How Long is Now?

Tim Freke styles himself as a stand-up philosopher, entertaining his audiences as well as enlightening them with the fruits of his experience. In this book he relates his own journey, interspersed with more general insights about waking up to oneness and immersion in what he calls the 'big love', which he first experienced when he was 12. The narrative alternates between the everyday and universal principles, between consciousness as separate and awareness as the one I, in which we are 'deep awake.' The reader will recognise much of the thinking, but in life itself it is harder to stay in the oneness and in the now. Besides, reading is not experience, so no book can be more than second-hand report perhaps able to trigger this state. There is a very good conversation with Ramesh Balsekar, a teacher of non-duality who used to be President of the Bank of India. Paradoxically, he discovers that there is no Tim to be enlightened, because all is one already. However, there is always further to go, the mystery of the moment is ever present. A very engaging as well as illuminating book.