Enlightenment Ain't What It's Cracked Up To Be: A Journey of Discovery, Snow and Jazz in the Soul Paperback – October 16, 2011

Forman's work is a refreshingly realistic documentation of his personal journey in spiritual development. It's a warts and all story with Forman being deeply honest about himself, his wellbeing, relationships, and his process of seeking. Below I both review this book from my perspective but also engage with some of the critique of this book, because the critique is also quite informative.The setting for his writing is in a hermitage in north America - where the writer had gone for a period to work on this book. It was winter there and the book flicks between reflections on days spent in his cold and snowy hide-away and the stories from across his life and learnings. It was a good writing design and it worked well.There are several aspects of this book that I found particularly useful. The first was his method of addressing the pluralist nature of spirituality - many roads but perhaps just one place to arrive at. Second was his grounding of the so called gurus - even the most eminent. Oh yes, and as in my experience as well, many of them are only 'oh too human' and their litany of excesses well documented. However, Forman doesn't raise this issue in order to make less of these spiritual being, but to challenge us to think beyond the cult of the guru in a manner that just recognises them as real people and for us to take a perspective on who it is we open ourselves to and the risks we take in such a process. Third was his insights on the 'over-selling' of the enlightenment process. Like Forman, many of us have had special experiences or come off retreats on spiritual highs that at times seem to last for months. But there is also the very real aspects to being human and enlightened. One of these is the Bhuddist insight of 'chopping wood, carrying water, become enlightened, then chop wood, carry water'. The second of these was the very real insight that one can enjoy the depths of enlightenment but we still have to live with our own personal make-up and the network of relationships in which we have to live. It is easy, he notes, to be all guru-like if we interact with no-one other than ourselves. Even in a group of similar individuals we still have to navigate the process of all being oh too human.He explores various ways of describing the experience of being enlightened - the experience of depth, deep silence, the empty fullness, the passenger, as it were, in a carriage, the mindful observer observing the observer, seer and seen and so on. I found myself surprised to learn these things, not because I was unaware of them, but because I too was expecting a lot more. He also writes about shifts, moments of personal development that occur on the journey. Reflecting on his work I can see myself as one who has had a slow and gentle unfolding as I haven't had many opportunities in recent years to do intensive, ground moving retreats. And having read this book I both wanted to and didn't want to :-) undergo processes that create big shifts!The depth of his questioning emerges in the midst of this book when he poses the question of the telos - to ask what is our end point in all of this anyway? He suggests a satisfied, satisfying well lived life, manifest in good relations, personal fulfilment, detachment, a lightness, effortlessness of being, flexibility and an openness to change and an eternal contentment in our connection with whatever it is that we've found. At the same time, when we arise from our stool, we are still the same people, albeit perhaps a little more rounded. This empty, full contentedness, detached grounded realness in the every day is the deep and enduring experience of a more practical kind of ananda - the blissy highs are the more tangential experiences, markers in the process of change.While I very much enjoyed this book and would recommend you read it, I also found myself agreeing, to some extent with Linda Johnsen's review of this book. I write as a person who spent several years, at a similar age to Forman, in a deeply formative process, but in the Byzantine tradition. My latter development has been informed/shaped by Taoist and Bhuddist training and practices. I agree with Forman that such processes are really formative of the self and lead to making us much better people - but I have to also ask (with apologies to Jack Nicholson et al.) Bob - is this 'as good as it gets'?What the debate around this book seems to be engaging with is the question of being mindful as distinct from being enlightened and that even if one is enlightened is it the case that we still have to struggle with the realities of our own humanness, be that humanness manifest in our lives (by example) in chronic pain or some aspect of mental illness. Does enlightenment really take us beyond our humanness?These practices do make us better people, but perhaps not perfect people. The issue that Forman raises though is that when we strip away the veneer that has protected, if you like, the notion of the guru, perhaps such people don't really exist anyway. Or is it about Nouwen's notion of the wounded healer; gifted but also oh so human!My learnings are that practices can take us to a place of deep absorption (which are really nothing to do with detachment or mindfulness per se (that is just a side benefit); irrespective of whether you define that absorption with the Other or within a sense of connected continuum,universe) and that this place provides for a deep centred-ness and grounded-ness of being, more gentle, peaceful way of living. If this is a place of enlightenment, or just a place on the path to it - this is where I am at and that is great and I am open to whatever else might come along while not needing it at the same time. I liked his idea that whatever it is, it involves being real and I think that is an achievement in itself.I found this to be a good read but not a fast read. The book is just on 200 pages of text but the content is such that it is not one that I found I could read in one sitting. I worked my way thru it on 3-4 sessions. Sometimes I just needed to go off and absorb and reflect on what he had written. All up - a good and useful read! And my thanks to the other Amazon reviewers for adding to my thinking and learning.

This is one of the most important books I have read in decades about the spiritual path. In reviewing this book let me give a short background of my own past so it gives readers a better understanding why I'm so interested in this excellent book. Like Robert, I have also been meditating daily (twice a day) for 48 years, but I've never had the permanent changes that he speaks of. My background is both doctoral work in the History of Religions as well as being an aerospace engineer, plus deeply practicing Filipino Martial Arts.The title made me think at first that this was a humorous approach and even though there is lightness in it, it's a very serious book. What is so unique about this book is the rare kind of autobiography of a mystic as he goes through some remarkable transformations into states of permanent enlightenment. The details of his experiences are quite unique and I try to understand them from my own perspective. I've experienced the sense of being so saturated from meditation that the inner radiance stays with me constantly - sometimes for days, months, even years. But for me it has not as yet translated into a permanent state. When we look at some of the Masters mentioned in Autobiography of a Yogi by my master, Paramahansa Yogananda, enlightenment (which comes in stages) means first a state of sabikalpa Samadhi, where the heart and breath stop and the aspirant is in a cosmic state of oneness. Prior to that come years of entering the breathless state at will going ever deeper. Robert's experience of suddenly opening up into permanent silence in parts of his brain and gradually spreading through his whole being and then gradually over the years expanding that consciousness around him, is a slightly different approach. Speaking with one of the saintly monks about this, he told me that Robert's experience is a valid state of enlightenment that will also deepen and expand over time. Each soul has it's unique personal approach towards enlightenment. From my own perspective, I would think that Robert has reached certain deep levels in previous lifetimes, that's why he could so quickly enter a permanent state so early in his practice. Some, like Yogananda have their consciousness span the whole cosmos, and others like Robert have an earlier state of permanent expansion that transcends further and further beyond his body.Many of you reading this book have probably read the spiritual classic `After the Ecstasy, the Laundry'. Robert Forman addresses this problem of what we do after `enlightenment' in depth and makes us really understand how even an enlightened state still requires much growth in inter-personal relationships. An example I relate to is how Paramahansa Yogananda spent another 9 years in his guru's ashram for training, after he received enlightenment from his guru. His guru told him to sweep the balcony right afterwards, saying he must not get too drunk in ecstasy - much work remained to be done by him in the world. Robert spends considerable time showing how nearly all spiritual teachers with permanent enlightenment experiences still have much adjustment and learning to do in this world. He is very honest about his own problems and also gives examples of how many saintly people still have sexual problems to overcome. It is evident that the reason we are here on this planet, is to integrate our spirituality into our daily life. Evidently once we have perfected that, our work here is done - but there are few who have accomplished this. Robert Forman is very active in this process and his book is so enlightening in such a personal way. I look forward to keeping in touch with his remarkable journey.

I really enjoyed this book being a meditator (transcendental meditation) as Robert was initially a T.M. teacher. I also saw him discuss the book on Conscious T.V. with Ian McNay, which I have recorded and watched many times over as it really spoke to me.It is an honest truthful account of Roberts journey into silence, mediation and all the various experiences he encounters - good and bad.It is extremely well researched and written book by a genuine seeker without pretention or flannel, its the real life encounters and conclusions that really helped me on my mediation journey.Also it is written by a man who has studied all the great religions and found essence of what is useful in them and can help us all today but importantly has become dated when shown against the challenges the world faces today, which also really struck me.

I cannot praise this book high enough. Really honest and often surprising autobiography of a mans journey into silence, into the realms of growing enlightenment. Instead of the glib overly blissful nonsense that many Indian teachers express, here is a man rooted in a process of healing and growing into greater width, greater depth. This book has given me so much to ponder about the reality of enlightenment, about what it is not just as much as about what it is. This book could not have come into my life at a better time.If you want to put into context any number of other spiritual teachers and especially if you are someone who once did or maybe eve still does TM, then this is a book for you. Beautifully written, sensitive, heartfelt and full of surprises. I loved it.

I am still reading this book, yet from what has been read, this one is unique! New concepts, new vantage points are being conceived as it leaves no room for the well worn, traditional ways to mop one up into a certain camp or modus operandi. Simply eye-opening, a breath of fresh, pure air! A MUST buy!!!

Not too heavy and makes us "normal" folk feel like we can gain our own enlightment while living a modern life with modern problems without having to shave our heads and don orange robes.

Autobiography is very honest as it chronicles a journey of a lifetime. The trouble of being a messy human in an apparently less than perfect world.