Rude Awakening: Perils, Pitfalls, and Hard Truths of the Spiritual Path

by P.T. Mistlberger

Overview

We live in the Golden Age of publishing for spiritual, esoteric, and new age books of all conceivable stripes (and then there is the Internet). Amongst this wild proliferation of available information there has occurred a cheapening effect, in which many teachings have been watered down to make them palatable for a public with diminishing attention spans and suffering from information overload. For the sincere spiritual seeker there needs to be an awareness of the various ways we can go astray on the path, or fall off the path altogether. The whole idea of spirituality is to be awake, yet it is all too easy to simply end up in yet another dream world, thinking that we have found some higher truth. Rude Awakening: Perils, Pitfalls, and Hard Truths of the Spiritual Path is dedicated to examining, under a sharp light, the many ways our spiritual development goes wrong, or disappears altogether in the sheer crush of books and the routine grind of daily life.
,

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781846946097
Publisher:	Collective Ink
Publication date:	05/16/2012
Pages:	289
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction: Spiritual Awakening is Harder than You Thought (Which Only Makes It More Valuable) 5

Part I Hard Truths

1 Spiritual Posturing: The Regular Self and the Idealized Self 15

2 Eastern Fundamentalism 19

3 Sex and Hypocrisy 24

4 New Age Fluff, Feel-Good Spirituality, and the Enlightenment Industry 28

5 Dysfunctional Masculine Spirituality and Dysfunctional Feminine Spirituality 38

6 False Awakenings 47

7 Bogged Down by Practical Matters: Whatever Happened to Truth? 52

8 Online 'Enlightenment': The Culture of Camouflage 58

9 Most People Don't Really Want Enlightenment - Even Those Seeking It 61

Part II Further Myths, Fairy Tales, and Misconceptions about Spiritual Awakening

10 More on the Denial of Darkness and 'Falling Apart' 69

11 Soul Mates and Other Romantic Fairy Tales 73

12 More on Altered States of Consciousness: Makyo and Glittering Illusions 79

13 Reincarnation: Food for the Spiritualized Ego 85

14 Enlightenment Doesn't Care If You Are Rich or Poor 89

15 Gurus, Disciples, and Guru-bashers 93

16 'Spiritual Growth' and 'Creating Our Reality' 97

Part III Yet More Annoying Roadblocks on the Way

17 Unclear Motivation: Ulterior Agendas 105

18 Insincerity and Laziness 109

19 Unresolved Authority Issues 111

20 Excessive Intellectualizing and Anti-Intellectualism 115

21 Relationship Drama 121

Part IV Awakening: Seven Steps up a Challenging Mountain

22 Preparation I: Abandoning Ship 129

23 Preparation II: Embracing the Unknown 138

24 Awakening: Passion for Truth 147

25 Purification I: Radical Honesty 155

26 Purification II: Joining Opposites 162

27 Enlightenment: Totality of Experience 171

28 Illumination: Beyond Experience 179

Part V Case Studies: Seven Radically Awakened Sages

29 Socrates: The First Zen Master 183

30 Jesus: Rebel Lion 191

31 Milarepa: Reformed Sorcerer 206

32 Hakuin: Zen Executioner 217

33 Ramana Maharshi: Solid as a Mountain 231

34 Nisargadatta Maharaj: Passionate Tiger 245

35 Yaeko Iwasaki: Deathbed Awakening 255

Part VI Eight Guiding Pointers for Deep Awakening

Notes 279

About the Author 281