THE MOST DIRECT AND RAPID MEANS TO ETERNAL BLISS by Michael Langford Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of THE MOST DIRECT AND RAPID MEANS TO ETERNAL BLISS
Book Review: This is the Real Deal!!
Summary: 5 Stars
There are lots of great spiritual books out on the market today, and many great teachers of varying degree of "development." In my opinion, this book takes the cake (in fact, it is the icing on the cake), and is the Real Deal. Someone once said that the sign of a brilliant Teacher is their ability to boil down complex topics and make them simple. Michael Langford has done just that. He has taken the milleniums of spiritual teachings and broken them down into their distilled practical essence. What he has come up with are the following ideas:
1) The ego, otherwise known as our thinking, is the source of our problems. He shows us how to identify when we are acting out of ego, and shows us many of the tricks that the ego plays to stay in control.
2) The Soul is our underlying awareness; it is not found by thinking, it is found by meditating on awareness. As we do this, we increase soul contact and there is an increasing amount of peace, bliss, joy and expansiveness that we experience in our daily lives
If you are looking for just another book that will satisfy your intellectual curiosity, this probably isn't it. If you are looking for a book with practical exercises that will allow you to have a Direct Experience of your Divine Nature, then you have found what you are looking for. And, this may very well be the last book you ever need on the topic. Is is the BEST book I have ever read on the subject, and has my highest recommendation.
Book Review: Might be the most significant, practical book of its kind
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been reading this kind of material for 20 or so years and this book is at the top of my list of books I recommend, but only to a select few. It is serious and delightful. It gives me the confidence that enlightenment is possible, and at hand, if I choose to go forward. If I could carry only five books with me, this would be one of them. It could be the only book you'll ever need. Book Review: The Book That Ate The Mountain
Summary: 5 Stars
It was 2 am on a Saturday in early February, 1964. I had not slept, anxiously awaiting the climb to begin at 4 am; my first ascent on a real mountain: 11,249-foot Mt. Hood in Oregon. I was a nerdly high school lad with bad eyesight, fresh from my mountaineering classroom work with the mountain climbing club. I had read the books, hung out with the seasoned climbers, bought the ice axe, crampons, etc. and could even read the topo maps using a compass. I was sure I knew the way from what I had studied. I knew the stories and the jargon and how to rappel but I had not had the direct experience of actually being at the top of a real mountain. I had imagined myself arriving at the top with everything I started with and then returning, intact, to my world able to claim I had something to say about the view from the top of the mountain.
It was 10 am on a Saturday in January, 2006. I was in the little meditation hut in our garden where I kept all those dozens of spiritual books I kept buying, and in a moment of shattering honesty I knew that for over thirty years I had been futilely brooding and trying to see my way to the top of the mountain with thinking (or experiences at retreats, emotional work, workshops, seeing teachers, etc.) and that thought would not ever get me there. Thought (or emotion) and concepts and words and borrowed imaginings of teachers would not get me there (I intuited all this in a single thoughtless flash) because thought is limited (I wrote in my notebook) even though I try to stay with what seems to be the core, impersonal I Am as the great sages all say to do. I admitted, completely, I did not know how to escape thought (ego) and that thought was my trap.
In a great, tectonic shift of consciousness, a shattering but temporary immersion of the ego in the Infinite Self came like the instantaneous shift of the heart that feels, quite sincerely, that it has fallen in love forever. I died that day to everything except: how do I fully awaken again only as That, the Real Self I now know by direct experience I Am and remain thus in bliss and true knowing as pure love, eternally?
It is March 6, 2007. The Most Direct And Rapid Means To Eternal Bliss arrives; it is read aloud by my wife and I, slowly, three times. We realize in an undeniable moment of the awakening of the truth (the emergence of the extreme desire for liberation) that the means and the way has at last been clearly, unequivocally described by a fully liberated sage. I had literally waited almost forty years to feel this certainty and clarity. We began the practice that very day and have continued several hours per day, every single day, for what has now been a year. It has forever lifted my despair and has permanently re-ignited the now undying fire and I now know EXACTLY, without any doubt, what the practice is to focus on the I Am, how to end thought (ego), and how to realize the Self eternally. It works, everyday, and the moments of pure awareness of what I Am, really, grow longer.
This unmatched gem of spiritual writing works because it teaches through direct experience -- through doing the practice earnestly and precisely as described in the book -- how the practice of Awareness of your own everyday Awareness, looking only at itself, becomes the teacher and that, by doing the practice one is immediately abiding in and as the real. This has indeed been my experience by using the book and the practice, this immediate and real abidance in the truth of myself. Much practice, perhaps some years for me, must yet occur for the ego to completely disappear. All books gather dust or have been given away. Now sixty and retired from my 30-year career as a psychotherapist, I am doing only the practice until the body ends. I feel much joy and energy and effortless compassion for all, including my own struggle to fully awaken, whereas before I felt tired and judgmental of myself and others.
All obstacles are swept away with sincere intention. If you buy the book and read it with an open mind and an honest heart this can be so for you as well.
However, to actually go up onto the mountain, it is essential to do the practice as described in the book. Because the ego is afraid of the mountain, the book also points out the many strategies that the ego (one's I-thoughts) will proffer, as if real, to avoid the mountain. In the actual experience of being fully in the practice there is room only for the reality of what one is -- which can be known only by direct experience -- without thought.
My favorite passage in the book is:
"Awareness watching awareness is awareness being awareness."
Book Review: The Last Book You'll Ever Need
Summary: 5 Stars
The Most Direct and Rapid Means to Eternal Bliss is not just another spiritual book to add to your collection. In fact, if you take it to heart, it may be the only book left on your shelves within a few months. It is not a scholarly treatise. It is not a book of theory or comparative religion. It is not a parable, nor is it particularly poetic. The Most Direct and Rapid Means to Eternal Bliss is a concise guide to full Awakening in this lifetime.
My husband bought this book as a gift for me a year ago. When I realized that I had just received an instruction manual for escaping the mind's relentless orbit, an instruction manual stripped of theory and jargon, without any kind of wiggle room for the ego's tricks, without any room for questions or doubts, I was overjoyed, challenged, and inspired. We started the Awareness Watching Awareness practice described by the author immediately, and life hasn't been the same since. The egos in our household haven't yet met their final end, but they're well on their way to extinction. Turning one's attention away from the world, the body, and thought to focus instead on the I AM really does work, especially since Michael Langford actually explains what the I AM is in everyday language.
The Most Direct and Rapid Means to Eternal Bliss is unique in a number of other ways as well. Mr. Langford clearly describes the ego, the true Self, and the difference between the two. He describes the innumerable tricks the ego uses to preserve its imaginary self, identifies the extremely intense desire for Liberation as the only antidote, and provides the inspiration needed to reach that level of desire. He chronicles his discovery of the Awareness Watching Awareness practice, and perhaps most importantly, doesn't include any extraneous or irrelevant information whatsoever. There is nothing in the book that doesn't continue to ring true, even after hundreds of readings. In fact, the truth behind it becomes increasingly evident as the practice deepens. There is no doubt that The Most Direct and Rapid Means to Eternal Bliss represents the highest and best a teaching can offer: a real, tangible, actual means to the Truth, accessible to anyone who's really searching.
Book Review: The Clearest Road Map to Spiritual Enlightenment
Summary: 5 Stars
The best spiritual book I have ever read...the book gives clear, concise instructions on how to reach enlightenment. The book is direct, easy to read and does not include any unnecessary information. The author gets right to the point and gives the reader what he/she needs to know. This book is a god send...I couldn't find any instructions on how to practice self inquiry as described by Ramana Maharshi until I found this book. I have been practicing the AWA method from this book for over 3 months now and I love it...buy this book and try it for yourself...it's wonderful. No other spiritual book gives the reader such a clear method for practicing self awareness...I was frustrated by other books and teachers that said..."you are already That"....well I didn't feel much like 'That' until I found this book and started practicing the AWA method. Now I am having little glimpses of what enlightenment might be like. It will probably take me a few years to finally put an end to my ego and become fully consciousness but I know I'm on the right path as described by Ramana Maharshi. Get this book and start watching your Awareness and you will too!