The Last Barrier: A Journey into the Essence of Sufi Teachings

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary Conversations
Review: Finding this book in print is like finding an insider's multi-million dollar stock tip in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, or an original Rembrandt etching at a yard sale. Such things aren't supposed to happen. But when they do, the finder is perversely negligent not to take advantage of them.
We all know that the way to learn an art or a skill is to apprentice to a master, and this is truest of all in the case of the ultimate art - the art of becoming fully human, becoming what Jesus and St. Paul called "perfect", "completed". However, though it's easy to find a fine surgeon or an expert carpenter, it's not so easy to locate a reliable teacher in the realm of the spirit. The field is full of frauds since so few of us are equipped to judge true quality. And instruction in this art is usually private and secret, for good and sufficient reasons. The fate of those who go public can be unhappy.
Here is the autobiographical record of a young British pop musician who went east on a spiritual journey. So far not unusual. He found a capable teacher who was not a fraud and was willling to talk: less usual. And he took notes! He took copious notes, and put the record of his experiential learning into a book, and this book is available on the internet.
Only in these strange times, when, as Jesus said, there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing whispered in a private room that will not be shouted from the rooftops, could such a thing be possible.
Thank goodness that Reshad went looking, that Bulent was willing to teach, that Reshad took notes, and that Lindisfarne Press has brought the book out again. It contains instructions for learning to live, a skill most of us are still beginners at.