Most readers would benefit from the book from light practice, for it helps one to dis-identify himself from unconscious and become more conscious. It also helps one to realize and feel the existing of Being (which is what Jung called Self). However, the book is ultimately dangerous for people who treats what the book said as *full* truth, and practice it to a full level. "Being present" is a good technique for meditation, but it is a technique only, but is *not* the ultimate goal of spiritual journey, because it is towards ego annihilation.
In particular,the author promotes
1. returning to the source to achieve "oneness" with source (which will cause the identification of ego with Being)
2. the cutoff of ego from unconscious (then the unconscious will eventually bite back)
3. weakening the importance of rational thinking and treating it as a tool for solving practical problems only (which is a regression of psyche evolution).
The consequence is that one becomes decoupled from reality, and has rationality reduced and ego weakened. In this process of ego annihilation, and psyche will fight back and neurotic thus starts.
Note that in this book, the "mind" includes both the drivers/causes of everyday thoughts, which are patterns in the unconsciousness, and the rational thinking. Similarly, the "ego" includes both unconscious identification with external world (more like Jung's persona) and consciousness (which is what Jung means by ego). The author did not distinguish their differences and simply rejected both.
The way that I like:
1. always have a solid standing on the ground (i.e. in reality)
2. strength ego (I mean the consciousness) and extend its boundary by
a) bringing unconscious into conscious. In particular, we need to understand our shadow/unconscious, recognize them, and bring them into conscious,
b) enabling smooth communication between ego and Being/Self, so that the energy from Being/Self will enrich ego, and the light from Being/self will enlighten the ego. Here, ego is always a solid entity and existence.
3. I am not sure whether the communication between go and Being/Self is sufficient, or becoming oneness is a goal at certain stage. Even becoming oneness is a goal at certain stage, "unity once achieved must break into new multiplicity gain if life is to go on" (quoted from "Ego and Archetype" by Edward F. Edinger, p294).
4. Rationality is valuable (it is a precious fruit from human evolution), but itself won't complete our psyche. We should balance/enrich ourselves with both rationality and intuition (see Jung's thinking/feeling/sensation/intuition psychological types).
The miracle of ego (i.e. individual's conscious) is the fact that it has the ability to connect to both reality (a temporal world with changes) and Self/Being/God (an eternal and absolute potential). Therefore, we should live in a hierarchy of worlds at the same time - the physical world, the psyche world (inner world), and the eternal world. (But this author lets the external world overwhelm the other two worlds). Through ego (and only through ego?), Self/Being/God can realize its potential and acquire conscious in the temporal world. Isn't it wonderful that we human have ego?
Published by New World Library, 1999. ISBN 1577311523.
