The Direct Path: A User Guide

A modern restatement of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths: Life is suffering. The cause of suffering is craving. The end of suffering comes with an end to craving. There is a path which leads one away from craving and suffering—It is the Eightfold Path, which includes the notions of right attention, right contemplation. These are fancy expressions for simply silently looking, observing, awakening. Yes, challenging to do. But, it can be accomplished. This author offers a primer to some of that in a modern package. From this, go back to the Vinjana Bhairava Tantra, more than 100 techniques to awareness—awakeness. Or, just simply sit silently, look, observe, wake up!

As the author of  Living Realization: Your Present Experience...As It Is , I have a huge bookcase of books about nonduality ranging from teachings from the great masters of the past to the newest, modern approaches on the subject...I've read nothing like it in my life. This book is astoundingly comprehensive in its reach, a deep and endless resource on nondual awareness.Much has been written about awareness, yet often the practical and very subtle points are conspicuously missing from other texts. Although it is written from the perspective of a particular path ("Direct Path Advaita")Greg Goode's book is so comprehensive that, after reading it, my mind could not even think of something that was missing. It covers the various dualities we believe we experience such as inside/outside, subjectivity/objectivity, life/death, existence/non-existence and enlightened/unenlightened, to name a few. It also covers the world, the body, the mind, the witness, physical objects, senses, emotions, thoughts, states, positionality, location, identity, containment, choice and doership, time, cause and effect, language, and many other things. It's so thorough that it is helpful to any awareness-styled path. It covers every nook and cranny, every trap, and every angle that I've encountered (and many more that I have not encountered) while meeting with people over the years in the course of my own work in nonduality.While reading it, I kept feeling a strong sense that this book needed to be written, that it arose because of a real need to address very common, but often overlooked, nuances that pop up when people are exploring the nature of this sweet, experiential knowing of non-separation. If you have a question, chances are this book addresses it. Reading this book as a seeker must be like being a kid in a candy store that contains every taste, texture, color, shape and smell imaginable.The sections on the opaque witness, levels of awareness as a pedagogical tool, space and containment, freedom from truth-effects, dissolution into pure consciousness, and attributing human characteristics to awareness are especially fresh and innovative! Those sections systematically and thoroughly break down many stubborn dogmatic and essentialistic traps that a seeker can get hooked into while investigating the subject of nondual awareness.The book is not really about Greg Goode, the person. But let me give you some insight, if you've never met him. I've been fortunate to call Greg a friend and "my teacher" for years now. I know firsthand that he has a deep love of this subject. When he talks about falling in love with awareness, it's genuine! Being in contact with him on a daily basis has been an enriching experience, to say the least. When working with Greg, I never felt as though he was treating me like a disciple or somehow below him. He doesn't "guru" people. His approach is non-dogmaticin every way, from the words he uses to the way in which he meets the questioner where he is and honors the question completely. His humility comes from the way he energetically experiences life with a kind of curiosity and openness to look at experience from many angles without landing on solid, fixed positions no matter what angle is examined.Greg is continuously refining the subtle points of his approach, accomplishing this refinement by listening to the questions and exploring different angles rather than giving rehearsed speeches and memorized conclusions. The pages of the book reveal this same energetic lightness, humility and love of exploration. The book is the written version of Greg's energy as a teacher. It is helpful, but never preachy, thorough but not superfluous, scholarly but sweet, simple, and experiential in every way.The Direct Path: A User Guide is a wonderful resource for those who approach the subject from a scholarly standpoint or from an interest in the direct experience of nondual awareness (or both). In nondual circles, one often hears phrases such as "nondual realization is beyond the mind." Although that insight can arise and it may appear accurate from the direct realization of awareness, the mind can be a useful tool in the path. Most people I've met have many, many questions that are philosophical and intellectual in nature. These are important questions that sometimes get overlooked in the teachings, leaving a sort of confusion, doubt, or "hole" in thepath itself.This book leaves no stone unturned, addressing the mind's questions, the heart's longing, and the direct experience itself. It often addresses an intellectual puzzle or problem and then seamlessly invites you into an experiment that shows you directly how experience itself answers the question. In that way, you are not left with yet another mental question. Yet if you find another question, there is likely another experiment waiting for you.The book accomplishes something very unique. While addressing the many questions the mind throws up, it also takes you beyond these intellectual issues into the pure sweetness of not-knowing and the direct seeing of reality as your very Self.What is the final conclusion of the book? - that nothing stands apart from awareness. All is awareness! Yet the last sections of the book on freedom from the path, language, and joyful irony take you deeper than that. These are powerful invitations to go beyond even the most compelling insights that arise from nondual realization, leaving one to enjoy life in an openhearted way, and experience each moment with a natural openness that does not endeavor to turn the various insights into truth claims that close the mind to other perspectives.I envision myself pointing people to this book quite often because of its depth and breadth. Quite literally, it has to be read to be fully appreciated. It's nice knowing that this book is out there for people!Scott KilobyLiving Realization

I highly recommend this book not only for what it is trying to say but also as a very useful tool to use to go beyond what he is saying.In other words to find out what is wrong with what he is saying.My hypotheses, for whatever they are worth, are :1: we are always experiencing in a nondual way, we just don’t recognize it. Once you do, it is simple and obvious and everyone is already doing it. It has nothing to do with spirituality or mysticism. It is how the brain works.2: you cannot not experience nondually. But nonduality is not direct experiencing as described in this book.3: experiencing nondually has nothing to do with anything outside experiencing itself. It says nothing about anything that exists beyond experience. Any inferences that it does is a fallacy.4: you cannot directly experience awareness; that’s impossible ; even if you could experience awareness, you cannot directly experience it. Witnessing awareness cannot be aware of witnessing awareness.5: you only experience content and you cannot directly experience content6: direct experiencing is a misnomer. It isn’t possible . If you are Direct experiencing, you find yourself in the no state state of no experience. The brain shuts itself off in other words. You cannot experience the invisible processing that is 99.99976% of what our brain is doing .7: with direct experiencing as described in the book there is no inferencing no knowing no meaning and you can’t function in this state functioning in the world. If you think you can, that’s not what’s really happening. You are flickering your attention in and out of inferencing so you can “know” how to navigate the world.8: the book is using inference to get you to go beyond inference and to get you to understand that you can’t prove anything. Therefore the book itself cannot be proved; you can’t prove that it is true or not true9: this book will take you into the nonconceptual dimension where there is no inferential knowing which is an important step in any spiritual path but to believe it has anything to do with what exists as the really real can’t be proved either10: after you dismantle the book like I have done, dismantle my hypotheses. What is left would be the best probably explanation for you.

I cannot speak highly enough of this book. I have read many many books which have spiritual exercises in and never done them. This one though for some reason was different. It guides you very directly. The student though needs to be ready. They need enough curiosity, a completely open mind, and enough stillness to take the inquiry deep. It simply asks you to look at what is really there. I haven't yet found any aspect of my experience either subtle or gross which is not inquired into by this book. Whenever I was perplexed by something in myself I did not understand I was able to find an exercise pointing me deeper. It is actually a very accessible and easy to understand book if you have already developed the habit of looking into your consciousness perhaps with Buddhist skanhda, or emptiness meditations. Much easier than Nagarjuna or Prajnaparamita texts it has the same ability to reveal a kind of unspeakable satisfaction and joy. Written in simple, almost colloquial english at times, it retains the ability to be very profound. There is not a sniff of spiritual cliche or platitude in it anywhere.

This book is a great 'how-to' guide to the 'Direct Path' awareness teachings. Although my 'root' practice is Buddhist meditation, especially on'no-self', I was strongly drawn to exploring the Direct Path having seen an online interview with Greg. I couldn't describe the Direct Path approach anywhere near as well as Greg, so I will not say too much, other than that the reader is taken through a series of experiments exploring object-subject relationships and the nature of awareness. If you have an interest in non-duality, or Advaita, but have struggled to 'get it', this book could be very helpful. The book complements 'Standing as Awareness', by the same author.

Proceeding from the concrete to the abstract, Greg leads the student through a series of practical experiments examining the nature of the world, body & mind helping you to confirm that only reality that can be found is awareness itself. And that awareness is Love, Truth, Peace and Understanding. You are that!Try the Direct Path. I loved it.

Initially my review stated "Overly complicated and some of the exercise instructions seem difficult to follow"I've updated this (again!) as subsequently (and increasingly!) I've found some of the seemingly complex insights/exercises very useful adjuncts to more simple pointing. Excellent.

Even more direct than rupert spira .Can be confusing at times .and unemotional.Also check out ken wilber and scott kiloby for a bit less heavy writings on non duality and awareness and peter dzuibin