As It is: The Open Secret to Living an Awakened Life

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.

After I first read "As It Is...", I found myself immediately making a reservation to fly to Wales to take a workshop with Tony. In a few days my phone rang and it was Tony himself on the other end. "His" infectious humor and presence were immediately perceived when he asked, "Are you sure you want to come all the way here for nothing?" He didn't want me to be disappointed to think I was going to get something out of all of this seeking....when there was nothing to find, in the end and the beginning...he is just a friend sharing a simple message that frustrates the mind and intellect until something is seen, by no one really....everything is presence, divine, or whatever word we call that which is beyond understanding and that is the joke of it all. There is lots of humor and laughter when one is around Tony and his lovely wife, Claire. He likes to kid everyone that we pay a lot to come to his workshops for nothing, but, to me, it is worth every penny. Don't miss him or this book or his new one.

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."

I love this simple and beautiful book. Tony's descriptions of "presence" are as clear and beautiful as any I have ever read. I find myself entering deeply into that profound state just after reading a few sentences of his book. It carries the purest essence of truth, coming as it does from a truly liberated human being. I was especially intrigued with his "dialogue" which is guaranteed to bring out a great deal of ego resistance. But if you feel that resistance and defensiveness coming on don't get stuck there - read it again and again and you will resonate with the deep truth of his statements. His has great gentleness but also will come on strong against your ego. Read his along with Eckhart Tolle's book - "The Power of Now." Two awakened brothers.

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.