Happy New Year to you! As we move into another year, I’m delighted to finally release a project I’ve been working on for the best part of two years: my spiritual autobiography. Borrowing its title from a line from the Upanishads, “There Is A Light That Shines” documents my spiritual journey from suffering seeker to contented finder.
The book is now available to purchase here in digital form (PDF and Epub), and is also available on Amazon and other online sellers in paperback or ebook.
“There is a light that shines
beyond all things on earth,
beyond us all, beyond the heavens,
the very highest heavens:
The light that shines in our Heart.”
Chandogya Upanishad, 3.13.7
Description/Blurb
Is lasting peace and happiness possible–even amid times of exceptional stress and challenge? Is there a solution to the basic sense of lack and limitation common to virtually all human beings, or are we forever bound by limitation?
The answer might surprise you.
Intimate yet universal, “There Is A Light That Shines” tells the story of one Western spiritual seeker’s journey to overcome personal suffering and find liberation through enlightenment. A story of determination in the face of adversity and a compelling analysis of human suffering and its ultimate solution, this book offers a practical, first-hand guide to implementing and living the ancient teaching of Non-duality or Advaita Vedanta, the crown jewel of India’s rich spiritual heritage.
Honest and unflinching, uplifting and expansive, this is a resource to be treasured, offering a wealth of inspiration, illumination and motivation to all sincere seekers of spiritual liberation.
Want to know of the book will be of interest to you or not?
Have a read of the introduction below!
Introduction
A couple of years ago, I met up with a friend I hadn’t seen for the best part of a decade. We grabbed a coffee and strolled around Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens, catching up on news and discussing where our lives had taken us since last we’d met. I listened with interest as he talked about the ups and downs of his career and spoke about a recent breakup before discussing his plans for the future.
When it came turn to talk about myself, I realised that a significant amount of my life those past few years had been devoted to my spiritual journey. In fact, it had become impossible to separate my life, and who I was as a person, from the spiritual fire in my heart.
His immediate reaction was priceless: “Oh, cool, so you’re still into your Buddhist shit?”
I just smiled. Of course, I wouldn’t have described it as either specifically “Buddhist” or “shit”, but, for the uninitiated, that was probably as good a description as any.
I couldn’t deny that spirituality had been an integral part of my life since my teens and had become more so as the years progressed. This isn’t something easily understood by the majority of people. The desire, or, in my case, the imperative, to seek answers about the nature of the Self and Reality is not one shared by the average worldly person. Why would it be when most people are too busy getting on with the basics of material life, juggling careers, marriage and kids as they focus on what Vedic tradition outlines as the first three goals of human life: security, pleasure and virtue.
I’d wager that few have any idea that another, higher, goal exists beyond these. The Vedic scriptures are absolutely clear, however, that there is not only a fourth pursuit, but that it qualifies as life’s highest goal. This goal? Spiritual enlightenment or liberation from suffering.
While the average person is likely to see the pursuit of enlightenment as a wacky quirk at best, the spiritual impulse exists in all people. I believe it manifests as our innermost desire for wholeness, connection and lasting happiness. Unfortunately, this impulse is generally misdirected into an endlessly futile quest to extract lasting happiness and fulfilment from objects and experiences outside of ourselves.
Furthermore, when a culture does away with the spiritual, as ours certainly has, something has to fill the God-sized vacuum. It’s perhaps no wonder that the human ego with its inherent need to be right and to look good, has expanded to fill the void. Along with the ascent of the ego, various worldly things are also elevated to Godlike status: whether it be money, pleasure, power or any of an infinite number of objects of desire.
None of this should come as a surprise. Our senses are naturally extroverted. This keeps our attention fixed upon the material world and ignorant of the vast and ever present inner light by which we perceive reality. On top of that, we happen to be born into a hyper-materialistic culture; one that conditions us from a young age to believe that happiness and fulfilment can only be found outside of us in the world of shiny “things”.
It’s not an easy spell to break. Entire lifetimes will pass before we finally concede that the solution to our suffering cannot be our continual and frustrated attempts to align the outer circumstances of our lives with our inner desires. Indeed, it’s only when we’ve experienced the relentless pain and frustration of trying to “make it” and “be somebody” that we realise the futility of seeking permanent happiness in an impermanent world.
Whereas disillusionment leads most to bitterness and defeat, the wise person may recognise it as the very doorway to freedom. That’s when, with a little luck, or grace, we come to the realisation that, contrary to everything we’ve been told, life isn’t about getting what we want. Life is about breaking free from want and discovering the part of us that is without desire; the part of us already whole, complete and untouched by anything in this world.
This great secret of life is something only a small percentage of people ever come to realise. The full assimilation and integration of this knowledge is called enlightenment. The original Sanskrit word for it is moksha, which means “liberation” or “freedom”—and that, I’m sure you’ll agree, is what we’re all ultimately looking for.
When we come to know who and what we truly are at the deepest, most intrinsic level, everything changes. We find ourselves no longer dependent upon the world and our circumstances being a certain way in order to be happy. Indeed, a liberated person enjoys a deep and lasting happiness quite independent of external factors.
Spiritual enlightenment isn’t about adopting a set of beliefs or doctrines, nor is it about supernatural beings, or attaining special powers or higher states of consciousness. It’s simply the act of re-educating the mind and shifting our centre of identification from the false to the True; from the conceptual ego-self to the underlying Awareness; the Light by which we experience the entire universe.
That’s what this book is about; nothing more, nothing less.
I have to confess I never thought in a million years I would ever write anything approximating an autobiography. I tend to be private by nature and, unlike most people, my personal story holds little interest to me.
On this occasion, however, I felt compelled to share something of my life’s path told through the lens of spiritual awakening. What follows is far from a complete autobiography. It’s more a curation of vignettes: events, experiences and, most importantly, the knowledge gained by them. Like pearls on a string, they are linked by a common thread: finding an end to suffering through Self-Realisation.
While the initial part of the book is obviously specific to my early experiences in life, it leads into a far greater, more impersonal and universal subject matter; one that relates not just to the person writing these words, but to the person reading them; and, indeed, everyone walking this timeless path to Self-Knowledge.
Friends and family members may naturally be eager to see what I’ve written about them. In all likelihood, I haven’t written about them at all—not because they aren’t important to me, but because they are, and I believe that relationships are personal. That’s why I’ve generally only included the people and events that have a direct connection to my spiritual journey and the events precipitating it.
In Song of Myself, Walt Whitman declared, “I am large, I contain multitudes.” Human beings are complex and messy, often filled with competing and contradictory impulses and imperatives. Looking back, I see myself as no different. In an effort to streamline and avoid self-indulgence, I’ve left out parts of my life which had no relevance to the overarching theme. Unless you have an existing interest or openness with regard to spiritual awakening, you probably won’t find this book particularly interesting or comprehensible. Like my good friend, you’ll probably just think of it as weird “Buddhist shit”, which is fair enough.
In actuality, the key subject matter is not Buddhism, but Vedanta; the ancient school of spiritual knowledge rooted in the Vedas (from which Buddhism itself is an offshoot). It would be impossible to write about my life without including Vedanta in significant detail. Indeed, to borrow the words of the renowned 19th century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, “Vedanta has been the solace of my life, and it will be the solace of my death.”
This isn’t, however, a book on the nuts and bolts of Vedanta. While I have filled in some of the basics, it’s less a book on Vedantic theory and more a book on Vedantic practise; and, specifically, how I took this teaching, lived it and made it work for me. For an introduction and overview of the key principles, I suggest another book I intend to release more or less simultaneously with this, titled “Enlightenment Made Simple: An Introduction to Advaita Vedanta.” You’ll find more recommended resources at the “Further Reading” appendix.
The book is written not so much in chapters as short sections, because that’s really the only way I was able to get through such an immense project. As with all autobiographies, there’s no real end, and, God willing, I may add the odd update for subsequent editions. It’s been hard knowing quite what to include and what not to include. I’m reminded of the REM lyrics “Oh no, I’ve said too much / I haven’t said enough”. Ultimately, I’ve approach this task with a mixture of dispassion and compassion and I can only hope I’ve managed to strike the right balance.
Again, I want to stress that this book was written not to cast a spotlight on Rory, the person. That wouldn’t be of interest to many people. What you’ll find is something of an oxymoron: an ultimately transpersonal autobiography. It’s about a lifelong spiritual quest that took me from wounded seeker to contented finder—by revealing that the problematic person I thought I was wasn’t even real in the first place!
Maybe I should put up a spoiler warning here, but the crux of what I learned is this: Everything that I ever wanted and sought, and all of the joy, fulfilment and love and validation I desperately craved from the world and from others, already existed within me as the very core of my being. Fortunately, it’s not just my being, but yours too, for, in spite of appearances, we are all the same—many faces reflecting a single universal Consciousness.
I share this as an act of love, in the hope it will be of help and inspiration to all sincere spiritual seekers. This is for anyone who knows that there is more to Reality than appearance alone, and for those yearn to be free of the bondage of ego-based limitation and its all-consuming whirlpool of fear, desire and attachment.
Think of this as an invitation to embrace your birthright and uncover the boundless ocean of love and joy at the very core of your being. This isn’t just my story. It’s ultimately your story, too, and, to that end, I dedicate this book from my heart to yours and to the Light that shines within us all.
Purchase Online from Unbroken Self
