11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great read, December 13, 2006
There are two perspectives from which spiritual questing might be approached, from the side of the seeker and from the side of the provider. In other words, there are two stories to be told, and Mick Brown's book does a good job at both. He is very forthright about his own relentless seeking after spiritual truth, meaning, and faith, and he is equally so when it comes to describing the myriad individuals and enterprises that are out to fulfill that demand. A lot of interesting adventures occur where those two things intersect, to say the very least.
I did not know that Ram Das began as Richard Alpert, a psych prof and LSD compatriot of Timothy Leary at Harvard. I didn't know that books by Rajneesh, the disgraced Bhagwan, are still being sold with the author's name changed to Osho. I didn't know that Krishnamurti began by being picked off a beach as a lice-infested kid, by a prominent Theosophist with a penchant for young boys. And lots more. Brown's travels through this world are a source of enlightenment, if not always of the sort one is hoping to find.
But this is not a hatchet job -- if anything, Brown is overly generous in giving many of these rather questionable spiritual practitioners and their operations the benefit of the doubt. He is serious in his quest, remains almost always hopeful regardless of disappointment and disillusionment, and his thoughts about what he is looking for, and why, are sophisticated and moving. The position he finally arrives at seems to be something like this: It is possible that none of these religions and systems are true in any scientific, empirical sense, but they do all seem to end up with a pretty similar understanding of what human happiness requires. If you can find one that you are able to commmit to and practice, you will live a better and more fulfilling life, and no justification beyond that is necessary.
This could be a valuable book for anyone embarking on such a search, because it contains a lot of information about the dead ends to avoid. At the end of the book, the author seems finally to have found his spiritual home in a Tibetan Buddhist enclave in Scotland. That was about ten years ago; it would be most interesting to know where he is today.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Fascinating Tour, March 28, 2002
In this book, Mick Brown leads the reader on a series of journeys from London to India to Germany and the US in examination of different spiritual teachers and paths. Brown presents all of this in a way that is both entertaining, amusing, and at times touching. He also crams in a huge amount of information which makes some sections a little dense, and some parts of the book tend to jump around in rather unsatisfying transitions back and forth. I have to say that I learned a great deal from this book about a lot of different and interesting beliefs. This left me wanting more and I plan to use the bibliography (alas rather small) to follow up on parts of interest.
What distinguished Brown's book from many other spiritual journey books is his blend of a journalist's skepticism with a real desire for an experience of faith. This mix is one that I personally have experienced often. Is this *the* path? Is this *the* guru or teacher? It is this feeling, coupled with the occasional glimpse of peace and understanding which makes me feel a kinship with Mick Brown when I read this book. I give it five stars for content but minus one star for the awkward style in some places
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fine description of inner/outer spiritual travels, September 17, 1999
This review is from: The Spiritual Tourist: A Personal Odyssey Through the Outer Reaches of Belief (Hardcover)
There is a lot to like about this book, as discussed below. The author is a journalist who decides to seek spiritual awareness by becoming a "spiritual tourist." He travels to a number of countries and tries to get at the truth of many different teachings and teachers, by directly encountering their homebases and their teachings, and even the teachers themselves, when possible. One of the best aspects of the book are not only the descriptions of the outer experiences of the author, who is clearly a fine writer of travelogues, but perhaps more importantly, his inner experiences, which are depicted with great candor and clarity. Finally, in each chapter the reader is given more than adequate background for each spiritual teaching and/or teacher, which often compliment the author's experiences.
The book starts with the author's encounters with Benjamin Creme, who for more than 20 years has been telling the world that the Matreiya's appearance is imminent. The author seems to like Creme, but rightfully so comes away very skeptical about the latter's teachings, since clearly the World Teacher has not "appeared" yet.
The author's travels in India comprise the vast majority of the book. He visits many ashrams, such as Sri Aurobindo's and Sai Baba's. The narrative of what the author experiences at the latter's ashram are the best in the book, in my opinion. The author very candidly describes the rigidity of the atmosphere inside the ashram, while contrasting that with the circus-like atmosphere of the world outside of the compound, where many vendors hawk goods and lure customers by repeating Sai Baba's name, like a mantra. Mr. Brown comes away from the Sai Baba experience disappointed, not only by its weirdness, but because the Master ignores him when he gets close enough to offer Sai Baba a imploring letter asking for "salvation," whatever it is that the Master can offer!
My only real criticism of this fine book is that the author, while to his credit attempting to cram a lot of material about many different spiritual paths and teachers into a limited number of chapters, sometimes puts too much info in one chapter, and in some chapters there is simply too much for the reader. The chapter about the history of the Theosophical Society, which he overdetails in a discussion mainly about Krishnamurti, himself once proclaimed "World Teacher," has way too much information. Even though I am very familiar with this history, I feel that he is trying to cover too much in one chapter.
I recommend this book for its honesty, objectivity, and marvelous descriptions of places and experiences. The bibliography is also an excellent reference list for the spiritually curious. Yet I wonder if the author really "got it" as he seems to claim at the end of the book - that it doesn't really matter where you travel on the outside, it's the inner that you need to stay grounded in.
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