An Extraordinary Absence (Jeff Foster)
Trite, Formulaic, Psychologized Neo-Advaita
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “An Extraordinary Absence: Liberation in the Midst of a Very Ordinary Life†by Jeff Foster.]
If Jeff Foster has anything new, profound, or interesting to say, I haven’t read it—and this is the second book of his I’ve had a go at. I downloaded this book, his latest, from Amazon, and half an hour later I was through it, having encountered nothing worth recommending to others.
I have devoted the past forty years to studying, practicing, and teaching Eastern spirituality, and in my opinion this book ranks as nothing more than another trite, formulaic, psychologized neo-Advaita text.
This text does nothing more than describe the human condition of existential angst and prescribe deep acceptance as the cure. The description and prescription could be summarized in a page or two, but it drags on for the whole book, buffered with “storyized†psychologization designed to pull at the heart strings of the easily affected.
If you’re seriously interested in the quest for Self-realization, I suggest texts by Ramana Maharshi, India’s greatest twentieth-century Advaita Vedanta guru. Other Advaita gurus worth reading include Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Jean Klein. I also suggest checking out the spiritual traditions of Tibetan Dzogchen, Hindu Kashmir Shaivism, Christian Hermeticism, and Adi Da’s Daism.
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “An Extraordinary Absence: Liberation in the Midst of a Very Ordinary Life†by Jeff Foster.]
If Jeff Foster has anything new, profound, or interesting to say, I haven’t read it—and this is the second book of his I’ve had a go at. I downloaded this book, his latest, from Amazon, and half an hour later I was through it, having encountered nothing worth recommending to others.
I have devoted the past forty years to studying, practicing, and teaching Eastern spirituality, and in my opinion this book ranks as nothing more than another trite, formulaic, psychologized neo-Advaita text.
This text does nothing more than describe the human condition of existential angst and prescribe deep acceptance as the cure. The description and prescription could be summarized in a page or two, but it drags on for the whole book, buffered with “storyized†psychologization designed to pull at the heart strings of the easily affected.
If you’re seriously interested in the quest for Self-realization, I suggest texts by Ramana Maharshi, India’s greatest twentieth-century Advaita Vedanta guru. Other Advaita gurus worth reading include Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Jean Klein. I also suggest checking out the spiritual traditions of Tibetan Dzogchen, Hindu Kashmir Shaivism, Christian Hermeticism, and Adi Da’s Daism.
