The End of the Spiritual Path (Salvadore Poe)
Un-Poetic Palaver
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “The End of the Spiritual Path: Liberation Is” by Salvadore Poe.]
The spiritual cognoscenti, those with real understanding of Advaita Vedanta and the Self-realization project, will laugh hard when they read this book, because it is just another superficial, recycled neo-Advaita Vedanta text, which, unsurprisingly, is geared to attract the ignorant and naïve to spiritual coaching sessions with the author. The spiritual cognoscenti will laugh hard, because they have seen this charade enacted innumerable times before, with one Un-Self-realized teacher after another attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of the spiritually unsophisticated.
The first giveaway in these texts is usually the author’s failure to provide any depth or details about their process of Awakening, their supposed Awakening, or their Awakened state. And this is the case with this book. The only thing the author tells us about his putatively Awakened state is that it was the end of seeking. He writes, “Seeking was finished there was no cause of it any longer. After that, with my spiritual path finished, I kept living mostly in India and went back to making music again… and there was no inclination to become a teacher or anything like that.” But now, of course, he is a spiritual coach, who, unsurprisingly, puts down traditional forms of spiritual transmission. He writes, “I am not a guru or spiritual teacher. There is and never will be ashrams, sanghas, disciples, students, followers, etc. In my opinion the days of that are over.” But, of course, the days of spiritual coaches, like him, who peddle private sessions, is not over.
Those with an extensive background in spiritual philosophy will laugh at the author’s pop-level Eckhart Tolle Dharma and lack of spiritual understanding. He informs us that “There is only now.” No, there’s not. There is also the past and the future. The present moment is not the timeless Divine Presence. The author says, “Time is a mental creation.” No, it’s not. It’s a real measurement of observable change and duration according to an objective standard. The author writes, “Shiva and Shakti are one. Shiva is the unmanifest. Shakti is the manifest energy.” In reality, Shiva is Consciousness and Shakti is its uncreated Energy. The manifest energy of Shiva, or Consciousness, is Prakriti, not Shakti, which exists outside time and space. (Unsurprisingly, this neo-Advaita Vedanta author doesn’t mention Shakti again in this book.) The author avers, “Form is the appearance of the Absolute. There is no Absolute apart from form.” Yes there is. If the universe suddenly vanished, the formless Absolute would be utterly unaffected by its absence. In short, the author’s Dharma understanding is flawed and superficial, and his text is utterly bereft of an esoteric dimension.
I could go on and on deconstructing the pervasive prattle in this book, but I’m sure you get the picture by now. So at this point I’ll just summarize my take on the text: It’s palaver by Poe; hence it’s un-poe-tic palaver worth exactly what I paid for it -- nothing.
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “The End of the Spiritual Path: Liberation Is” by Salvadore Poe.]
The spiritual cognoscenti, those with real understanding of Advaita Vedanta and the Self-realization project, will laugh hard when they read this book, because it is just another superficial, recycled neo-Advaita Vedanta text, which, unsurprisingly, is geared to attract the ignorant and naïve to spiritual coaching sessions with the author. The spiritual cognoscenti will laugh hard, because they have seen this charade enacted innumerable times before, with one Un-Self-realized teacher after another attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of the spiritually unsophisticated.
The first giveaway in these texts is usually the author’s failure to provide any depth or details about their process of Awakening, their supposed Awakening, or their Awakened state. And this is the case with this book. The only thing the author tells us about his putatively Awakened state is that it was the end of seeking. He writes, “Seeking was finished there was no cause of it any longer. After that, with my spiritual path finished, I kept living mostly in India and went back to making music again… and there was no inclination to become a teacher or anything like that.” But now, of course, he is a spiritual coach, who, unsurprisingly, puts down traditional forms of spiritual transmission. He writes, “I am not a guru or spiritual teacher. There is and never will be ashrams, sanghas, disciples, students, followers, etc. In my opinion the days of that are over.” But, of course, the days of spiritual coaches, like him, who peddle private sessions, is not over.
Those with an extensive background in spiritual philosophy will laugh at the author’s pop-level Eckhart Tolle Dharma and lack of spiritual understanding. He informs us that “There is only now.” No, there’s not. There is also the past and the future. The present moment is not the timeless Divine Presence. The author says, “Time is a mental creation.” No, it’s not. It’s a real measurement of observable change and duration according to an objective standard. The author writes, “Shiva and Shakti are one. Shiva is the unmanifest. Shakti is the manifest energy.” In reality, Shiva is Consciousness and Shakti is its uncreated Energy. The manifest energy of Shiva, or Consciousness, is Prakriti, not Shakti, which exists outside time and space. (Unsurprisingly, this neo-Advaita Vedanta author doesn’t mention Shakti again in this book.) The author avers, “Form is the appearance of the Absolute. There is no Absolute apart from form.” Yes there is. If the universe suddenly vanished, the formless Absolute would be utterly unaffected by its absence. In short, the author’s Dharma understanding is flawed and superficial, and his text is utterly bereft of an esoteric dimension.
I could go on and on deconstructing the pervasive prattle in this book, but I’m sure you get the picture by now. So at this point I’ll just summarize my take on the text: It’s palaver by Poe; hence it’s un-poe-tic palaver worth exactly what I paid for it -- nothing.
