Rating: 
Summary: To me, the clearest philosophical book I've ever read.
Review: I have been reading philosophy for many years - Nietzche (bless you!), Krishnamurti, Gurdgieff, Gita, Bible, Tolle - because I felt a lack inwardly, I felt as though there was something that I needed to add to make things right. My thought was that if I could read the right thing, if I could ingest the right knowledge, it would give me what I needed to be complete. Tony, in this book, points out that things are already complete as they are and says that the greatest way to avoid "enlightenment" is to seek it - all there is is light, why should we need more light, to be en-light-ened? The first time I read this book I had the impression that "This is it!". In clear language, he basically says that the feeling that we have of being separate individuals is an illusion and that all that exists is divinity. The mind (thought) is what makes us feel separate from this oneness but that that too is just "god's game" and therefore also divine! There is no "us and them" in this outlook. There is no karmic debt or mountain of worthiness to climb. Things can never be other than they are and they are, at all times, perfectly sacred. I have seen some mention in other reviews of this book where Hitler and some of the questionable things that go on in this world are discussed but Tony explains that these things are part of "the game" - manifestation which is ignorant of its true nature and is therefore destructive (but still, nonetheless, divine). I find it hard to read most other philosophic works now because they seem so clouded and obscure. I would suggest though that anyone interested in investigating the nature of who they are and what reality is read this book and not take what I'm saying to be an accurate synopsis of it - these are just the impressions that it has left me with. Thank you.
Rating: 
Summary: As it is? Maybe not so much...
Review: I read and read this book...and while it makes a few points that are sound...seems to be something missing here in the conclusions this volume attempts to bring to the reader. There are many volumes written on non-duality and related ideas...perhaps some deserve a look as well.
If this is the first volume one reads on the matter, it might be a "walk in the park"...otherwise, keep your heart and mind open and look to your own experience to guide you. Another reviewer wrote that while reading this book, something inside him lead him to believe this isn't IT. I had the same kind of experience both times I read it.
I don't think this was an easy book to write; but it's just not "bringing it home" for me.
Rating:
Summary: Watching yourself play the game of life
Review: In my opinion, this book is one of the best placed, along with Tony's latest, to deliver the final coup de grace in one's spiritual search. It may well kill the search stone dead. Some question whether the book's uncompromising approach in stating no path needs to be followed is effective. Who knows. It may be the case that the book resonates a little more for those long-time seekers who have sought and think they have found something but are still looking for some final missing ingredient. That is how all other books before I read this one made me feel. Revelations came aplenty from other books. Concepts were being broken down. But there was a very subtle sense that progress was being made on some linear journey towards awakening; that I just needed to continue along the Path. The very reason that made me try this book. I was still in seeking mode. Reading this book, the realization came that awakening is seeing that there is no state to awaken from. No journey, path, enlightenment exists. This is it, as it is. We are IT. Every step in our life is IT: all our ups and downs, happy and sad times. It is only our thoughts that there is something beyond this that prevents us from seeing and experiencing this. Once this is seen, the journey comes to an end. Other books I recommend that can help prise open the door to source is Byron Katie's Loving What Is, and Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now. They are both very helpful in their own way.
Rating:
Summary: who's made up a title?
Review: Nobody has said it more clear, more raw, more real than Tony Parsons.
No unnessesairy garbage, just so simple, so available.
It is such a relief to just relax and not to believe all this mind burdon on this matter, which makes it all so holy and far away..
Thank you!
Rating:
Summary: Didn't bring home the bacon
Review: The addition of Tony's exchanges with questioners does litle to spruce up the original text that he wrote in 1995 - which is now dated. Sparse, simple and poetic but those seeking further analysis leaves a lot to be desired. Some will say that is exactly the point - minimalist. Can Parsons take one further? No But there is an attempt by the publisher's to make Tony less austere by stretching the title from plain old "Open Secret" to "As It Is: The Open Secret to Living an Awakened Life". Tony used to joke about no beautiful videos of swans on lakes (a reference to Gangaji perhaps?) but instead a picture of dog poo on the pavement (As-*hit-is = As it is). But instead we see a picture of the sky.
Did Tony sell out? The impression that he gives of not taking the frills and decoration around spirituality seriously is starting to wear thin especially as TP is being made to look like some kind of authority in his particular publishing stable. Readers who still seek more after reading Tony had better look for explorative teachers like Andrew Cohen, Jed Mckenna, Dave Oshana or even your local Buddhist school. (Hope Tony didn't mind the "bacon" reference - being the Epicurean that he is I am sure that he won't)
Rating:
Summary: All that is, is Love
Review: Tony has Nothing to say and he says it beautifully!
After reading this little book several times, the "i" that appeared to be reading began to blessedly, fade.
It is glimpsed in this apparent person that All that Is, Is Love, is Freedom, is No Thing.
Tony answered questions that the mind was unaware of, leaving a sense of space and natural relaxation ...
Give it a shot. There is everything to lose and Nothing to gain! And in that Nothing, there IS Love. That is all.
Rating:
Summary: Discovering Our Identity
Review: Tony Parson's book is another in a series of gifts to humanity: books by individuals who have realized the Holy Grail of spiritual seekers throughout history. Seeker/readers who found Eckhart Tolle's book 'The Power of Now' valuable will immediately connect with Parson's open, simple, and fundamental description of and access to the nature of the Prize. In brief, succinct introductory chapters entitled Awakening from the Dream, Context, No Achievement, No One Becomes Enlightened, Time, Expectation & Purpose, he describes his own experiences and revelations on his path and beautifully expresses that seemingly contradictory truth "that enlightenment only becomes available when it has been accepted that it cannot be achieved". These chapters conclude with "The Park" in which he recounts the arrival of the Recognition as he walked across a park in a London suburb. The remainder of the first part of the book deals with the perennial issues with which, I believe, we must each finally come to grips: Presence, the Choiceless Choice, My World (the nature and value of individual subjectivity), the Death of the Body Mind, Abstraction, Fear, Guilt, Thinking, Relationships. Part one concludes with two short descriptions of who "I Am Not" and who "I Am". Part two comprises a series of dialogues with other seekers which he prefaces with the statement that "words are not truth just as honey is not sweetness". If you have read and treasured any of the writings of Eckhart Tolle, Ramesh Balsekar, Douglas Harding, Gangaji, HWJ Poonjaji, it is my suspicion that you may well have come as far as "you" can go on the Path. From here on, the truth simply becomes more and more transparent. Tony Parsons deserves our deepest gratitude and appreciation for his assistance.
Rating:
Summary: what's it like to awaken?
Review: Tony Parsons is obviously one who knows what IT is. what it means to be awake. this great little book keeps pointing at the real, the truth, what we really are. what he describes has the taste and feel of something wonderful, something beyond the usual mode of thinking and knowing. he knows who he is. he knows what he is and what we all are, too. he invites us to just see it: as it is. this book is fascinating in that it points to something very special which is available to all of us, available just for the seeing. but we continue to believe in ourselves as separate beings, and in that perception of separation, the true vision cannot appear. here's how Tony puts it in his own words from the book: "this is the great game: the infinite manifests through you as a dreamed character in a grand play called life.....what you are is no thing. what you are is beyond anything you ever believed.....it's always attractive to the mind when it is offered a method or technique like stilling the mind or killing the ego. there is no possibility for the mind to still the mind, and once it is recognized that what you are is the still silent awareness that sees the mind and its activities going on, then it is also recognized that there is no need to still the mind.....ultimately, you will realize that you are not your thoughts, your mind, your body, or any other object, but that behind all of these is a still, constant, seeming nothingness from which everything emanates; this is what you are."
Rating: 
Summary: This book "might" Offer A Wake Up Call...
Review: We all feel down and out at times. This is a far reaching book into the depths of our observatory nature. What is meant by awakening or enlightenment? It's not always really clear when the author keeps reiterating the fact that 'nothing matters'. However, 'in the end' what matters is that we search for the positive aspects of living Life. There are some very significant lines in this book that I will certainly take away with me, too. For instance:
When the bird has flown, the essence of its song is often mislaid, and then all we are left with is an empty cage.
By letting go our fascination with the extraordinary and spectacular, we can allow ourselves to recognize the simple wonder that lies within the ordinary.
We are hardly ever at home.
When I look back at my life as openly as possible, I see how I have attracted to me the people, the events, and teh pattens that have been perfectly appropriate to the kinds of influences and images that my particular belief systems have been expressing.
And yes...there IS more because that's the way it "is".
Rating:
Summary: This book "might" Offer A Wake Up Call...
Review: We all feel down and out at times. This is a far reaching book into the depths of our observatory nature. What is meant by awakening or enlightenment? It's not always really clear when the author keeps reiterating the fact that 'nothing matters'. However, 'in the end' what matters is that we search for the positive aspects of living Life. There are some very significant lines in this book that I will certainly take away with me, too. For instance:
When the bird has flown, the essence of its song is often mislaid, and then all we are left with is an empty cage.
By letting go our fascination with the extraordinary and spectacular, we can allow ourselves to recognize the simple wonder that lies within the ordinary.
We are hardly ever at home.
When I look back at my life as openly as possible, I see how I have attracted to me the people, the events, and teh pattens that have been perfectly appropriate to the kinds of influences and images that my particular belief systems have been expressing.
And yes...there IS more because that's the way it "is".
|
