One Taste

One Taste: The Journals of Ken Wilber

by Ken Wilber

Shambhala, Boston, Massachusetts & London, England     © 1999     370 pp.


Ken Wilber, a.k.a. the “Einstein of Consciousness” in these, our times, has written 16 previous books. Renowned for his privacy, he has at last given us a glimpse into his personal life in the form of excerpts taken from his journals from the year 1997.

Wilbur is the consummate Renaissance man, waxing forth on topics as wildly divergent as fashion design, rock groups, art, politics, education, post-modernism, and Consciousness-as-such. He remains, as ever, articulate, eloquent, brilliant, wise, even hilariously funny on many occasions — for instance, when his girlfriend has her navel and nipples pierced he refers to the piercing palace as “Disfigurations Are Us.”

We also get an inside look at Wilber’s own personal transformative practices in this book. However, pervading all the details of his life - his actions, thoughts, feelings, Realizations — is the Truth and Reality of Consciousness Itself, Emptiness, the One Taste.

As he so aptly puts it in his intro: “If there is a theme to this journal it is that body, mind, and soul are not mutually exclusive. The desires of the flesh, the ideas of the mind, and the luminosity of the soul — all are perfect expressions of the radiant Spirit that alone inhabits the universe, sublime gestures of that Great Perfection that alone outshines the world. There is only One Taste. . .”

One Taste, in all its myriad flavors, is yummy and hard-to-read, written as it is by a man who could not only talk the talk but "sit the sit" of a spiritual practice and path. Those of us alive today might well consider and of course try to emulate.

— reviewed by Karen Fierman

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