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In this classic memoir, a gay man living a fast-track life in NYC (working for artist Andy Warhol), escapes to India, confronts his demons, and takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride to realize his dreams and discover the true meaning of life and holiness.
"It's hard to know when you're having a breakdown in New York City. The symptoms of living here, succeeding here, and losing your mind here are almost identical." So begins Matousek's 1996 breakout memoir about leaving a fast-track publishing life (working for pop artist Andy Warhol at Interview Magazine) and hitting the dharma trail in search of a meaningful life and spiritual wisdom. Hailed by Publisher's Weekly as "brave, beautiful, and brilliantly observed," Sex Death Enlightenment became an international best seller (published in 10 countries). Like Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love and Paul Monette in Borrowed Time, Matousek takes the reader on an insightful, rollicking search for answers to life's deepest questions in this landmark memoir. “Mark Matousek takes you everywhere his title promises – and then some. Sex Death Enlightenment is the most gripping and elegantly written memoir I’ve read in ages. It tugged me onward like the best suspense novel, though I couldn’t help lingering time and again to savor its wisdom.” —Armistead Maupin, author of Tales of the City “An extraordinarily articulate chronicle of how the sickness of our time can spawn spiritual awakening and compassion.” —Ram Dass, author of Be Here Now and Grist For the Mill “Brave, beautiful and brilliantly observed.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"It's hard to know when you're having a breakdown in New York City. The symptoms of living here, succeeding here, and losing your mind here are almost identical." So begins Matousek's 1996 breakout memoir about leaving a fast-track publishing life (working for pop artist Andy Warhol at Interview Magazine) and hitting the dharma trail in search of a meaningful life and spiritual wisdom. Hailed by Publisher's Weekly as "brave, beautiful, and brilliantly observed," Sex Death Enlightenment became an international best seller (published in 10 countries). Like Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love and Paul Monette in Borrowed Time, Matousek takes the reader on an insightful, rollicking search for answers to life's deepest questions in this landmark memoir.
A rollicking, sexy memoir of a young poet making his way in 1960s New York City When he graduated from Columbia in 1958, John Giorno was handsome, charismatic, ambitious, and eager to soak up as much of Manhattan's art and culture as possible. Poetry didn't pay the bills, so he worked on Wall Street, spending his nights at the happenings, underground movie premiers, art shows, and poetry readings that brought the city to life. An intense romantic relationship with Andy Warhol—not yet the global superstar he would soon become—exposed Giorno to even more of the downtown scene, but after starring in Warhol's first movie, Sleep, they drifted apart. Giorno soon found himself involved with Robert Rauschenberg and later Jasper Johns, both relationships fueling his creativity. He quickly became a renowned poet in his own right, working at the intersection of literature and technology, freely crossing genres and mediums alongside the likes of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin. Twenty-five years in the making, and completed shortly before Giorno's death in 2019, Great Demon Kings is the memoir of a singular cultural pioneer: an openly gay man at a time when many artists remained closeted and shunned gay subject matter, and a devout Buddhist whose faith acted as a rudder during a life of tremendous animation, one full of fantastic highs and frightening lows. Studded with appearances by nearly every it-boy and girl of the downtown scene (including a moving portrait of a decades-long friendship with Burroughs), this book offers a joyous, life-affirming, and sensational look at New York City during its creative peak, narrated in the unforgettable voice of one of its most singular characters.
Rosemary Hamilton's account of her life as a follower of the notorious Indian spiritual teacher Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (now known as Osho). Rosemary was Rajneesh's personal cook at Rajneeshpuam, the controversial Oregon ashram. She remained with her teacher after his deportation from the United States, following Rajneesh back to India. A fascinating account of one woman's spiritual odyssey, as she abandons a successful career in search of enlightenment. With the guidance of Rajneesh, Rosemary follows an unusual path, utilising the unorthodox spiritual techniques (sacred sexuality, dynamic meditation techniques, and a joyous tweaking of the sacred cows of religious orthodoxies -- East and West) that made Rajneesh so popular and controversial.
An investigative reporter explores an infamous case where an obsessive and unorthodox search for enlightenment went terribly wrong. When thirty-eight-year-old Ian Thorson died from dehydration and dysentery on a remote Arizona mountaintop in 2012, The New York Times reported the story under the headline: "Mysterious Buddhist Retreat in the Desert Ends in a Grisly Death." Scott Carney, a journalist and anthropologist who lived in India for six years, was struck by how Thorson’s death echoed other incidents that reflected the little-talked-about connection between intensive meditation and mental instability. Using these tragedies as a springboard, Carney explores how those who go to extremes to achieve divine revelations—and undertake it in illusory ways—can tangle with madness. He also delves into the unorthodox interpretation of Tibetan Buddhism that attracted Thorson and the bizarre teachings of its chief evangelists: Thorson’s wife, Lama Christie McNally, and her previous husband, Geshe Michael Roach, the supreme spiritual leader of Diamond Mountain University, where Thorson died. Carney unravels how the cultlike practices of McNally and Roach and the questionable circumstances surrounding Thorson’s death illuminate a uniquely American tendency to mix and match eastern religious traditions like LEGO pieces in a quest to reach an enlightened, perfected state, no matter the cost. Aided by Thorson’s private papers, along with cutting-edge neurological research that reveals the profound impact of intensive meditation on the brain and stories of miracles and black magic, sexualized rituals, and tantric rites from former Diamond Mountain acolytes, A Death on Diamond Mountain is a gripping work of investigative journalism that reveals how the path to enlightenment can be riddled with danger.
Do survivors-of trauma, loss, abuse-gain a "secret knowledge" about life from their experience? Mark Matousek, a survivor fascinated with the enigma of survival, draws on interviews with an enslaved Sudanese boy, a Tibetan nun tortured for her belief, an Auschwitz prisoner, a Vietnam P.O.W., as well as noted thinkers and spiritual teachers Ram Daas, Stanley Kunitz, Eckhart Tolle, and Mother Meera. In distilling the many experiences, Matousek shows how enduring hardship can transform a person, refine his character, and alchemize catastrophe into living wisdom.
Matousek draws from personal experience, interviews, and letters from readers to provide wisdom about friendship, commitment, honesty, greed, jealousy, loyalty, competition, imitation, abandonment, and reconciliation. Each of the twenty-four essays examining a plethora of moral dilemmas is followed by thought-provoking questions.
Explore the Other Side of Enlightenment Does enlightenment have a dark side? It does, explains David Deida, but instead of closing to what seems unloving, we can learn to open as what we would rather avoid. In Instant Enlightenment, this maverick author and teacher offers a "rude awakening" through a collection of daring exercises and practices intended to provoke, challenge, and immediately reveal the ever-present "love that lives all things." Each pithy chapter encourages readers to blast the light of consciousness on the taboos we hide in shadow, from our ideas about sex and money to emotions and spirituality. Instant Enlightenment will surprise and possibly offend you—but it will lead you "fast and suddenly" to the realization of the sacred entirety of your experience. "Dive straight into this book. Open to any page and read for two minutes, and you'll see that you are instant enlightenment."—Ken Wilber, author of A Brief History of Everything