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Spiritual enlightenment is the damnedest thing because it is indescribable and the natural state. Not being able to communicate the ultimate nature of things, is the damnedest thing. Yet people can sense it, intuit it, and hunger for it. So they go on a spiritual search. They get involved in things like meditation, raising Kundalini, becoming a vegetarian, Tantric sex, different books, teachers, and so on. Eventually all these activities make for a spiritual weaving that looks good enough to hang on a wall or wrap yourself in. The only thing is that one still hasn't satisfied the hunger to know the natural state, the ultimate nature of things, or ultimate reality. Then along comes Jed McKenna. He tells you that Spiritual Enlightenment isn't something you can learn or acquire. It is who you are already. His work is to undo who you think you are. His gift is the ability to unravel and unknot the fabric of your weaving. He has the ability to restore you to who you are. As teaching tools, he uses what he has. Video games, movies, books, and common analogies such as Plato's Cave or the transformation of the caterpillar into the butterfly. He uses only one technique, which he calls Spiritual Autolysis, an enhancement of Ramana's inquiry: Who am I? This is a powerful book. What makes it powerful is how Jed comes to life. He introduces the reader to the elements of his day-to-day life. His home, the rooms, how he feels about people, how people react to him. There's a quality of straight-forwardness that allows the reader to see Jed as both a well-defined person and as a person standing alone, separate from those attached to the ego. Other than the coming to life of Jed himself, the most valuable part of this book is the students Jed introduces us to and how he proceeds to unravel them. His interaction with his students is very human, ordinary, and effective. He says that in the six years he's been teaching, about a dozen students have become enlightened. Jed is 40, by the way. As Jed comes to life in the book, and as he describes relationships with students, the reader enters a relationship with Jed. If you read this book on a park bench, you might find Jed has already been sitting there for a long, long time. If you allow him, a thread will be pulled. An unraveling will begin. Jerry Katz, founder
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