Standing as Awareness [Paperback]

Greg Goode (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0956309151 | ISBN-13: 978-0956309150 | Publication Date: September 20, 2009

Inspired by Sri Atmananda (Krishna Menon), the Direct Path is a "pathless path." It simply articulates the being of you and the world as loving, open, clear awareness. If this truth is realized as your experience, then nothing need be done. The path disappears, and life is lived in sweetness and celebration! But if there are still questions or doubts, the Direct Path contains unique and powerful resources that stabilize this truth as your everyday reality. This is a revised edition of the book, expanded to add chapters on the Direct Path in addition to its selection of dialogs from a decade of "Nondual Dinner" gatherings. The first three chapters unfold the basics of the Direct Path, such as standing as awareness, being in love with awareness, and exploring awareness. Included are several experiments that help establish your everyday experience as awareness always and already. The dialogs cover questions such as the desire for enlightenment experiences, the relationship between the brain and awareness, the question of "nondually-correct" language, the belief in physical and mental objects, the idea of having a sage's experience, and more.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Non-Duality Press (September 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0956309151
• ISBN-13: 978-0956309150
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,663 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Greg Goode, Ph.D., grew up in multicultural Southern California. He lived in Panama for three years during his service with the U.S. Army, and lived in Germany for a year during graduate school. Greg's first book, "Standing as Awareness," is being followed by "The Direct Path: A User Guide," forthcoming in March 2012 from Non-Duality Press.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended!, November 19, 2009

By 

Scott Kiloby - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Standing as Awareness (Paperback)

This is one of a handful of modern non-dual books that I do and will recommend to friends or anyone interested in non-duality. Here are a few striking things about this book. There is no dogma in it. There is no absolutism of ideas or fundamentalism here. It never feels as if its being written from the position of someone with authority or from a center of knowledge. It never makes ontological assertions that can't be proven. It invites the investigation of its own words and pointers. That is simply rare! It never makes truth claims or claims about reality that cannot be discovered through direct investigation or present looking. It never gives you a word--such as awareness, consciousness, being, knowing, Oneness, God, Buddha--and leaves you there, as if the word is the final "word." It doesn't make the assertion that the word is the only and right word. This book is directed towards investigation itself. It's very clear and simple in that regard.

This book reveals an awareness of post-modern philosophy. As such, there is an 'awareness in its words' of the slippery nature of views (even views about awareness and non-duality) and of holding tightly to one view as opposed to its opposite. This book never seems like it falls prey to the myth that language mirrors reality. It's more of a discovery into the very question of whether language is delivering truth. This is rare in modern non-dual teachings. There is a sweet interplay between opposites being pointed to in this book as well as a perfect stability as that which is unmovingly aware of both opposites and not separate from them. One field appearing inseparably as "two."

This book uses language while deconstructing it. It uses the intellect as a tool. So instead of feeling as though concepts are being treated as something bad, this book uses concepts in a way that assists the reader in directly investigating how concepts create the appearance of duality (or separation). So it uses conceptual frameworks to reveal that the frameworks themselves give the appearance that things exist separately. As each pointer is given, it is not given as a "statement of final truth." It is given very lightly and lovingly, as merely a pointer. You can feel the lightness in the words. And each word allows the mind to take the pointer and then just look. And as the looking takes over, the pointer itself is revealed to be not needed anymore. This reveals that there is never any pointer that is in conflict with some other pointer. No teaching (including Greg's) has ever been truly in conflict with any other teaching. Pointers are just different words or frameworks that are helpful in different "spots" in the investigation. The pointers themselves are seen to be part of the play of duality. And this is exactly why there is no dogma here and no one-ups-manship in Gregg. No inner conflict here. No agenda. No shadow boxing. Just pure humble pointing.

In this kind of looking or teaching, concepts are celebrated, instead of vilified. They are celebrated for what they really are--not statements of ultimate truth but rather simply tools of communication. And those tools reveal the limitation of language itself, which appears in a realm of opposites. But one does not feel from reading this book that the author's approach is, in the end, about the denial of form, or appearances, or stories, or worldviews. It does not feel like the author has landed on one side of an opposite including on the notion of existence v. nonexistence, being v. nonbeing, or presence v. absence. This book somehow pulls the "whole thing" off. And that is beautiful and rare.

The book does not say that nothing exists. It says that nothing exists independently. This book does something else that is rare. It invites an investigation of what appears as a gross "physical world" and reveals its transparency. It doesn't just talk about the world in terms of concepts. And in that seeing, it is revealed that the boundaries of separation are not in fact real. But the real sweetness here is that once this non-dual realization is seen, there is no one there to even make stories, ideas, language, concepts or apparent boundaries or "things" into the enemy. Greg's humility (his "absence" as a center) is a very sweet and open field that invites this seeing. I could sense that Greg is only ever pointing to space and showing that the space is none other than everything. This book is rare in its ability to reveal this astonishing paradox. This is both a celebration of the nothing and a celebration of the everything--of every story, word, idea, worldview, religion, scientific theory, and philosophy. Some teachings leave you with only the idea that nothing exists or only the idea that everything exists independently or in and of itself. Some leave you with the idea that the teacher is trying to sell you something (usually a pointer) other than what you already are or is trying to destroy some other viewpoint "out there" in order to further its own viewpoint. This book doesn't do any of that. It leaves you right where you are right now, but without the sense that there is something or someone "out there" that is separate from what you are. I highly recommend this book!

Scott Kiloby, author of "Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment." [...].

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Grown Up and Intelligent, October 24, 2009

By 

Eugene J. Shearn "E. J." (Baraboo, WI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Standing as Awareness (Paperback)

Dr Greg Goode's book is easy to read, extremely practical and highly intelligent. Unlike most books on nonduality these days, Standing As Awareness doesn't deny the value of thought, words, mind or the world up front. Nor does it leave the objective world standing while negating the psychological self. Instead Standing As Awareness offers a comprehensive "look-see" for yourself, using what Krishna Menon called "higher reason", applied to direct, empirical experience as the way to realize nondual awareness. Standing As Awareness uses experience as the path to nondual awareness with the confidence of knowing awareness is all there is.

Included along with uncomplicated, profound and non-mystical "experiments" are: important cautions about some of the traps of this sort of teaching; addressing the very subtle aspect of dissolving the "higher witness"; the unmistakable parallels of identity between the "I principle" and awareness as well as what this implies; built in sublimation along the way (even of the teaching itself in the end) and the sweetness of "falling in love with awareness". This is followed by a series of insightful one on one dialogues.

Greg's comprehensive nondual chops are obvious and his extensive background in both western philosophy and nondual eastern teachings can save the discriminating seeker loads of time and energy in their "treasure hunt". As Greg points out, "everything is awareness" has almost become a cliche today, but, if anyone would like to explore in an open, bright and visceral way where "everything is awareness" points, Standing As Awareness is a really smart way to go.

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Standing As Incredible!, October 10, 2009

By 

Susan Kahn "emptinessteachings" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Standing as Awareness (Paperback)

"Standing As Awareness," offers a most penetrating and original approach to spiritual realization. Greg Goode points the way toward dissolving a material, thought based view of reality using the direct path. However, his approach does not simply employ broad brush strokes. Pulling largely from eastern nonduality and integrating this teaching with the transcendent wisdom of certain remarkable Western philosophers, Greg Goode leaves no gaps. His step by step inquiry method collapses the assumed object world into the borderless, while also deconstructing the common practice of essentializing awareness. For those interested in ending the believed cycle of happiness and sadness, security and insecurity, life and death, this book will speak to you and it will not leave you. For the spiritual seeker, it shows the way out of return visits into the powerful pull of dualistic appearances and toward joyful nondual freedom. Greg Goode's "Standing As Awareness" is an outstanding read.