The Light of the Self: A Memoir of a Spiritual Awakening

"A great spiritual autobiography, a worthy companion to books like The Seven Storey Mountain and the Autobiography of a Yogi. The book is so vividly and poetically written that I felt as if I was reading a kind of spiritual ‘On the Road.’ It sits well with Kenneth Rose's scholarly work on mysticism, as it contains so many beautiful descriptions of his own mystical experiences. I hope that the book gains the wide readership it deserves." Steve Taylor PhD. author of The Leap and The Calm Center." . . . will resonate with readers who are interested in and struggle with the search for divinity . . . . fans of Thomas Merton and Alan Watts might enjoy Rose’s tussle with multiple religious traditions and intense spiritual episodes"—Publishers WeeklyAn unexpected spiritual awakening at nineteen led Kenneth Rose on a journey of spiritual discovery to a Hindu devotional movement, a conservative Bible college, a Catholic monastery, Harvard’s Center for the Study of World Religions, and India, where he had a spiritually decisive audience with the Dalai Lama, experienced the radical teaching of nondual awakening in an encounter with satsang teacher Papaji, and encountered the living presence of the Hindu saint Sri Ramana Maharshi in his ashram in the shadow of the sacred mountain known as Arunachala. At each stop on his unique journey, Kenneth Rose gained liberating insights into the spiritual life. But the radical differences between the many spiritual traditions that he encountered raised the question of which—if any—of these paths is ultimate.Kenneth Rose also recounts how his spiritual explorations through various meditative practices triggered chronic anxiety attacks, which led to his being prescribed benzodiazepines (BZDs). Although this medication lessened the symptoms of his anxiety disorder, he soon found himself dependent on these medications. In the most harrowing pages of this memoir, he graphically describes his experiences with benzodiazepine withdrawal and how he finally managed to overcome BZD dependency throu