Building on his previous groundbreaking work, Peter Ralston once again proves to be a sure-footed guide for readers seeking to negotiate the challenging terrain of personal and spiritual growth. In accessible language, Ralston demonstrates how the lofty goals of self-transformation and enlightenment can be achieved with a no-nonsense approach available to anyone willing to reach beyond their current experience of self and reality. Pursuing Consciousness is a down-to-earth handbook for staying focused on the work at hand, even while tackling such unsettling tasks as investigating deeply ingrained psychological beliefs and identifying common areas of misunderstanding that hamper transformative growth.
Ralston explains that deeper levels of consciousness aren't just for monks—anyone can have an enlightenment experience. He shows that enlightenment does not transform the self, and transforming the self does not produce enlightenment. Once we grasp that these two pursuits take place in entirely different domains of consciousness, we can use each to empower the other. Ralston provides specific tools for changing the very person that we experience being. His work has been acclaimed by people from a diverse range of disciplines—including spiritual teachers, psychiatrists, cognitive scientists, physicists, and artists. As with Ralston's previous works, this book points the way to a direct encounter with the true nature of Being and the possibility of real personal change.
Since having several enlightenment experiences in his early twenties, Peter Ralston has devoted his life to a relentless pursuit of the truth, investigating everything from the principles that govern movement and interaction to the true nature of self and reality.
As part of the San Francisco Bay Area consciousness movement in the 1970s, he founded Cheng Hsin ("true nature"), a dogmafree approach to consciousness that assists people from all walks of life in exploring every aspect of their personal experience of Being, including enlightenment. He is also the creator of The Art of Effortless Power and in 1978 became the first non-Asian to win the World Championship full-contact martial arts tournament in China. He has students in more than thirty countries and travels the world teaching this work.
Ralston's other titles include The Principles of Effortless Power, Zen Body-Being, and The Book of Not Knowing, which Spiritual Enlightenment magazine voted the "Book of The Year" in 2010, calling it "a must-have book for the serious spiritual seeker." His books have been published in six languages.
"Ralston is unparalleled in his ability to clearly articulate both the key questions to contemplate, and the life-changing insights one can gain from doing so. I've learned more from him than any other author." — David Spivak, PhD, research scientist in mathematics at MIT, Personal communication
