Awake in the Heartland: The Ecstasy of What Is

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!

In reading the other reviews I think all has been said about this book. Joan Tollifson's honesty is a help to those of us who need concrete examples instead of abstract theory. A book to be read and reread. A keeper.

Some years ago I also stopped reading spiritual books, as the author of this book says she has done. I got tired of reading about the finger pointing and wanted to step back and live it, not read it. Or as Jack Kornfield says someplace -- if you get the message, hang-up the phone. Well, I am happy that I read this book. It describes nothing other than what IS, what is available to everyone, right here, right now. Nothing special. Quite exceptional to read about enlightment written with such clarity, honesty, and humor. "You are it. Everything is it. There is nothing else. Wake up to the Holy Reality. Pull back the curtain and see your own face everywhere. Dance until you dissolve. This awakening is absolutely simple. There is literally nothing to it. It is what is, just as it is" to quote from the book.

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 haseffected me. But since words are all I have...... From where I sit typing this, I can see my bookshelf.... filledwith at least a hundred books. All of them what you wouldconsider "spiritual/non-dual/advaitic" (whatever term you wantto use). Some of them are written by the most well-knownand popular "sages/teachers" of all time and some are greatbooks written by people you've probably never heard of. Butnot one of them comes close to Awake In The Heartland asfar as the impact it's had on my life.This is quite simply the most amazing book I've ever read. Onthe "everyday regular book" level, it is very very good. It isextremely well written...... beautifully poetic in places. And itis 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 doesthis 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, probablyjust a split second, when your mind could make no sense of itand "rolled over" and STOPPED. Well, all I can say in closing isthat..... 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 el

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.