Rawlinson, Andrew. _The Book of Enlightened Masters: Western Teachers in Eastern Traditions_
(Chicago: Open Court, 1997).650 pp.
 
Reviewed by Steven T. Marsh, stmarsh@aol.com, Nebraska Wesleyan U.

  This book is an attempt to give a complete survey of "Western (mostly
American) teachers who fill the role of guru or master."  "It explains who the
masters are, who influenced them, what they teach, what their personalities
and personal lives are like, and the strange adventures that many of them have
experienced."  The above quotes are from the back cover.  Also given there are
this about the author, and several plaudits including this one with which I
agree:

   "Andrew Rawlinson has been Lecturer in Buddhism at the University of
Lancaster, England, and a visiting professor at the University of California
at Berkeley and... at Santa Barbara.  Now retired... he remains an active
researcher and writer.  Dr. Rawlinson has published many scholarly articles on
Buddhism, Yoga, and other religious traditions."

   "_The Book of Enlightened Masters [BEM] is a fascinating comparative
panorama of Western masters and teachers of Asian religious traditions."
--Peter Harvey, Author of _An Introduction to Buddhism_.

   Rawlinson writes well, whether or not one always agrees with him. My
favorite part of BEM is Part I, the first 142 pages, in which he discusses
"How to Understand Spiritual Teachers."  He then gives lengthy descriptions
(Part II) of about 145 twentieth-century "spiritual teachers" in pages 143-603
and "mini-biographies" of 30 others who are described "very cursorily," in
pages 605-621.  One early contention he makes, before discussing the
phenomenon of Western teachers in Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi and "Independent"
[e.g., Gurdjieff, Blavatsky, Prophet] schools, is that a "Spiritual
Psychology" has emerged, which is based on four principles:

1. Human beings are best understood in terms of *consciousness* and its
modifications.
2. Consciousness can be transformed by *spiritual practice.*
3. There are *gurus/masters/teachers* who have done this.
4. They can help others to do the same by some form of *transmission.*

   One might argue that this "Spiritual Psychology" is NOT, as Rawlinson
asserts on p. xvii, "new in the West."  One might contend that various
mystical, gnostic, Hasidic/Kabbalistic, Hermetic, or otherwise similar
traditions have existed in the West *at least* since the first
"masters/priests" (whether Hebrew, Egyptian, Sumerian or more ancient) taught
the next generation of "masters/priests" to practice some kind of
consciousness-transforming practice.  So Rawlinson's statement that "These
people [Western swamis, roshis, sheikhs, etc.] are changing Western culture by
making available a view of the human condition which is new in the West" might
be a stronger claim than the facts warrant.   But whether the above
consciousness-transforming principles and practices are new here or not, they
have surely gained renewed attention and emphasis since Eastern teachings
became popularized in the West.  And having transferred from college in 1976
to a Buddhist Studies program at Naropa Institute, founded by a guru from the
Karmapa School of Tibetan Buddhism, I greatly appreciated reading about every
known Western teacher now teaching in an Eastern-style spiritual school.

   In an introductory piece, Dr. Rawlinson does a commendable job of telling
what his book is about (pgs. xvii-xix) and setting forth his thesis.  If we
might haggle about how "new" the above "Spiritual Psychology" is to the West,
there is no doubt that it has received great impetus from the influx of
Buddhist, Hindu and Sufi teachings.  Nor do I doubt the other part of his
thesis:  "a genuinely Western form of this teaching is emerging because it is
only in the West that the different Eastern forms have come together so that
they can be compared.  ...Tibetan teachers, for example, know little about
*vipassana* meditation or the practice of *zazen.*  Indian teachers who repeat
the name of Ram have no contact with Egyptian Sufis who recite the 99 names of
Allah. It is Westerners who are making these connections..." [p. xviii] Yet
even this is surely changing, as Eastern teachers like H.H. The Dalai Lama,
travel far and wide, and Buddhist monks (as well as many others) start reading
about Sufism and whatever else they choose to find on the Web!

   Beyond the commendable job he does of simply telling the story of "East
meets West," (pp. 3-95) Rawlinson's primary original (though Ken Wilber and
others have offered similar observations) contributions are: 1. to have
brought all these teachers and traditions into one book, based on the above
thesis of how Eastern traditions have "come together" in the West to result in
an emergent "Spiritual Psychology" of consciousness-transformation; and 2. to
have devised "A Model of Experiential Comparative Religion" (pp. 96-142).

   Dr. Rawlinson offers an excellent "Timeline: A Chronology of Spiritual
Teaching in the West" on pp. 64-96, charting the history of three Buddhist
(Theravada, Zen and "Tibetan and Other"), one Hindu, one Sufi and one
Independent Schools of Eastern teachings.  The earliest entries are a
translation of the Bhagavad Gita in 1785 (Wilkin), Pali and Tibetan grammars
(1826 & 1834).  The last are the deaths of Maezumi Roshi (1995) and Swami
Radha (1996).  Then comes his Model of religious experiences/traditions, which
he dubs "two pairs of polar concepts: *Hot* and *Cool*; *Structured* and
*Unstructured*."   After a caveat: "opposite truths apply to the human
condition," he describes these concepts [p. 98]:

*Hot* is that which is other than oneself; that which has its own life.  It is
not something that one has access to as of right.  It is powerful and breath-
taking, and is associated with revelation and grace.  It is similar to Otto's
numinous.

*Cool* is the very essence of oneself; one need not go to another to find it.
Hence one *does* have access to it as of right.  It is quiet and still, and is
associated with self-realization.

The meaning of *Structured* is that there is an inherent order in the cosmos
and therefore in the human condition.  There is something to be discovered and
there is a way of discovering it.  A map is required to find the destination.

By contract, *Unstructured* teachings say that there is no gap between the
starting point and the finishing point.  Method and goal are identical.  We
are not separate from reality/truth/God.  [I ^must^ say that this reminds me
of my book, _Seeking Communion_]  Everything is available now and always has
been.

   Then, Rawlinson describes how "the two pairs can be combined:  *Hot
Structured*[HS], *Hot Unstructured*[HU], *Cool Structured* [CS], and *Cool
Unstructed*[CU], and gives examples from the Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi and
Independent traditions he covers.  There is far too much to cover in this
brief review, but anyone interested in comparing religious/mystical/spiritual
experiences and traditions can benefit from reading this book.  Just look at
Diagram 3 on p. 102, where he gives the Ontology, Cosmology, Anthropology and
Soteriology of each of the above four combinations, and you get a good taste
of the depth of Dr. Rawlinson's "survey cum typology" of spiritual teachings.
If nothing else, _The Book of Enlightened Masters_ provides a wealth of
material for discussing and evaluating such  teachings.  To cite just one of
these four category's descriptions, here is how he describes the Ontology of
each of the four pairs:

HS = many powers/beings
HU = only God is real; he is unknowable
CS = everything has its place: everything comes and goes
CU = only the Self is real; or reality is empty (*shunya*)

   If one only wants to read about the histories of almost every significant
"Eastern-style" Western spiritual teacher, this book is worth its price.  But
I much more enjoyed reading Part I, which ends with this summary paragraph
about the book's thesis [p. 137]:

  "I end, as I began, with a statement of the significance of spiritual
psychology.  It is a Western phenomenon, despite the fact that its origins are
Eastern, because it is being taught by Westerners.  It is concerned with every
aspect of the human condition: what it is to be alive, to be born, to have a
body, to die; [mightn't he add, to give birth?!] the nature of sickness and
suffering, of happiness and love; what it is to be male, female, heterosexual,
homosexual; what it is to be a child, a parent; the nature of the family (and
its alternatives: the extended family, the monastic celibate life); how
society should be organized and according to what principles (politics,
economics, ethics); how one should eat, dress, and earn one's living; the
proper form of the arts (music, painting, poetry--even the nature of language
itself); the world and its origin (including space and cosmology, time and
history and eternity, matter and energy); how consciousness works from the
most mundane levels (drinking a glass of water) to the most rarefied
(meditative states that are beyond all attributes) via the extra-ordinary
(visionary encounters of every conceivable hue)."

   Pretty parenthetically expressed at times, Dr. Rawlinson provides a rich
array of foods for thought, contemplation and meditation.  Though my
endorsement is a bit more reserved, I mostly agree with this plaudit from the
back cover:

   "Dr. Rawlinson describes an amazing array of Western spiritual teachers...
and presents a coherent and flexible typology of spiritual paths which maps
the diversity of the phenomenon."
--Gavin Flood,  Author of _An Introduction to Hinduism_