

Even the great, deep, hurting, aching, beautiful LOVING has come, which had been the missing factor for me for many, many years. I used to tell my wife, "They talk about this great, vast love. I've had it in the throes of the fireworks of awakening, but soon enough it goes away." I really felt like I was missing the boat. I was right.

Now, let me tell you something, my friends. As mentioned earlier, I am a bookseller by trade. I have read more spiritual books than most people can imagine. I have one splendid ex-wife and one splendid current wife who will both attest to this. HUNDREDS. I have written a lot of Amazon reviews; enough that I am part of the Amazon Vine network. I didn't just fall off the literary turnip truck. I have never made the statement I am about to make before, and since one only gets to make it ONCE, you can bet your life that I don't say it lightly.

If I was going to live on a desert island and I could only take one book with me, this would be it. I'm done.

Reflections of the One Life is a series of clear, simple pointers to the reality of what is. It continually points back to noticing what is arising in this moment without judging it or trying to manipulate. The daily readings set a wonderful tone for the day.

Really, really helpful book. The highest wisdom in the simplest, most easy-to-understand explanations I've ever read. Everyone interested in Oneness should have this book.

Quite a thick book, with substantial material for each day on the topic on non-duality and basic awareness. Scott clears up a lot of misconceptions about non-duality and explains ideas in basic everyday language. There is a lot to reflect on in this work, and it could be used daily or just randomly when desired. Scott has a lot of free material on his website, so if you gel with his philosophy and way of speaking, I would recommend this book as a good starting point.