As I mentioned in a recent newsletter and post, I’ve been reviewing some of the spiritual books on my bookshelf and wondering why they’re still with me. Almost twenty years ago I went through a time when all I could do was read books on spirituality. I later donated the majority of those books (and then collected more), but some of them I kept.
Why did I keep the ones I did?
Jeff Foster’s Life Without a Center has been on my bookshelf for those almost 20 years.
In it, he addresses the pain and frustration of the search for spiritual enlightenment and offers one key solution. He tells us to give up the search and accept the present moment instead. It’s the mind/ego, he says, that searches for an escape from the here and now — it wants to exist in the past and future, which are its own creations. The present is all we ever have and that acceptance, from moment to moment, is where we find peace.
“Throughout the ages, men have sought the eternal silence beneath the ripples of life. But they have never attained it, because it is in the very seeking for it that we lose any hope of finding it. It cannot be found, for it is that which is prior to the search — prior to thought, prior to knowledge, prior to rationality. It is that which you see before you. It is this moment. It is now.”
~ Jeff Foster, Life Without a Center
If you’re in a frustrated search for enlightenment, liberation, ways to end thought, or get rid of the ego, these teachings may be helpful. Jeff will tell you in a variety of ways that you’re already enlightened, but the mind/thought/ego doesn’t want you to know it, because it doesn’t believe it. He offers a lot of practical examples of how the mind keeps us in a state of seeking but never finding.
(Note: the book on its own is out of print. It’s now bundled with another of Jeff’s books and called, The Wonder of Being.)
Overall, the book doesn’t seem to resonate with me anymore. I suspect I kept it, not because of the teachings, but because of him. I enjoy Jeff’s style of speaking and writing — it’s simple, and clear, and kind, and compassionate, and includes a lot of laughter. You can find a good selection of videos and writings on his website: lifewithoutacentre.com.
This essay is a favorite of mine. I’ve remembered the balloon reference for all these years and was pleased to find it still available on his site. What if death isn’t a death but a liberation?
They Never Meant to Save Nature