The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening (An Eckhart Tolle Edition) by Steve Taylor (PDF)

Description

What does it mean to be enlightened or spiritually awakened? In The Leap, Steve Taylor shows that this state is much more common than is generally believed. He shows that ordinary people ― from all walks of life ― can and do regularly “wake up” to a more intense reality, even if they know nothing about spiritual practices and paths. Wakefulness is a more expansive and harmonious state of being that can be cultivated or that can arise accidentally. It may also be a process we are undergoing collectively. Drawing on his years of research as a psychologist and on his own experiences, Taylor provides what is perhaps the clearest psychological study of the state of wakefulness ever published. Above all, he reminds us that it is our most natural state ― accessible to us all, anytime, anyplace.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Life always gives you what you need, and right now it has given you this book to use as a guide or companion through challenging times. It contains a great deal of precious wisdom, expressed in the straightforward, clear, and down-to-earth language that Steve Taylor is so good at.”― from the foreword by Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now and A New Earth“A wonderful synthesis of modern research and timeless wisdom that makes the mysterious process of spiritual awakening more comprehensible than ever before.” ― Peter Russell, author of From Science to God “This book is both insightful and inspiring. Building on the foundations of his previous books, Steve Taylor’s expertise and profound understanding of awakened states shine through and culminate in his proposition of an evolutionary leap that awaits humankind. For anyone who is interested in or has experienced an awakening, this book is not to be missed, as Taylor eloquently conveys an in-depth understanding of this fascinating phenomenon. It’s an excellent book that everyone should read.” ― Dr. Penny Sartori, author of The Wisdom of Near-Death Experiences “It’s high time we got clearer on what enlightenment is and isn’t. The Leap is readable, important, and long overdue. It offers a thorough portrait of this long-mysterious state with care and love.” ― Dr. Robert K. C. Forman, author of Enlightenment Ain’t What It’s Cracked Up to Be and Mysticism, Mind, Consciousness “In The Leap, Steve Taylor takes a radically new approach to spiritual awakening, suggesting that the experience is more common than one might suspect, is not bound to any religious or spiritual tradition, and may be playing an essential role in human evolution. The Leap is filled with provocative statements, some of which you may agree with and some you may disagree with ― but you can be sure that this is a book you will never forget. It establishes Steve Taylor as a major spiritual author and teacher, whose lucid and articulate writing will evoke wonder and wisdom among readers.” ― Stanley Krippner, PhD, Alan Watts Professor of Psychology, Saybrook University“A wonderfully detailed demystification of awakening within and without traditions that is a pleasure to read and offers hope for our dangerous times.”― Claudio Naranjo, author of Healing Civilization and designer of the SAT Programs for personal and professional development About the Author Steve Taylor, PhD, is the author of several books on spirituality and psychology, including The Fall and Waking from Sleep. He has also published two books of poetic spiritual reflections, including The Calm Center. He is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University in the United Kingdom. Since 2011, he has appeared annually in Mind, Body, Spirit magazine’s list of the world’s “100 most spiritually influential living people.” Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The LeapThe Psychology of Spiritual AwakeningBy Steve TaylorNew World LibraryCopyright © 2017 Steve TaylorAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-60868-447-2ContentsForeword by Eckhart Tolle, Introduction, 1 Falling Asleep, Longing to Awaken, 2 Wakefulness in Different Cultures, 3 Natural Wakefulness: Awakened Artists, 4 Natural Wakefulness: Confusion and Integration, 5 Gradual Awakening in Spiritual Traditions, 6 Gradual Awakening outside Spiritual Traditions, 7 Sudden Awakening: Transformation through Turmoil, 8 Sudden Awakening: Kundalini and Energetic Awakening, 9 Other Types of Sudden Awakening: Is It Possible to Awaken through Psychedelics or Technology?, 10 The Aftermath of Awakening: Spiritual Crisis, 11 After the Storm: Lingering Traits and Questionable Teachers, 12 What It Means to Be Awake: A New World and a New Self, 13 What It Means to Be Awake: A New Mind and a New Life, 14 The Natural Wakefulness of Children, 15 Demythologizing Wakefulness, 16 The Evolutionary Leap: A Collective Awakening, The Human Race Will Rise Again, Acknowledgments, Appendix: An Inventory of Spiritual/Secular Wakefulness, Notes, Bibliography, Resources, Index, About the Author, CHAPTER 1Falling Asleep, Longing to AwakenWhen we use terms such as wakefulness and awakening it’s important to understand what we’re waking up from. In other words, it’s important to understand the “normal” state of being that we transcend when we wake up.As my terminology suggests, what we wake up from is essentially a state of sleep — a state of constricted, limited awareness, and of discord and suffering. This state is so familiar to us that we assume it’s natural and normal, and we take it for granted. But, in fact, this state is aberrational, even pathological. It’s a kind of madness that we confuse with sanity simply because we experience real sanity so rarely.Here I’ll discuss the main characteristics of this state of sleep. I won’t go into extensive detail, as this is an area I’ve already covered in my previous books. For the sake of clarification, I’ll divide the characteristics into four different categories. Inchapters 12 and 13 I’ll look at the characteristics of wakefulness using the same categories.Bear in mind that there are variations in these characteristics. There are different degrees of sleep, just as there are different degrees of wakefulness. Some people are more asleep than others, just as some people are more awake than others.Affective Characteristics of SleepThe affective characteristics refer to the inner experience of being asleep, how it feels to live in a sleep state. The main aspect of this experience is our sense of separation and disconnection.Separation and DisconnectionAs I suggest in The Fall and Waking from Sleep, prehistoric humans — and later, the people who became known to us as indigenous peoples — experienced the world in a very different way than most of us in the modern world. One of the main differences is that they appear to have had very little sense of separation from the world. They felt closely connected to nature, to their land, and to the whole of the earth, to the extent that they didn’t see themselves as individuals in the same way that we do. Their sense of identity extended into their land and their whole community. This is part of the reason why indigenous peoples have been so horrified by European people’s rapacious attitude toward nature, their treatment of it as nothing more than a supply of riches and resources to be ransacked. Indigenous peoples feel a strong empathic connection to nature, that it’s part of their own being, and so recoil from hurting the earth in the same way they recoil from harming themselves.The collective psychological shift that our ancestors underwent thousands of years ago — the point when human beings began to “fall” asleep — occurred when they lost this sense of connection. A new, highly individualized sense of self developed. People began to experience themselves as egos enclosed within their own mental space, looking out at the world. For the first time, they experienced themselves as separate from the natural world — not beings who were living in nature, as a part of it, but beings who were somehow outside nature.This new separate self brought a sense of ego-isolation, of apartness and aloneness. There was a new duality; our ancestors were “in here” with the rest of reality “out there.” There was also a fragmentedness, as if human beings were fragments broken off the whole, with a feeling of loss and incompleteness. Other people were also “out there.” As human beings, we became less connected to one another, with a weakened sense of empathy and community. Our own needs and desires as individuals began to take precedence over the welfare of the whole group.This sense of separateness even extended to the body. Rather than see the body as an integrated part of our being, we saw the self — our own ego — as an entity trapped inside a body that was somehow other to us; the body was a vehicle that was carrying us but wasn’t actually part of us. At the same time, we became disconnected from our own being — from our essence or spirit. Our sense of identity became constricted to a very narrow focus — our own ego. In the same way that a city can become so large and prominent that it seems to be a separate entity from the rest of the land that it’s a part of — and in the same way that the inhabitants of the city can lose touch with the rest of the land and see themselves just as city dwellers — we lost contact with the expansive radiance and spaciousness of our whole being.Thought-ChatterOne of the strangest characteristics of our sleep state is the associational chatter — the endless stream of images, memories, anticipations, reflections, and snippets of information — that usually runs through our minds when we don’t occupy our attention with external things. Again, we largely take this for granted, so it’s difficult for us to understand how bizarre it really is. Why should we experience this random and involuntary thought-chatter whenever we turn our attention into our own minds? It seems to be a quirk of our strongly developed sense of ego, perhaps one that occurs when our ability to self-reflect combines with our abilities to recollect the past, anticipate the future, and imagine different scenarios. It seems also to be related to our sense of ego-isolation and the constrictedness of our sense of self, almost as if our thoughts become restless and agitated in response to the atmosphere of anxiety and lack of space.AbstractionBecause of our ego-isolation and the thought-chatter that almost constantly runs through our minds, we spend much of our time in a state of abstraction. Rather than live in the world, we live in our minds. We perceive the world dimly, through the mist of our thought-chatter and filters of preexisting concepts. Rather than live in a state of mindfulness, genuinely experiencing the reality of our sensations and perceptions, we live in a state of elsewhereness (as I refer to it in my book Back to Sanity).In Back to Sanity I suggest that there are three different modes of attention that we experience as we live our lives: abstraction, absorption, and awareness (the “three As”). Abstraction is when we immerse our attention in our thoughts. Absorption is when we immerse our attention in external objects such as activities or entertainment. Awareness is when we give our attention fully to our experience, our surroundings, and the perceptions and sensations we’re having in the present moment.When I teach courses and workshops (either at my university or independently), I often ask participants to estimate how much time they spend in each of these modes in a typical day. People tell me, almost without fail, that they spend the least amount of time in a state of awareness. Typically, people estimate that they spend most time in a state of absorption (an average of around 60 percent), with their attention immersed in tasks, chores, hobbies, or distractions. They spend the second greatest amount of time in a state of abstraction (around 30 percent), and only around 10 percent of the time in a state of awareness.Anxiety and DiscontentThe internal mental atmosphere of the sleep state is a negative one. It’s a dark, dank, and oppressive place, the mental equivalent of a small room with no windows and hardly any light.The constant chatter of our minds creates a sense of disturbance and restlessness inside us, and the frequently negative tone of our thought-chatter generates negative emotions and an overall negative mood. Meanwhile, our ego-separateness creates a sense of lack, of “something missing,” as well as a sense of isolation. Finally, there’s a sense of narrowness, with our sense of self confined to the tiny space of our own ego, disconnected from the wide-open space of our whole being and its quality of radiance.In our sleep state there’s also a sense of fear. Our separateness creates a sense of vulnerability and insecurity, of being threatened by the world and by other people. This insecurity is exacerbated by our chattering thoughts, which anticipate the future and create fear-based scenarios that we imagine repeatedly. There’s also usually an underlying fear of death, which we may not even be conscious of. Death threatens us by seeming to represent the end of everything we are, and everything we achieve or accumulate. It generates a sense of absurdity and meaninglessness, and so we do our best not to think about our own mortality.A Perceptual Characteristic: Deintensified PerceptionAnother major characteristic of prehistoric and indigenous peoples’ experience of the world was their intense perception of their surroundings. They seem to have had a sense that natural things were alive and sentient, and pervaded with a spiritual force. Different peoples with no connection to each other had different names for this spiritual force. In the Americas, the Hopi called it maasauu, the Lakota called it wakan-tanka, and the Pawnee called it tirawa. The Ainu of Japan called it ramut (translated as “spirit-energy”), while indigenous peoples in parts of New Guinea called it imunu (translated as “universal soul”). In Africa, the Nuer called it kwoth and the Mbuti called it pepo. These concepts are strikingly similar to the universal spirit-force that spiritual and mystical traditions speak of — for example, the concept of brahman in the Indian Upanishads. This spiritual force was also part of the reason for indigenous peoples’ respectful attitude toward nature and their dismay at European peoples’ exploitative attitude toward it. In addition to feeling a sense of kinship with the natural world, they felt it was spiritually alive and therefore sacred. How did we lose this intense perception of nature and this awareness of a spirit-force in the world? How did the natural world become less real to us, more mundane and less sacred and beautiful?This is partly because we live so much inside ourselves, in a state of abstraction. Our experience of the world is therefore less direct and immediate. But this loss of vividness is also related to energy. Our powerful sense of ego — and our constant thought-chatter — uses up a massive amount of energy, and as a result there’s little energy available for us to use through perception. It may even be that, when the Fall occurred, our perception became automatized as a kind of energy-conserving measure so that the powerful new ego could have more energy at its disposal. Our attention was switched off to the world around us so that we didn’t have to “waste” any energy in perceiving it.As a result, the world became an inanimate place to us. We no longer sensed the aliveness of rivers, rocks, and the earth itself. We no longer sensed the sentience of trees and other plants, nor the consciousness of insects and other animals. The world became full of objects, which we were free to use and abuse for our own devices. We lost the awareness of a spirit-force pervading the world and all the things in it.Rather than see all things as infused with this force and therefore all interconnected, we began to perceive separateness. The world became made up of distinct material objects with empty space stretching between them. As a result, we also lost the meaning and harmony that many indigenous peoples perceive in the world, and the sense of being at home in it. For us, the world became a neutral and even hostile place, and life became an empty space between birth and death for us to try to fill with enjoyment and any sense of meaning we could create through our own efforts.Conceptual CharacteristicsThe sleep state is characterized not only by a certain kind of perception but also by a type of conception — that is, a certain outlook on the world, and sense of our identity and our place within it.Egocentric OutlookIn conceptual terms, one of the main characteristics of sleep is a narrowness of outlook. In sleep, people tend to be immersed in a narrow personal world of problems and concerns. They aren’t particularly interested in other people’s problems, or in social or global issues. Environmental problems, for instance, are too abstract and vague for them to make sense of. They aren’t particularly concerned about global inequality or poverty, or even about inequality or poverty (or oppression or exploitation) within their own countries. Generally, because of their narrow vision, they only become concerned about these issues when they have a direct effect on them — for example, once disruption to weather systems brings regular floods in their towns or when they (or members of their family) are exploited or oppressed. Otherwise, these issues are too wide for them to comprehend, and their personal needs and desires usually take precedence over them.Group IdentityIn sleep, people have a strong need for identity and belonging. They feel a powerful impulse to belong to groups and to identify themselves as members of those groups in terms of religion, ethnicity, nationality, and any other label they can find. They like to define themselves as Christians or Muslims, Croats or Serbs, English or Scottish or Welsh, Republicans or Democrats or Socialists — even Manchester United or Los Angeles Lakers fans. Accordingly, they see themselves as distinct and different from those who belong to other groups, and are liable to fall into conflict with those groups whose interests may conflict with theirs. They feel the urge to help expand the power and influence of their group — for example, to convert people to their religion — and feel a sense of pride when their group prospers, such as when their nation expands its territory or when their sports team wins a trophy.This need for identity and belonging is largely because of the sense of vulnerability and fragility generated by our separateness. We feel alone within our own mental space, with an overwhelmingly vast and complex world “out there,” on the other side. We feel threatened and so need some support, to feel part of something bigger than ourselves, to provide shelter and protection.As we’ll see later, in wakefulness there’s a completely different perspective. Awakened individuals have little or no sense of group identity. They see distinctions of religion or ethnicity or nationality as superficial and meaningless. They see themselves purely as human beings, without any external identities, who are no different from anyone else. As a result, they don’t put members of their own group before others, but rather treat all people equally. They don’t feel any pride in their nationality or ethnicity; they feel just as connected to “foreigners” as they do to their own “people.”Behavioral CharacteristicsBecause the sleep state brings so much discord and discontent, the effort to escape from their psychological suffering dominates many people’s lives.There are two major ways that people try to alleviate their unease. First, they try to simply divert themselves from their inner discord by immersing their attention in external things. This partly explains the massive popularity of television over the past half century or so — it’s a simple and effective way to direct our attention outside ourselves and so escape our inner discord. Second, people try to overcome their basic sense of separateness and lack by adding things to themselves. They try to make themselves more significant by accumulating possessions and wealth, collecting achievements, or increasing their success, status, or power.The sense of vulnerability and fragility I mentioned above also has a major impact on our behavior. Along with creating the need to join groups and take on different identities, it creates a strong need for acceptance. It makes us keen to fit in, to do what we feel is expected of us rather than follow our deeper impulses. As a result, we’re in danger of living inauthentically, of suppressing our true selves for the sake of acceptance.This sense of vulnerability also generates a strong sensitivity to slights or insults. Because we feel fundamentally insecure, it’s easy for us to feel disrespected, to feel wounded by other people’s behavior toward us, even if they don’t intend to offend us. These emotional wounds often fester inside us for a long time, giving rise to resentment, creating grudges, and often leading to conflict between individuals and groups.* * *So this is our normal state of sleep: a state of separation and discord, in which we feel trapped inside our own mental space and subjected to the random chatter of thoughts and associations, and in which we’re preoccupied with our personal concerns and dominated by a desire to escape our discord through diversion and accumulation. (Continues…)Excerpted from The Leap by Steve Taylor. Copyright © 2017 Steve Taylor. Excerpted by permission of New World Library. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐If you’ve been wondering what ‘spiritually awakened’ or ‘enlightenment’ means, this book is a must read. If you’ve made progress on the path of awakening, this book will validate your journey. If you’re having intense spiritual experiences, confusion, and dark nights of the soul, this book could save your life.Steve Taylor explores the awakened state of consciousness from a psychological perspective in simple, crystal clear language. The book is based on his scientific study of hundreds of people who had various awakening experiences, on his vast knowledge of ancient spiritual traditions, and on his own personal journey.His approach is free from archaic terminology, dogma, and cultural baggage which sometimes obscure the spiritual brilliance of ancient teachings. His model of psychological awakening can be helpful to practitioners on any spiritual path as well as to fervent atheists who are having awakening experiences.Taylor says that ordinary adult consciousness is a state of deep sleep characterized by a sense of separateness, discontent, anxiety, and constant mental chatter. To escape this discomfort, we pursue happiness through money, success, power, etc., or sedate ourselves with compulsive entertainment or mind altering substances. It doesn’t work.The author distinguishes between awakening experiences and the awakened state. Awakening experiences are temporary episodes of spiritual uplift, which can range from mild awe, reverence, and harmony to full blown mystical ecstatic union with an all pervading spiritual force. Most people have had at least the mild versions, often from nature or artistic beauty. Taylor goes more deeply into temporary awakening experiences in his book, Waking From Sleep.The Leap, however, focuses on the awakened state, which is permeant wakefulness. Taylor says that with permeant wakefulness, a new, higher-functioning self-system emerges, which often feels like rebirth.The author provides a list of characteristics commonly seen in people who are spiritually awake. The intensity of these traits corresponds to the intensity of the person’s wakefulness. I’ll mention just a few: serenity, reduced mental chatter, ability to live primarily in the present moment, emotional wellbeing, pleasure in simple activities, empathy, compassion, altruism, and an enjoyable oneness with nature, other people, and a spiritual force. He describes these characteristic and many more in fascinating detail.Of particular importance, this list of characteristics can be used to evaluate the authenticity of spiritual teachers who claim to be enlightened. Unfortunately, some ‘perfect masters’ are self-deluded, or simply fraudulent. As a result, followers get injured.Awakened people are far more common than most people realize, says Taylor. Most live ordinary lives and are not spiritual teachers in any formal sense. Many do not comprehend what happened to them as they awakened from the normal adult sleep state. Taylor reports rare instances of people who are naturally awake, who never completely succumbed to adult drowsiness. He describes others who awakened gradually, often through spiritual practices. But the majority of people he studied had sudden, unexpected awakenings, triggered by extreme psychological turmoil and suffering. He gives brief case histories portraying a variety of awakening experiences.One of my favorite chapters is The Natural Wakefulness of Children, which discusses similarities between the consciousness of young children and of spiritually awakened adults. They share such characteristics as spontaneity, curiosity, openness, present moment orientation, freedom from excessive mental chatter, joy in living, vitality, dynamic creativity, and felt connection to the external world. However, since children lack an adult self-system, their wakeful traits are often overridden by impulsive selfish desires.In a great quote, Taylor says, “Sometimes, when I discuss childhood wakefulness in talks or lectures, I joke that children are a combination of enlightened beings and narcissistic monsters.” He then asks, “But isn’t that a good description of some spiritual teachers?”Taylor then cracks open eleven myths about the awakened state or what some call enlightenment. His discussion as to why these commonly held beliefs are incorrect is based on his empirical research, his knowledge of ancient scriptures, and his extraordinarily powerful insight. In addressing these myths, he summarizes most of the important points in the text. This chapter is worth the price of the book!Here are the eleven beliefs he demythologizes: Myth 1: Wakefulness is exceptional and extraordinary. Myth 2: It’s not possible to live in a continuous state of wakefulness. It would make it impossible to live in the world on a day-to-day basis. Myth 3: You are either enlightened or not. There is no middle ground. Myth 4: Wakefulness is the end point, the culmination, of our development. Myth 5: Awakened people live in a state of continuous bliss and ease, free from all suffering and difficulty. Myth 6: Awakened individuals are incapable of behaving improperly. Myth 7: Awakened Individuals are detached from the world. They become indifferent to worldly affairs and are content for the world to remain as it is, without interfering. Myth 8: Awakened individuals—or mystics—are passive or inactive. They just sit and meditate all day, immersed in their own blissfulness. Myth 9: In wakefulness, the world is revealed to be an illusion. Myth 10: In wakefulness, the self disappears. There’s literally “no one there.” Wakefulness is a state of selflessness. Myth 11: You can’t make an effort to wake up.In the final chapter, The Evolutionary Leap: A Collective Awakening, Steve Taylor suggests that the evolutionary force that has been driving life on earth toward increasing complexity for billions of years, is nothing less than the universe seeking to become more fully awake and aware of itself. By aligning ourselves with that force, humanity may be able to leap into a new world of collective wakefulness. Planetary turmoil may hasten the process. Taylor makes the case that that is exactly what is happening worldwide as increasing numbers of people are awakening. He cautions, however, that there is no guarantee that we will successfully make the leap rather than self-destruct.This book could easily become a classic on awakening with the staying power of Cosmic Consciousness (1901) by Richard Maurice Bucke, Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) by William James, and Mysticism (1911) by Evelyn Underhill. That’s assuming humankind awakens from the nightmare produced by the constricted consciousness currently driving us to annihilation. Again, this book gives abundant hope that we will.Eckhart Tolle supplies an excellent forward to the Leap.

⭐This book wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t great. If you want to gain a deeper understanding of what the author’s interpretation of the concept of “Spiritual Awakening” is , then this book does an excellent job in defining that, describing it and giving plenty of real world examples (which get somewhat repetitive). If you are looking for an in-depth discussion on how to achieve or develop a higher level of spiritual awakening in yourself, this falls a little short. A lot of “what it is” but not really much “how to get it”. To be fair, I think that was the author’s intention but either I didn’t research it enough prior to purchasing it or it fell short of my expectations because I had to struggle to finish it. If you are looking to gain a greater understanding, excellent book. It’s like a cookbook with descriptions of great food and all the ingredients for each dish but no recipe instructions so you have to just try and figure out the recipe yourself. Again, that might be exactly what he intended.

⭐Review of “The Leap” by Steve TaylorI enjoyed this book. It is about Non-Duality but written in a rational style rather than revelatory or inspirational. It’s an easy read. I like the theory that Waking Up is a part of the scheme of evolution. He offers a good definition of awakening: “an experience of clarity, revelation, and joy in which we become aware of a deeper or higher level of reality, perceive a sense of harmony and meaning, and transcend our normal sense of separateness from the world.” He outlines some of the typical conditions with which awakening occurs, and differentiates between temporary glimpse and permanent awakening. He has a nice section on wakeful states in various world spiritual traditions. He aligns the permanent wakefulness with sahaja samadhi which I think is correct. He gives some beautiful examples of awakened artists, Walt Whitman, D.H.Lawrence. He surprised me on Lawrence. Also Peace Pilgrim and some other average folk culled from Taylor’s own research and work. There are some really interesting case histories. He also covers the aftermath of awakening with examples and stories, always fun to read. This book has something of the style of the Near Death Experience literature, some case histories, some theory, something of a social topological map. He has a helpful summary of the characteristics of wakefulness and the awakened personality in life. One of my favorite parts is listing the common misunderstandings about waking up. I liked Satyam Nadeen’s list also in “From Seekers to Finders.” I found it helpful when just starting out. If you are used to shocking counter-intuitive pointers to enlightenment, the world is an illusion, there is no self, “there’s just what’s happening to no one,” “There is no teacher, no student,” this book does not take that approach. It is rational, comforting and down to earth. A good read.

⭐This publication offers a comprehensive framework for identifying what constitutes ‘awakening’ (often termed ‘enlightenment’), the means and circumstances through which it is attained, who attains it, and to what degree of intensity and duration. In this, it offers considerable value to those simply curious about what ‘awakening’ is really about, and to those who, whereby deliberately or inadvertently, are already engaged in a process of waking. Due to these elements, this work is indeed ‘enlightening’ and a strong recommendation to read it can be made.Of course, some of the author’s contentions on the key characteristics of ‘awakening’ are open to debate. But that is a not a great problem. It is well established that one of the characteristics of ‘awakening’ is indeed the commitment to investigation. (For example, classical Buddhism offers a list of seven ‘awakening factors’ of which #2 is ‘investigation’.)What is a problem is that an author with a background in scientific research, and who makes claims to ‘demythologise’ (notably in chapter 15), should be so prone to ‘mythologise’. He perpetuates the myth of a ‘golden age’, purportedly occurring in two periods. One was in the past, with a ‘Fall’ from the awakened state, some 10,000 years ago. The other, predicted for an indeterminate future, is an ‘evolution’ to a higher consciousness for the human species as a whole. Thus the ‘Leap’ in the book’s title has at least two aspects, individual awakening and collective awakening. Whilst the book documents the former very ably, its treatment of the latter involves a leap into speculation. There is no proof of a golden age in the very distant past – we simply have no records. Likewise, we can know very little about what the future holds – the human species will probably ‘evolve’, but whether forwards or backwards is uncertain, and it may disappear altogether.Further, in espousing the ‘New Age’ idiom, the author seems to be overlooking – or at least underestimating in this publication – two invaluable lines of inquiry. One is to ask what ‘evolution’ has actually occurred over the past 5,000 years or so of relatively well-recorded history. (Of course, this topic is usually treated under the term not of ‘evolution’ but ‘civilisation’ in a copious literature to which the author may be disinclined to add, for understandable reasons.) The other is to document whether, going forwards, the propensity to awaken is increasing, decreasing or static. In other words, does the proportion of the population that is awake or awakening change over time? And if so, to what degree and for what reasons? Are some factors and methods stronger – more effective and/or more reliable – than others? Can the best methods be further refined, and just how do we do that? At the moment, all we do is to guess and proceed on the basis of (often individual) trial and error, because we do not have a historical baseline for comparison. Indeed, perhaps all our generation can do, through the good offices of researchers such as Steve Taylor is to establish a baseline in relation to the present day which can be utilised over the longer term to discover in what direction we are going, individually and collectively, and why. That research project is a lot more modest than New Age myth-making, but it is potentially a greater gift and legacy to future generations. Though it calls for significant resources, it does seem within reach.

⭐I would recommend this book to anyone interested in spirituality. The book describes what awakening is, and gives anecdotal accounts and stories from people who have experienced some kind of awakening. Previously I’ve read books by Eckhart Tolle and the Dalai Lama. It has greatly complemented my own understanding of awakening, and as I find myself with a terminal illness, the book gave me some guidance and comfort. I am not too hard on myself now…..

⭐This is the first of Steve’s books that I have read but it certainly will not be the last. Very well researched and very well reasoned – and also engagingly personal at times. Steve is a gifted writer as well as an insightful psychologist and philosopher of consciousness, making this an enjoyable as much as an extremely informative read. I can see I will now need to work my way through all his other books. I urge others with an interest in this field of study to do so too!

⭐If I’d had this book in 1985 it would have explained what happened to my mind during my awakening and saved me a lot of confusion. An excellent book for those people who have experienced an awakening and want a psycho-spiritual explanation. However, only 3 stars because Steve reckons that the physical brain has nothing to do with the awakening experience, an attitude that I feel seriously limits his understanding of the process.This book is an interesting starting place, but in my view, incomplete.

⭐Ordered this book after a chance noticing of it whilst casually browsing in Waterstones, was drawn in by the ‘Ekhart Tolle edition’ written on the cover.Took this book with me on a month long hiking & camping trip in the back country of the US Pacific Northwest and Canada. Excellent location of solitude and nature to be able to absorb into the content fully, align with the writers ideas & intent and meditate/reflect on the meanings.Simply reading this book took my awareness and consciousness to a higher level.The fact the the author teaches at my hometown university, (I discovered this after purchase), added an extra connection. The empirical stories could really be felt deeply, understood and subsequently integrated into my own being.

Keywords

Free Download The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening (An Eckhart Tolle Edition) in PDF format
The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening (An Eckhart Tolle Edition) PDF Free Download
Download The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening (An Eckhart Tolle Edition) 2017 PDF Free
The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening (An Eckhart Tolle Edition) 2017 PDF Free Download
Download The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening (An Eckhart Tolle Edition) PDF
Free Download Ebook The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening (An Eckhart Tolle Edition)