Rating: 
Summary: Spiritual Seekers Need to Read This Book
Review: AWAKE is Joan's personal story of her journey and awakening to What Is. She tells us how her thinking has changed, how she handled her guru chasing, and how she has struggled with her addictions (identifications). It is within her own personal story that Joan shares with us the TRUTH that we all seek. Joan 's views are basically non-dualistic but beyond even these concepts she sees the Truth of WHAT IS, which she shares with the reader in a clear and simple style. Reading AWAKE was an exciting and powerful experience, and it gets better with each reading.
Rating:
Summary: Spiritual Seekers Need to Read This Book
Review: AWAKE is Joan's personal story of her journey and awakening to What Is. She tells us how her thinking has changed, how she handled her guru chasing, and how she has struggled with her addictions (identifications). It is within her own personal story that Joan shares with us the TRUTH that we all seek. Joan 's views are basically non-dualistic but beyond even these concepts she sees the Truth of WHAT IS, which she shares with the reader in a clear and simple style. Reading AWAKE was an exciting and powerful experience, and it gets better with each reading.
Rating:
Summary: Best Book I've Ever Read
Review: I have no idea how to express my feelings about this book.
It's very clear that words, however carefully strung together,
will not come close to capturing how profoundly this book has
effected me. But since words are all I have......
From where I sit typing this, I can see my bookshelf.... filled
with at least a hundred books. All of them what you would
consider "spiritual/non-dual/advaitic" (whatever term you want
to use). Some of them are written by the most well-known
and popular "sages/teachers" of all time and some are great
books written by people you've probably never heard of. But
not one of them comes close to Awake In The Heartland as
far as the impact it's had on my life. This is quite simply the most amazing book I've ever read. On
the "everyday regular book" level, it is very very good. It is
extremely well written...... beautifully poetic in places. And it
is interesting and enjoyable to read the autobiographical portions...to realize that the author has gone through many of the same things we all have. She's dealt with severe adversity, she's had "good" and "bad" times, she's gone on a "spiritual search", etc. But this is NOT a "typical" book in any sense of the word. The author would probably say that EVERYTHING is "typical" and there is nothing "special" or "above" or "different" about this book. But this book functions at an entirely different "level" than any I've ever read.
That other "level" is the one that transcends the mind and everything you think you are. Continually throughout this book, the author will take a concept or idea and deftly and lucidly point out reasons why it could be "true". While reading it my mind would GRASP at that concept....."Oh.....okay...now I've got it, now I understand..... that's the way things are.... that is the Truth." But THEN..... in the next page or two the author will take a SEEMINGLY OPPOSITE perspective on the very same concept and just as deftly and lucidly point out how THAT may be "true". And my mind would then grasp THAT perspective and think that once again it had found the Truth. The effect of that, after the author had done it a few times with various subjects... is that my mind SPUN and had nowhere to "land". It was "frustrating" and "freeing" at the very same time. She does
this with the most profound issues the human race has ever faced
(and the most mundane too for that matter). Free Will, Addiction,
Pleasure, Grief, Death, Spirituality, Love, Teaching, etc. etc. etc. The result is that this book ends up being one incredibly powerful Zen Koan. Like this............
The following sentence is true.
The previous sentence is false.
If you are like me, in reading that, there was a moment, probably
just a split second, when your mind could make no sense of it
and "rolled over" and STOPPED. Well, all I can say in closing is
that..... THIS ENTIRE BOOK IS LIKE THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is why I say it's not a "regular" book. Reading it is an EXPERIENCE.
If you want a good novel........ buy something else. If you want
an autobiography...... there are plenty of good ones out there.
If you want a self-help book........look elsewhere. But if you want to stop dreaming and actually experience Reality (and if you think you know what Reality is..... you are wrong..... the second you try to conceptualize it, you've already strayed from it), then get Awake In The Heartland. I'm not sure that my encouraging you to get it will change anything..... maybe "you" aren't in control and have no choice in the matter. But maybe you do.
Who knows? I certainly don't.
Rating:
Summary: the real thing
Review: I haven't read a lot of spiritual books...most of them seem just a bit too spiritual. This is a real book about a real person who has struggled with the same things we all do. She's funny too. The book has an ordinary quality that somehow says it's quite all right to just be.
Rating:
Summary: The simple joy of just Seeing
Review: I keep thinking i've written my last review and then something great like this comes along and i tap away again. This book is a really great rare honest funny story. It also brilliantly keeps pointing to the perfection we already are but refuse to see. For us "nondualist seekers" this is another one we need to read and contemplate and be reminded that life is as it is, perfect, free, here, now. This book is very well worth a few bucks and a few hours. enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Best spiritual book I've read.
Review: I've read a lot of spiritual books and met a lot of teachers over the last two decades, and this book is by far the very best. It stopped me in my tracks and woke me up to the miracle of here and now, apparent imperfections and all. The author's personal story is beautifully interwoven with the teachings in a way that brings it all down to earth and makes it completely accessible. I loved Joan Tollifson's previous book, Bare-Bones Meditation, and this one is even better. This book is honest, funny, wise, beautiful, radical, touching, and true. This is bottom line Advaita-Zen-Taoist wisdom without any of the dogmas and doctrines. It invites curiosity and open presence with what is right now, rather than beliefs and security blankets and future hopes. I recommend it highly.
---a reader in the USA.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Enlightening Book
Review: If you've been suffering through Zen sesshins or other rigorous meditation retreats, or chasing "enlightenment" on the satsang circuit--as I was--then this may be just the book you need to set you free. This is one of those rare spiritual books that doesn't compromise or sell out the truth. It keeps bringing you back to here and now, and keeps demolishing all your ideas about how things "should" be. As it says on the back cover, this is a book about discovering perfection in imperfection and the extraordinary in the ordinary. I found it truly liberating and refreshingly unpretentious. It is beautifully written--prose like poetry--exquisite! I loved the author's honesty and sense of humor. This is a book I will read again and again, and one I highly recommend to anyone who is ready to give up the search.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Enlightening Book
Review: If you've been suffering through Zen sesshins or other rigorous meditation retreats, or chasing "enlightenment" on the satsang circuit--as I was--then this may be just the book you need to set you free. This is one of those rare spiritual books that doesn't compromise or sell out the truth. It keeps bringing you back to here and now, and keeps demolishing all your ideas about how things "should" be. As it says on the back cover, this is a book about discovering perfection in imperfection and the extraordinary in the ordinary. I found it truly liberating and refreshingly unpretentious. It is beautifully written--prose like poetry--exquisite! I loved the author's honesty and sense of humor. This is a book I will read again and again, and one I highly recommend to anyone who is ready to give up the search.
Rating:
Summary: 5 Stars Fall Short
Review: If your spirit is excited by Advaita/Zen philosophy and living in a way that reflects that immediate understanding, then this book is pretty much all you will need for "your" journey. I have struggled with "understanding" advaita philosophy for many years. I "wanted" advaita/zen to have some significant impact on how I lived my life. I sought tangible answers, big experiences...but this book put in all in perfect perspective. Reading it is truly and utterly liberating experience. No other book is so radiantly clear on a subject that cannot be put into words (thought) Reading Awake in the Heartland was like reading my own inner sense of this moment to moment experience of life. One serious proviso - I ordered this book through Amazon and despite serveral notices about likely ship dates, Amazon was never able to ship it to me. I waited several months before cancelling my order. I needed to order the book from a Canadian source linked to Joan Tollifson's web site. Get this book! You will "need" no others.
Rating:
Summary: 5 Stars Fall Short
Review: If your spirit is excited by Advaita/Zen philosophy and living in a way that reflects that immediate understanding, then this book is pretty much all you will need for "your" journey. I have struggled with "understanding" advaita philosophy for many years. I "wanted" advaita/zen to have some significant impact on how I lived my life. I sought tangible answers, big experiences...but this book put in all in perfect perspective. Reading it is truly and utterly liberating experience. No other book is so radiantly clear on a subject that cannot be put into words (thought) Reading Awake in the Heartland was like reading my own inner sense of this moment to moment experience of life. One serious proviso - I ordered this book through Amazon and despite serveral notices about likely ship dates, Amazon was never able to ship it to me. I waited several months before cancelling my order. I needed to order the book from a Canadian source linked to Joan Tollifson's web site. Get this book! You will "need" no others.
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