Product Description

An intimate account of spontaneous spiritual enlightenment and its implications in a life lived beyond the individual self, Perfect Brilliant Stillness is a guidebook for the more advanced spiritual seeker who is ready to go beyond popular ‘new age’ ideas to explore in depth the perennial wisdom of the non-dual tradition of Eastern spirituality. Perfect Brilliant Stillness offers an invitation to finally let go of the false sense of individual self and to go, completed, beyond.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26998 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Released on: 2005-09-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 420 pages

Review
"This book is a Gonzo Gita... at once intimate, vulnerable, informal, passionate, and rigorously rational..." -- Robert Gussner PhD, Professor Emeritus,
University of Vermont Dept. of Religion

"This book is a Gonzo Gita... at once intimate, vulnerable, informal, passionate, and rigorously rational..." --Robert Gussner PhD, Professor Emeritus, University of Vermont Dept. of Religion

"Your book is a beacon which can shine through all the nonsense that is broadcast under the name of ‘advaita’." -- Tony Parsons, author of As It Is and Invitation To Awaken

"Your book is a beacon which can shine through all the nonsense that is broadcast under the name of ‘advaita’." -- Tony Parsons, author of As It Is and Invitation To Awaken

"Your book is a beacon which can shine through all the nonsense that is broadcast under the name of ‘advaita’." --Tony Parsons, author of As It Is and Invitation To Awaken

From the Publisher
The fine print:

There are many books out there that will help you to live a better life, become a better person, and evolve and grow to realize your full potential as a spiritual being.

This is not one of them.

At the time of this writing, almost every popular spiritual teacher in America and Europe is teaching that ultimate spiritual enlightenment, once attained only by certain yogis, gurus and other extraordinary beings, can now be yours; and that reading their book or attending their seminar will help you toward that end. This book will tell you that these ideas are absurd, because it’s quite obvious that neither you nor anything else has ever existed.

In fact, notwithstanding the enthusiastic blurbs on the cover, I would actually encourage any reasonably normal person not to buy this book. I say this because there’s no point in spending good money on yet another ‘spiritual’ book only to have it turn out to be of no use to you. The subject matter is such that only a very few will be interested in it. What is written about here, if it is really understood, is so genuinely strange that it is on the far edge of what the normal human brain can comprehend or accept. I wouldn’t have understood it myself, or found it interesting, before what happened in the jungle.

In addition, if you do find yourself interested, and are able to see past the words to understand at least some of what they point to, you are likely to find it quite disturbing. Few people buy books on spirituality to be deeply disturbed, so consider yourself forewarned.

And finally, if you read it anyway, and what is hinted at here resonates and is by some remote chance followed to its end, then that will likely also be the end of you. So again, a warning. With any luck, you will not come back from this with a life you can call your own; ‘you’ will not come back at all.

There’s no way to know what the chances are of this happening, but the Upanishads say that "only once in a thousand thousand years does a soul wake up," so there’s probably no need for concern. Probably.

That said, enjoy.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
There is nobody home. Abruptly, instantly. Effortlessly, out of stillness. A moment, an instant, of radical, severe disorientation, discontinuity; then a stepping through that into perfect clarity, not at all unlike the experience of waking up. A dream, seemingly real, lasting all one’s apparent life. A stirring, and the sleep dropping effortlessly away. A moment of disorientation as the dream is recognized as dream and there is waking to the ‘real.’ Immediately, the dream falls away and it is known that the dream was never real, that one never was what one had been dreaming. There is no ‘before and after,’ no moment when I was ‘no longer’ david. This is the ‘gateless gate’: only the seeing that david never was...

What would you give to know, absolutely know beyond any doubt, that everything really is all right, that there is no reason to fear. That there is no need to feel despair or loss or uncertainty. That all the pain and hurt and evil we have seen truly is only an illusion, and that the most beautiful things we have experienced are only a glimpse, a small taste, of what is truly real, and truly ours. That everything is all right; that everything is perfect as it is; that all is well. This is what I see, and what I know...

At the end of human vision lies the final, ultimate Truth, inasmuch as such can be at all within our vision even at its extreme limit. It cannot be experienced or thought of or spoken of because it cannot be conceptualized... This ultimate Beingness and ultimate Consciousness overflows constantly in the Outpouring of its essence, its nature, which is pure absolute love beyond our conceptions of love: complete compassion, total truth, ultimate beauty, Outpouring...

All of this, everything everywhere, is not as it appears. This energy which everything is, is Consciousness, Being, outpouring itself in itself. This is what is called Ananda, because the very nature of Consciousness outpouring in itself is perfect love, wonder, beauty, gratitude, completion. Bliss. This streaming is what is perceived as all this, all this crazy world. But in truth, when seen as it is, this car is not a car, these groceries are not groceries, they are pure love light consciousness bliss streaming here.

This is obvious. It is seen here always; once seen it cannot not be seen. It is inexpressible. There is no way I can communicate this without sounding like a blathering nut case. But it is true. All is well. All is so incredibly well. Everyone is asleep and does not see it. How can anything, the smallest thing, not be well? Everything, the smallest thing, is ‘God’, is all that is, pure awareness, pure love, outpouring as itself...

When there is total letting go of the idea of being a separate self, then what is seen is the love compassion bliss that you are and that the slightest thing is. If nothing else, trust me on this. All is perfection, pure bliss love outpouring. Any perceptions to the contrary are simply not true. All is well. Totally.

Customer Reviews

Throw this book in the Advaita Stew and serve it generously it's a great read.
This is a very skillful account on the subject of Advaita by the entity david as he describes himself. He is an excellent story teller with a very engaging approach to this subject. I note several negative feedbacks regarding this book which I found a bit odd. Firstly, awakening is not boring it is in fact the contrary and generally it is from illusion of ego that one arrives at such a comment. Secondly, as far as the writer appearing contradictory and dry at times, that is certainly within the nature of Advaita, it arises between that space of duality or it could also be said that it does not. So where can you go with that ? It is ambiguous topic once it is set loose in the illusionary mind. It is not for the squeamish particularly troubled by conundrums. Thirdly, this book may not exactly have all the elements of the Diamond in your Pocket but it most certainly has its own generous nuggets of gold which makes it quite a formidable read. I would be inclined to serve this to someone who has never read Advaita. This is a very clearly written book on a very paradoxical topic. For those who have already read a number of books on this topic add this book your collection as well. It may just very well surprise you whilst you're pondering enlightenment. And for the more critical and astute readers your quite right, you don't ponder enlightenment. "

From the first, not one thing is
This is not Feel-Good Spirituality.

The author opens with, "There are many books out there that will help you live a better life, become a better person, and evolve and grow to realize your full potential as a human being. This is not one of them."

Then he quotes Wei Wu Wei, "The essential Understanding is that in reality, nothing is. This is so obvious that it is not perceived."

If that statement doesn't convince you that you're about to read the ravings of a madman, buy the book, because any props you have left to hold up the illusory structure of an illusory ego are about to get knocked out from under you.

volumes and volumes
"It seems a shame there have to be so many words...volumes and volumes...so much verbosity"..but is this true? does there really have to be so much said about the Great Silence? There is some useful stuff in here...and alot of stuff that is better gotten directly from the source..and I wonder, really, just how many times the 60's "outlaw" personna (the rugged carpenter, the macho bearded woodsman, the part-Native American, the uneducated innocent, the one who doesn't know anything about the spiritual marketplace, even though he went through training to become a priest and appears to be incredibly well-read and articulate) needs to be snuck in there beneath the "david entity"? There is this Advaita thing going on now...."present yourself" as "something" (especially, in the USA, as an "anti-authority" figure, something that is part of the American Romantic "outlaw" tradition ) at the same time you say, "I am nothing much". I'm looking forward to that very short volume of living out the awakening experience as written by an old woman working as a checker at Home Depot.
M. Sokoloff,