Wake Up Now: A Guide to the Journey of Spiritual Awakening [Hardcover]

Stephan Bodian (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 17, 2007

Stop sleepwalking through life. The secrets of peace and happiness are right in front of your eyes. It's time to open them.

To wake up to your authentic spiritual nature, you don't need to spend countless years sitting in a Zen monastery, undergo a near-death experience, or travel halfway around the world to study with celebrated teachers. Enlightenment is right here, right now. It is yours for the taking. You only have to open your eyes and recognize it once and for all.

In this illuminating book, acclaimed spiritual teacher Stephan Bodian takes you on a journey straight to the heart of your true self. The journey may be filled with challenges, but the rewards are precious beyond belief. By lifting the veil and seeing yourself for who you truly are, you can at last find peace and contentment in everything you do.

A profound and practical guidebook for this extraordinary journey, Wake Up Now gives you a step-by-step road map for walking the pathless path at every stage of your spiritual quest, from your first moments of seeking to your initial glimpse of awakening through the ongoing process of embodying your realization in everyday life. With gentle direction, free from complicated jargon or elaborate practices, Stephan Bodian provides you with the tools you need to follow your path, including customized “Breathe and Reflect” exercises in every chapter and “Wake-Up Calls” that offer you daily ways to glimpse the deeper truth behind the ordinary.

But be warned: The teachings in this book have the power to transform your life in unexpected ways. By the time you complete it, you may be forever changed.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

“Both profound and practical, Wake Up Now guides the reader through the intricacies of awakening as only someone who has walked the walk themselves can do. The clarity and compassion it offers are both rare and welcome.”
--Adyashanti, author of The Impact of Awakening and Emptiness Dancing

By simply picking up this book, you've stumbled onto a path that's been hidden from you--until now. It's the path to enlightenment, and it has been traveled by countless individuals through the ages. But this path is a pathless one, a road that keeps changing as your own journey endlessly unfolds. Wake Up Now is your guide for this incredible journey. It won't tell you how many miles you must travel or whether the path will fork left or right, but it will offer you direct pointers that invite you to awaken now and navigate the obstacles, whether external or internal, that might block your path.

Whether you're new to the path of awakening or an accomplished seeker in search of further guidance, this book will show you that enlightenment is always available, right here and right now--just open your eyes.

About the Author

Stephan Bodian is the former editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal, author of the bestselling guidebook Meditation for Dummies, and coauthor of Buddhism for Dummies. Founder and director of the School for Awakening, he has studied with some of the great spiritual masters of our age. After a series of deepening awakenings, his life is now devoted to igniting and fostering the flame of truth in others through his counseling, mentoring, teaching, and writing. For more information, visit his website at www.stephanbodian.org.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (December 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071494286
• ISBN-13: 978-0071494281
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #423,529 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephan Bodian is the former editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal and the author of the bestselling guidebook Meditation For Dummies. Founder and director of the eight-month School for Awakening, he has studied with some of the great spiritual masters of our age, and has been teaching the direct approach to spiritual awakening for more than 30 years. A licensed psychotherapist as well as a Zen master, Stephan has been a pioneer in the integration of Eastern spiritual wisdom and Western psychology. His work has been featured in Reader's Digest, Shape, Women's Health, and the San Francisco Chronicle and his articles appear regularly in Fitness, Cooking Light, Alternative Medicine, Tricycle, and Yoga Journal.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lucid, Subtle, Eloquent, and ... Subversive, January 15, 2008

By 

John J. Prendergast - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wake Up Now: A Guide to the Journey of Spiritual Awakening (Hardcover)

Stephan Bodian, author of the popular Meditation for Dummies and co-author of Buddhism for Dummies offers his most lucid, subtle and eloquent writing to date in Wake Up Now. This is the best guide to the "pathless path" of genuine nondual spiritual awakening that I know of - written by someone who clearly knows the terrain first-hand. It is a particularly valuable pointer for the growing numbers of serious seekers and finders in the west who have had significant spiritual glimpses or awakenings yet have been puzzled by the complexity of the process and the persistence of residual psychological conditioning. Bodian deftly lays out five stages of awakening: seeking, awakening, deepening and clarifying awakening, embodiment and living the awakened life. He devotes several chapters to the nuances and challenges of the post-awakening process, breaking new ground in the process. I don't know of any other book that does this with such clarity. In addition to being a spiritual teacher in his own right who has been mentored by several of the best - Jean Klein and Adyashanti - Bodian is a licensed psychotherapist. This unusual and highly useful blend of direct spiritual illumination and keen psychological insight and experience has led to something entirely new in the spiritual literature. So often awakening is portrayed as the highest spiritual realization. With Wake Up Now we understand that awakening is actually the beginning of another phase of maturation - one that embraces the full multidimensionality of the human experience. Bodian is a first-class writer as well. The prose shines and the inclusion of periodic "breath and reflect" exercises within the chapters and Q & A sections at the end of most of them further engages the reader. This subversive book can undermine your self/world view and guide you to an authentic embodied awakening. I highly recommend it!

- John J. Prendergast, Ph.D. (senior editor of The Sacred Mirror and Listening from the Heart of Silence)

60 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awakening, not preaching, January 30, 2008

By 

Morgana Darling (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wake Up Now: A Guide to the Journey of Spiritual Awakening (Hardcover)

As I read this wonderful book, I reflected that there just hasn't been such a book up to now. Books on awakening generally fall into one of two categories: they aren't really about awakening, but some kind of New Age fantasy like "awakening the chakras," or they are the words of someone who is supposedly awakened and is mildly frustrated that you, the reader, haven't yet realized what they have realized. How helpful is it, really, for someone to keep asking you "who is thinking that thought?" It may work in person, as you receive the teacher's transmission, but in a book... Can any other readers relate?

Stephan Bodian, on the other hand, quite brilliantly demystifies the whole process of awakening. After reading the book you will feel that your own personal awakening is accessible, and you may even be inspired to move your attention in that direction. And if you're not, Stephan will at least clarify for you why you find yourself resisting your own dissolution, in ways that are non-shaming. He has obviously "walked the walk," and is describing a territory he knows well, AND he is an ordinary, humble human being dealing with the same messy challenges we all face.

Read this book.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear, deep, and useful; lives up to the title, January 30, 2008

By 

D. Kaplan (Reston, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wake Up Now: A Guide to the Journey of Spiritual Awakening (Hardcover)

I found this book extremely useful. The language is clear and easily accessible which is remarkable because that clear language identified my deepest experiences and then pointed me towards deeper water. The book comes with a warning and I think that is apt as this text is dynamite for blowing away everything you might think of yourself as and leaving you with a clear experience of who (or what) you are. If you want to wake up now, I definitely recommend it.