Jeff Foster - An Extraordinary Absence: Liberation in the Midst of a Very Ordinary Life

AN EXTRAORDINARY ABSENCE

First paperback edition published September 2009 by NON-DUALITY PRESS

Jeff Foster 2009, 2012

Non-Duality Press 2009, 2012

Cover photograph by Nic Oestreicher

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Author photograph by Fleur van der Minne.

Jeff Foster has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as author of this work.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the Publishers.

Non-Duality Press | PO Box 2228 | Salisbury | SP2 2GZ United Kingdom

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-908664-14-3

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9563091-0-5

www.non-dualitypress.org

If you could get rid of yourself just once,
The secret of secrets would open to you.
The face of the Unknown, hidden beyond the universe,Would appear on the mirror of your perception.

- Rumi

Love says I am everything.
Wisdom says I am nothing.
Between the two, my life flows.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Foreword

Jeff Foster and I met recently in Brighton for a lengthy dialogue about the nondual perspective. Along the way we got sidetracked by our shared passion for magic tricks. One of the card illusions which Jeff shared with me during our conversation was called Deep Astonishment. And when Jeff asked me to write the foreword to his new book, that name popped up, which I thought apt for what I wanted to share about the book and the deepest implication of it all; and that is the deepest astonishment, which, as I will attempt to show, is about the deepest illusion.

If you do an internet search for nondual teachers, you will be quite surprised by the sheer number of awakened ones out there, many of them performing extremely delicate feats of sleight of speech to proclaim their enlightenment. But this is precisely what Jeff's book is about: that there is no one who can be enlightened. And this is where the sleight of speech comes in, similar to the mind-reader who proclaims he is not a psychic but has simply developed acute skills of psychological observation to give the impression of paranormal abilities. In fact, neither is true, and the mind-reader is simply engaging in a double deception through linguistic manipulation and artful theatre.

Much of the current nondual scene is similarly engaged in layered deceptions, and I would suggest that part of this deception arises from the deepest self-deception: I have disappeared and there is only That, and I am now liberated. Now, this verbal formulation is tricky. It could possibly be an accurate utterance through the persona of one where the unreality of the person has been apperceived, or it could be a formulaic expression by someone who is intentionally creating an illusion, or is simply deluded. These are harsh words and I make no apology for them, because its time we moved beyond appearances to see that its all appearance. Everything. My liberation, or lack of it, my evolutionary enlightenment, or lack of it, and my wonderful card tricks. And thats the deepest astonishment.

And this brings me to Jeffs book. There are sections that speak the conventional language of nonduality, and this can best be described as expression that grapples with a dualistic tool to convey that which is nondualistic. There is a certain linguistic tension when words emanate from a Mystery which can never be revealed. Apparent sense collapses into non-sense, and paradox announces itself as the vehicle of a Truth which cannot be known. All of this can be found in Jeffs writings, but this book extends the boundaries of the genre, where the impersonal descriptive is counterpointed by personal confessional passages. Here, Jeff lets the reader see Jeff the character; the everyday guy on the block who is just like you and me in every way. But heres the difficult part to articulate: this character, through the deepest astonishment of seeing that it is all just an illusion, collapses into a Mystery where the world, in all its myriad appearances, is both very ordinary and extraordinary. And the ordinary would be you and I and Jeff. And the extraordinary would be the profound absence of all that we take to be real.

Kriben Pillay
Associate Professor, The Leadership Centre
University of KwaZulu-Natal
May 2009

Introduction

At the very heart of this book is the simple, direct and timeless message of nonduality. The word nonduality is often used nowadays to describe the ancient Indian Advaitic tradition of spirituality. It simply means not two and is indicating the essential Oneness of life. There is only one reality Oneness is all there is and we are included.

The book has a deeply caring quality that cannot easily be framed in words. The writing sounds a quiet note of authority that is compelling and commands respect. Nevertheless, everyone is free to listen or walk away, and Jeff Foster is unequivocal about this. When you are talking about the subject of nonduality, you are always talking about something that cannot be spoken of, he says. It is a truth that cannot be told it is a plunge into the mystery.

This is certainly a liberating message to be explored with an open mind! We do not need to move elsewhere in order to find truth, for it is always present in the clear immediacy of our own direct experience. Truth is always made manifest in the form of whatever is happening moment by moment. It is just this... and this nothing else. The problem is we are always moving away from what is before us this is never enough. Neither do we need the endless and exhausting search to attain spiritual freedom it is already profoundly present within the natural spaciousness of our true being. Yet we do need to recognise and honour this inherent freedom in order to make it our own.

What is so rare and remarkable about this book is the particularly clear way in which Jeff leads us carefully step by step to directly experience for ourselves what is true. We need to begin where we are, and he sweetly implores us to meet every experience freshly with new eyes. In all sorts of original and creative ways, he asks us repeatedly to meet life head-on without preconceived ideas and then report what we find.

If only such gentle courtesy was always enough to help us see clearly! When you meet Jeff Foster, you encounter someone who is refreshingly natural. He is quite disarming, but he also has an incisive quality of fierce candour, which cuts through evasion and hypocrisy. Life is just too short and precious to waste time in endless disputes about the nature of enlightenment or the rights and wrongs of authentic spiritual practice and what exactly constitutes the purest non-dual teaching method. He knows full well from his own profound experience that sometimes what is required above all is a courageous resolve to go the whole way to proceed down the road less travelled come what may until our doubts are finally resolved.