Jed McKenna, the Howard Roark of Spiritual Enlightenment
At Damian’s suggestion, I recently listened to the full audiobook for Jed McKenna’s Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing.
I enjoyed it tremendously.
McKenna is a exceptionally good storyteller. Even better, he is without a doubt the Howard Roark of spiritual enlightenment — beginning with his persistent (relentless, really) emphasis on honing your own vision and first-hand judgment, rather than relying on others’ judgment, about what is true at the deepest level.
After many years of shying away from truth-oriented teachings — because of my acute awareness that identifying with abstractions can get in the way of real growth — I find McKenna has fired up my appreciation for focusing on what is true, all else be damned.
It feels like I’ve come full circle again, to the way I felt after first reading Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead as a freshman in college.
This time, of course, I have much more self-knowledge and emotional intelligence with which to actually know (through feeling as well as thought) with some certainty what I find true at the core of my being.
If you want to explore McKenna’s work, I do recommend starting with Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing since it lays the groundwork for his other works.
I found the first 10 minutes or so to be uncharacteristically negative, for whatever reason. If you keep listening, however, the story soon takes form as a proper spiritual journey.
Incidentally, I doubt you’d like the book at all unless you are already interested in the subject of meditation and spiritual awakening. But if you are interested in these topics, and you respect Howard Roark’s independent spirit, then ... McKenna’s your man.
Though the book is presented as McKenna’s memoir, it’s more appropriate to think of it as a novel — and of McKenna as the story’s protagonist rather than its flesh-and-blood author. Yet another parallel with Roark, of course.
UPDATE: The mp3 audio files are available for $24.95 from LearnOutLoud.com. Since the book is not read by the author, I don’t think there’s much advantage to the audio — unless, like me, you find it easier to fit listening into your daily routine.
I was just listening to the voice reading McKenna, Don’t care much for the inflection..liked your analysis...thanks, Moodle
Moodle,
I know what you mean about the narrator’s voice. As the story progresses, for whatever it’s worth, I found myself liking it more and more.
I never got out of it what I get from listening to the voice of Eckhart Tolle or Adyashanti, but after the opening chapters I did come to enjoy the narrator’s performance on its own terms.
Joshua