No Boundary

by Ken Wilber

A simple yet comprehensive guide to the types of psychologies and therapies available from Eastern and Western sources. Each chapter includes a specific exercise designed to help the reader understand the nature and practice of the specific therapies. Wilber presents an easy-to-use map of human consciousness against which the various therapies are introduced and explained. This edition includes a new preface.

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, Spirituality, Nonfiction, Self Help, Religion, Personal Development

1000 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Kenneth Earl Wilber II is an American philosopher and writer on transpersonal psychology and his own integral theory, a systematic philosophy which suggests the synthesis of all human knowledge and experience.

Reviews

[T.J. Beitelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was about a week after my mother died and I was in Reagan National Airport, in D.C., reading No Boundary as I waited for the plane to take me back to Birmingham and some semblance of the regular, workaday world. A woman came up to me and said, “Ooh, Ken Wilber. Deep.” I nodded, made the obligatory self-deprecating comment: “I only understand about every third word.” Which was pretty much true.

The lady told me how she thought it was fine to be brilliant and all, but a writer-thinker has a responsibility to communicate that brilliance so other people can understand it. Touché. But most of the important stuff’s hard to talk about. Self. Psychology. Love. Death. Art. God. Time. Timelessness. Etc.

Wilber does it with some histrionics, yes, and OBTW he sure as hell aint afraid to go sleeveless (the better to show off his fully enlightened and carefully cultivated guns) or to write about how indefatigable he is in the sack.

Nor is he afraid to concoct some jargon or intricate and/or fairly unintelligible diagrams. But if you just sort of let all of that wash over you — i.e., allow yourself to be okay with only understanding every third word or so — he’s actually pretty good at getting at the crux of matters.

No Boundary is probably Wilber’s most accessible work, and it’s very interested in the practical endeavor of making one’s life more whole. The book is short, which is always good, and he repeats himself enough so if at first you don’t get it (and, if you’re anything like me, you won’t), just keep reading. He’ll say it again, in other words, soon enough.

[Alan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Every thing is everything. Oh, and it is what it is. 1=1. A tautology is tautologous. Now you don't have to read a massive compendium of references in service of the point.

[Neelesh Marik]

The most authentic book on consciousness I 've read to-date. There's no Integral Theory in this book. Given the inherent limitations of language in representing experience, this book comes closest to what could be possible. The last chapter appears complex at first, but is actually the crowning glory of simplicity. For any and every seeker in this world, this book will provide a new perspective to the act of seeking itself.

Some pearls from a book which is a veritable necklace:

Something very simple happens when answer the question, 'Who are you?' You draw a boundary between your perception of 'self' and 'not-self'. 'Who are you?' means 'Where do you draw the boundary?'

The actual world contains lines but no real boundaries. A real line becomes an illusory boundary when we imagine its two sides to be separated and unrelated; that is, when we acknowledge the outer difference of the two opposites but ignore their inner unity.

If we carefully look at the sensation of 'self-in-here' and the sensation of 'world-out-there', we will find that these two sensations are actually one and the same feeling. It is true that anything I see is not the Seer- because everything I see is the Seer. As I go within to find my real self, I find only the world.

You thus have nowhere to stand but in the present moment, and thus nowhere to stand but in eternity.

I looked, and looked, and this I came to see:
That what I thought was you and you.
Was really me and me.

As a pure witness, your relationship to your mind-and-body becomes the same as your relationship to all other objects.

Honsho-myosho therefore means that true spiritual practice springs from, but not toward, enlightenment.

There is neither creation nor destruction,
Neither destiny nor free-will;
Neither path nor achievement;
That is the final truth. (Sri Ramana Maharshi)

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't even know what to say about this book except that it opened up parts of my intellectual knowledge base in a way that has never been opened before. The root concepts in this book are nothing new to me but the way in which he went about explaining things, illuminated a completely new light. I finished the book with tons of highlights, tons of notes, places I need to return to for further clarification at a different time, a few questions and a deep desire to tell all my friends, who would be interested, about it so we can discuss it in depth. This was a simply incredible read.

[Giorgi Bazerashvili · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book by Ken Wilber, a modern-day mystic, who gives us a comprehensive map of the development of consciousness in very practical terms. What I like the most in his teachings and writings, is his style, which encompasses models that create a sense of big-picture understanding and a bird-eye view over the psychological and spiritual planes of humankind.

He claims that there are no boundaries in the universe and tells us that all the boundaries are being created by us in every moment of our being. The boundary creates a battle between two opposites, for example: bad vs good, white vs black, rational vs irrational, etc. All of these boundaries are conceptual in their nature and therefore they are not fundamentally real, meaning that they are not found in the fabric of reality itself.

Then he gives us a comprehensive model of human development, starting with persona level all the way to the unity consciousness. According to him, to go through the spiral of consciousness means dissolving more boundaries, surrendering resistance and unifying and merging together aspects of the psyche, then the body, and finally all of the reality.

Also, I like his multi-perspective approach. He mentions Freud, Jung, many western or eastern sages, mystics and saints, founders of quantum physics, etc. He quotes many of them in order to give us many points of view. This is great because it gives me the possibility to further research workings of those people and find many other sources of reliable insights.

He also gives us practical techniques to go through each of step on the spiral, and that is very useful after identifying your place on it. Then it becomes clear what should you be doing in order to increase your awareness and frustrate your resistances, as he tells us is important for each stage.

Also, if techniques provided by him is not enough, he made a list of recommended books and authors at the end of each developmental stage. That list of book is really useful for me because I might use it as a map to navigate the field of psychology and spirituality much easier.

In short, if you are interested in psychology, consciousness, mysticism, metaphysics, spirituality, enlightenment, meditation, shadow work, eastern vs western philosophy and much more, this is a must-read.

[Ben Guterson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I'm throwing in the towel on Wilber. This is the fourth or fifth book I've read by him over the years, and I've never been able to figure out if he's too profound for me or, rather, a guy with some cool but hazy ideas whose writing style doesn't work for me. I'm landing on the latter. This book, while it started off promising, veered into the fog about midway through, and I just couldn't see my way through the jumble of guru-speak, semi-arbitrary quotes, and sluggish explication.

[dp · Rating 5 out of 5]

No Boundary Review REDUX

It's crazy that this has happened ... but I re-read and actually finished reading this, and my current opinion of it is the polar opposite of my initial one. After my DNF, 1-star review where I unfairly and unflinchingly slammed the book, I kept hearing & reading things in various podcasts, books, articles, conversations, etc. that would contain hints of ideas I first read about in No Boundary. It was after a very deep conversation over coffee with a friend, where I found myself suddenly agreeing with Ken Wilber's theories, that I decided to give the book another shot (and thereby appease my conscience) - and it was almost as if I was reading a completely different book. Everything in it started to make sense, and I am not exaggerating by saying it's truly one of the best books I've ever read.

I don't know what happened to cause such a radical shift in my perspective in such a short amount of time. It's not like I did anything significant ... I guess life just happened? Regardless, what I'm convinced of now is that this book isn't "self-help babble" as I so arrogantly and foolishly proclaimed in my initial review, but rather a succinct treasure trove of esoteric, mystical, and perennial wisdom. Reflecting on my meditation practice was helpful in understanding the book, but I didn't "try" to understand it - it was more like it quite literally just happened to me out of the blue. I started to reflect on my meditation experiences only after I began to be "caught up", so to speak.

I urge you to read No Boundary with no expectations, including the expectation to understand it. Simply absorb it, and let the ideas in it work on you as you go about your day. Ken Wilber didn't create any of the philosophies in this book - many of them are ancient, stemming from Hinduism, Buddhism, or esoteric Judaism, Christianity, & Islam. Others are more recent, like Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis. What Wilber does is amalgamate these various therapies and philosophies into a larger framework that really works to gradually produce deep meaning, peace, and self-understanding with practice, even if some of the theories are not initially self-evident or seem counterintuitive. Give it a read, stick with it, and hopefully you'll find it as profound a catalyst for growth and wisdom as I did.

I'm going to leave my initial review below, so that I can have this radical contrast in mindset on hand for future reference. I would suggest you don't read it though.


—

Original Review

I read most of No Boundary, but I'm calling it quits (yet another book ... ). Quite frankly, I just find it to be uninspiring bulls**t! It wasn't too bad at first, but about halfway through the book became unbearable, and I found that most of the approaches outlined contradict our daily experience of existence. Nearly all of the frameworks in this book simply don't make sense, and to combine them as the author does is a further travesty.

Yes - for a variety of very fascinating and compelling scientific reasons, reality is definitely not what it seems. Nonetheless, the metaphysics that Ken Wilber promulgates seem not only grossly inaccurate, but also unhelpful. It's a strange mix of Freudian psychology and Eastern mysticism that ultimately amounts to pseudoscientific, New Age, "self-help" babble.

There's certainly great value to be found in practices such as meditation/mindfulness, but it's the philosophy, psychology, and spirituality (-ies) that he adds to such practices that he can keep. I do think Wilber is sincere - I also think he's just wrong.

[Ashton Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely worth a read, I’d say for anyone who is willing to confront their own self-imposed limitations. Wilber argued in fairly accessible language throughout. I felt he had particularly strong arguments later in the book, such as when explaining his idea of how a person’s perspective is generally a projection of what is within themself. He also did a good job of explaining unity consciousness, considering this is generally tabbed a topic unexplainable-through-language by authors.

The reason I gave four stars instead of five was that I thought his foundational arguments in the first few chapters were weak and had some minor contradictions; e.g. the fact that all that exists is the present, however our sight and hearing (and therefore experience) is something that we experience in the present but that occurred in the past. I am not sure how convinced I would have been had I not already been introduced to the idea that everything is connected. However, his later arguments more than made up for this and made for a good read.

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started to read this book with excitement and enthusiasm. I really wanted to "get" this Advaita / unity consciousness idea. I thought the first three chapters were well written, and I eagerly began chapter 4, No-Boundary Awareness, where he really gets into his thesis of "oneness." But starting on page 46 I slammed into a brick wall, to which I have returned several times for additional head-banging, but I'm still stuck, perhaps permanently. On the sense of sight, he says "Is perception really that complicated? Does it really involve three separate entities - a seer, seeing, and the seen?" This doesn't sound terribly complicated to me. Then he goes on to flatly state, with no real evidence or explanation, that there is only seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, etc., but no separate self who sees, hears, touches, smells, or anything that is seen, heard, touched, or smelled. There is only seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, etc. "When I heard the temple bell ring, suddenly there was no bell and no I, just the ringing." Thus a Zen master reached enlightenment.
He talks about the "convincing illusion" that the human race lives with and I can imagine he feels quite superior to have reached a higher level of awareness. "You do not have a sensation of a bird, you are the sensation of a bird. You do not have an experience of a table, you are the experience of a table. You do not hear the sound of thunder, you are the sound of thunder." I know that this is the Advaita / unity consciousness viewpoint, and I've read other authors' attempts to convey this, but it sounds like pure nonsense to me. I don't see how these dogmatic, unsubstantiated assertions can convince anyone.
For the time being I'm going to put this book back on the shelf and turn my attention elsewhere. Try as I might, I've reached an impenetrable barrier. A philosophy that is so based on paradox and the claim that words (and even human thought!) are inadequate to convey the truth of this dogma is something I can't quite cope with right now. I wish I could.
6/28/2020 I went ahead and read through to the end. Although Chapter 4 exasperated me (and still does), there was plenty in the remainder of the book that was thought-provoking and useful. I especially liked his description of the persona/shadow, ego/body, and total organism/environment boundaries relate to different psychological problems and to different therapy approaches. But his writings on the "eternal present" and "unity consciousness" still seem paradox-laden, and I get tired of being told that our lives are fully based on an "illusion." It just seems like another belief system to me.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

“As Korzybsky and the general semanticists have pointed out, our words, symbols, signs, thoughts and ideas are merely maps of reality, not reality itself, because the map is not the territory.”

My fear of disappointment in this book came from two primary sources. One, the subject matter. For seemingly, for every respectable work subtitling the phrase 'personal growth', countless others, offering no more than superficial self-help drivel, sprout up to usurp one’s attention and define the genre. And two, Ken Wilber himself, who can be seen, by even the shallowest of internet searches, as a man shamelessly inclined to the ego trappings that one sooner associates with frat boys than philosophers. Hence the unlikelihoods, that first, I’d give the book a chance, and second, be pleasantly surprised by it. And yet here it is, positively read and reviewed.

I recently confronted one of my meditation teachers with the quandary of why the biggest truths in this world seem to be both simplicity itself and utterly thorny when we try to get a grip on them. I found his answer could not be more convincing: ‘Because [getting a grip on it] is like a razor’s edge against everything we’ve ever done.’

In No Boundary, Wilber has rather masterfully delineated both the simplicity of a particular and fundamental truth and the complexity that we must confront in ourselves if we are ever to come to a more than superficial (i.e. self-helpy) understanding of it. Which is to say, that it takes more than reading a book, even this one, to come to that understanding. What Wilber succeeds in, is showing the open-minded reader that this task must be taken up. What he doesn’t quite succeed in, is presenting to the reluctant westerner a sufficiently compelling entrance into the means to do so – which I’ll just say in passing, in my opinion, begins and ends with vipassana. This failure, however, is something shared by almost every philosophy, religion and self-help charlatan - i.e. it should not in itself dissuade one from reading this work. It is really not that surprising that providing a proportion of recognizable truth is more likely to elicit dogma than to oblige one into the rigors of self investigation. There's a part of everyone of us that simply doesn't want to understand.

“Thus, as Wittgenstein pointed out, because our goals are not lofty but illusory, our problems are not difficult but nonsensical.”

[Juan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ken Wilber, who has mastered most of the mystical religious traditions of the world, makes the mystical very very practical in this down-to-earth book. He examines the way in which we create boundaries as a instinctual act of consciousness, and the fallacies it results in as far as our understanding of the world, our selves, reality, and spirituality. Nothing esoteric, just a simple, matter of fact examination of the make-believe we treat as real, and an analysis of how various psychotherapeutic and spiritual traditions help us re-integrate our personae with our consciousness, our mids with our bodies, and our selves with the wider universe. It changes my understanding of spirituality.

[Jaïr Cijntje · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book you will find thé most clear explanations of every level of consciousness there is: from the shadow of the ego to the unity consciousness. Ken Wilber also does this without sounding like a mystic or a saint; he uses terminology and examples that are easy on the mind for us (read: sceptical Westerners). He manages to bundle the basics of everything you need and want to know, and offers book referrals at the end of each chapter, if you feel the need to further your self study. Which I predict, after reading this book, you most likely will.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I once heard that some Buddhists believe every moment is occurring simultaneously, though we perceive it in a linear fashion. In other words, we already are enlightened, we just need to realize it. I used to think this way of seeing time felt supernatural, but I’ve come to see it’s actually quite logical.

I’ve read loads of religious and psychological texts, and this book has helped me wrap my head around some of the concepts and ways of thinking I’ve come across. I was a bit unsure during the first half, but by the second half I was extremely happy to have read it.

[Marianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read. It covers a lot of ground in a very organized and succinct manner that is easy to follow as it gets to the crux of the matter. However, its simplicity, straightforwardness and at times witty and amusing smile-inducing prose by no means undermine its seriousness and depth. Very well written.

My only "But" to this book is that Wilber seems to suggest here that the integration of the ego (between persona and shadow) and the centaur (between mind and body) are necessary in order to stand a chance at "dissolving" (or rather, realizing the non-existence of) the primary boundary between "knower/seer" and "known/seen" and experiencing unity consciousness. I don't think that's the case, and while I agree that there are different levels of integration, which Wilber describes and organizes for us so well, I don't think that the development process occurs in a "linear" fashion, so to speak. And an example of this are the spiritual teachers who certainly have a certain direct "experience" (for lack of a better word) of unity consciousness while having a pretty active and unintegrated shadow causing all sorts of problems for themselves and others.

My understanding is that today Wilber doesn't believe this process is linear and I'm guessing he clarifies this further in his later books. In this early work, however, that's what he seems to be suggesting. Or at least, he never points out and clarifies here that it's not.

[Siddarth Gore · Rating 5 out of 5]

In short, to draw boundaries is to manufacture opposites.

It is fine to distinguish pleasure from pain; it is impossible to separate pleasure from pain.

Most of our “problems of living,” then, are based on the illusion that the opposites can and should be separated and isolated from one another.

What is the difference between a line and a boundary? A line is fact, a boundary is fiction we have made up. Like a boundary between two countries, between good an evil, even between two objects.

You do not hear the sound of thunder, you are the sound of thunder.

Boundaries help us understand and manipulate things. All science is based on the separation of object from the observer. But when you dissolve boundaries you get something else, equally important.

A language possesses utility only insofar as it can construct conventional boundaries. A language of no boundaries is no language at all, and thus the mystic who tries to speak logically and formally of unity consciousness is doomed to sound very paradoxical or contradictory.

You have to know it to know it.

All of us have a dark side. But “dark side” does not mean “bad side”;

Drawing a boundary and accepting half the story doesn't work at any level. Only leads to confusion and misery.

but because washing dishes is itself original enlightenment.

Mom was right after all.

[Temo Tchanukvadze · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! A little book about our consciousness, shadow, and nonduality. Ken Wilber has astonishing explanation skills. Every time I kept reading I felt I was experiencing a little glimpse of no boundary world. He reveals some practical techniques to raise your consciousness. No Boundary is filled with sources for every subject you can research. He repeats the main subject many times from different perspective in case you can't grasp at first and sure you won't. I am planning to reread soon!

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een boek over grenzen en dan vooral over hoe grenzen niet bestaan maar allemaal illusies zijn. Wie ben ik = waar trek ik de grens. Kun je door de illusies heenkijken en, zo ja, tot hoever? Toegankelijk geschreven ondanks de complexe onderwerpen, het beschrijft voor mij de essentie van Zijn en Leven. Aanrader!

[Post Oogle Bohemianism · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this much more than I expected. Imagine if Alan Watts was into spreadsheets

[Hyeonmin Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

For people who want to learn about Buddhism

[Ruben Mes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bleh what drudgery.

As another reviewer stated: "Tautology is tautologous." He repeats himself way too much for my liking.

I can't recommend this, for the simple fact that it seems outdated, and a dull repetition of what I read before in his other books, but rather redundant.

If this was the first one to read, then fine, but now it seems completely redundant. I do however, appreciate Wilber's style in his earlier works, like Spectrum of Consciousness and A Sociable God. However, the fact remains that it seems he wrote it for his time, and now it seems we are more advanced at this point in time. I did not get any more enlightened reading this, but that's mostly because of my extensive self-work, experience with Jungian psychology, working as a therapist myself and because of my recent drive-through his bibliography - not because he's a fool. On the contrary, I believe Wilber achieved incredible scholarly things with his work on consciousness, and I owe him a lot.

Regardless of the above, I am still honestly and deeply disappointed by this book, as I expected a thorough exposition of the stages of development ( ala Atman Project/Spiral Dynamics) and how the therapies and traditions help an individual grow through them. I did not get what I was looking for.

Instead, I was unexpectedly blasted with Wilber's core message of Spectrum of Consciousness for the first 60 pages about non-duality, which took way too long for my liking ("I got the point, please move on").

The actual stages were only briefly outlined and, although Wilber offers some insightful tips and exercises that can help a person progress through these stages, he keeps it very minimal, with just an indication of what is possible, and a short list of recommended further reading to learn more about it.

In all, I hoped the same thoroughness as I'm used to in Integral Spirituality, but was let down.

It's an outdated book, and I hope that someone took these principles and elaborated upon them, because the core of it is unbelievably important, and is part of my personal vision for a new psychedelic religion.

Does anyone know if Religion of the Future will make up for the massive disappointment I got from No Boundary and A Sociable God? And who are these thinkers that took his work further?

Please let me know if you have recommendations. Thank you.

[Matt Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ken Wilber is one of my favourite western philosophers who has integrated the milestones of all disciplines of science, and eastern philosophy into a roadmap for us modern seekers. This book was particularly important for me in giving a link between Buddhist theories of interdependance and rational, empirical scientific observation.

It discusses at length the actual concept of a Boundary, what it means, and why it doesn't so much separate as join, and this insight alone is worth exploring the book for.

The book will take you into an indepth look at where you believe the boundary of your own existence lies. Is it your mind? Your body? something else entirely?

Wilber can be rather hard to stay with at times, needing a big effort of engagement intellectually, but there are always rewards for the heart if you stick with him.

I would like to get to grips with his massive extended version of this book - "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality" at some stage. When I'm feeling really daring!

[Thomm Quackenbush · Rating 3 out of 5]

When it is good, you feel it hard. (Oh, *so* sorry for making a judgment as though good and bad had any definition!) When it is bad, it is needlessly impenetrable and repetitive, given to citing many other philosophers on the same page instead of explaining himself, too reminiscent of an undergrad trying to stretch out an essay.
Or, if I may paraphrase Einstein, if you can't explain it to a child, you don't understand it. I suspect Wilber doesn't embrace unity consciousness, but rather frets over royalties.

(But, again, when he hit a good vein of original thought -- like in the shadow work chapter -- and doesn't seem to be posturing via obfuscating and quoting, he does effective work.)

[Alex Delogu · Rating 2 out of 5]

The best thing about this book is its attempt at locating the focal point of different therapies, ranging from counselling to transcendental, "unity-consciousness". I think it achieves this to the degree that it oversimplifies the practices presented. I can't help but think that this is inevitable from the "integral" approach, that wishes to collapse all manners of thinking about these things into one. I'm not sure what the point of this is, a fear of difference, or a misguided attempt to unite people, ie. "Look, we're actually all doing the same thing for similar reasons." A neat, heady book with an ugly self-assuring style.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have shelves and shelves of "spiritual" books. This one and Krishnamurti's Freedom From The Known are the two "moderns) I come back to often (,also Alan Watts). For those seeking to get beyond the dualism, the conceptual illusions that fuck us up so badly, do yourself a favor and check these books out at some point.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Eastern, meaning the imaginary place from which Wilber thinks he draws his spirituality. Hence that's first. Western, meaning the White World from which Wilber comes. The rest is just monkeys masquerading as humans.

[Joseph Knecht · Rating 5 out of 5]

A simple and yet very powerful text that tries to erase all boundaries.

There are many relevant insights, but I found the style of writing very pleasant to read.

Somehow the early writings of Wilber are better than the late writings, even better than his magnum opus.


The exasperating fact which Adam learned was that every boundary line is also a potential battle line, so that just to draw a boundary is to prepare oneself for conflict. Specifically, the conflict of the war of opposites, the agonizing fight of life against death, pleasure against pain, good against evil. What Adam learned—and learned too late—is that “Where to draw the line?” really means, “Where the battle is to take place.”

In blindly pursuing progress, our civilization has, in effect, institutionalized frustration.

The ultimate metaphysical secret, if we dare state it so simply, is that there are no boundaries in the universe. Boundaries are illusions, products not of reality but of the way we map and edit reality. And while it is fine to map out the territory, it is fatal to confuse the two

If naming seemed magic, counting seemed divine, because while names could magically represent things, numbers could transcend them.

Because the subatomic particles possessed no boundaries, there could be no meta-boundaries, no measurements; and hence also, no precise meta-meta-boundaries, no “laws.”

This is precisely why the sages advise us not to try to destroy the “self,” but simply to look for it, because whenever we look for it all we find is its prior absence

Suffering, then, is the initial movement of the recognition of false boundaries. Correctly understood, it is therefore liberating, for it points beyond boundaries altogether. We suffer, then, not because we are sick, but because intelligent insight is emerging

This reinforces the illusion that happiness and pleasure can be piped in from the outside, an illusion which itself is responsible for blocking pleasure, so that we end up striving for that which prevents our own joy.

Seeking unity consciousness is like jumping from one wave of experience to another in search of water. And that is why “there is neither path nor achievement.

In theological terms, we are always resisting God’s presence, which is nothing but the full present in all its forms. If there is some aspect of life that you dislike, there is some aspect of unity consciousness that you are resisting

Thus, from all sides, to move away is to separate ourselves from present experience and to project ourselves into time, history, destiny, and death. This, then, is our primal resistance—the unwillingness to look upon all experience, as a whole, as it is, now; and the attempt, instead, to globally move away. I

However innumerable beings are, I vow to liberate them; however incomparable the Truth is, I vow to actualize it.” If you feel this deep commitment to realization, to service, to sacrifice, and to surrender, through all present conditions to infinity itself, then spiritual practice will be your way naturally. May you be graced to find a spiritual master in this life and enlightenment in this moment.

[Romann Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a very pleasant surprise. I have made my way through several of Wilber's later works and felt consistently frustrated with them ... and with him. The unnecessary jargon and convoluted writing—even in the books supposedly intended for a broader audience—made me feel as though Wilber was intentionally obfuscating. At no point did I feel that any effort had been put into making the material accessible. Despite my frustration, I never completely wrote Wilber off, and I would pick up another of his books from time to time to give him another shot. That finally paid off with this book, the second one Wilber ever wrote.

No Boundary is apparently the "layman's" version of Wilber's more academically oriented debut book, The Spectrum of Consciousness. The spectrum covers the personal level (featuring the boundary between the persona and the shadow), the ego level (ego versus body), the total organism (the whole body or "centaur" versus the environment), and unity consciousness (which has no boundary). Leading up to unity consciousness are also various transpersonal bands of development. Wilber compellingly links each of these levels to various schools of thought in psychology and spirituality and the various therapies or disciplines that he claims are concerned with dissolving the artificial boundaries at each level.

Wilber seems to go to great lengths in this book to make the material intuitive, and he mostly succeeds. Only the final chapter is a little hard to completely grasp, but it's also concerned with a very hard-to-grasp topic, namely that unity consciousness is somehow already with us right now, without our having to search for it. (Indeed, the search for it pushes you further away.)

Perhaps it was Wilber's youth at the time that allowed him to write with this balance of confidence and humility, but I wish he had maintained this style throughout his career. At any rate, this is so far the first (and only) of Wilber's books that I would wholeheartedly recommend, and I'm glad that I didn't give up on him before finding it.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book!

The premise of the book is to look at the idea of boundaries as a manufactured reality and address how it compromises living our fullest, best lives. There are considerations of several religions, mindfulness practices, and therapy styles to arrive at a weltanschauung our unity consciousness.

The book is a great read. It is approachable even through complicated ideas. The author does a wonderful job building from chapter to chapter to take a concept deeper.

The reason this book did not receive 5 Stars from me was due to two factors. The first, I want to recognize that the author is at times, redundant. Several paragraphs were almost duplicates and contained within the author would beat a single metaphor until you were sick of it. A bit more succinctness in writing could have gone quite far. The second issue for me was the end. The last two chapters felt rushed, awkward and illformed. Something about the way these chapters flowed did not work with the rest of the book. I was a bit let down by the end and felt I had traveled on this journey for the author only to leave me at the side of the road two miles from the finish. I was a bit annoyed there was absolutely no conclusion of any type. The end could have been considered and completed in a way that brought more harmony to the book and the concepts contained within it.

[Johnny Danell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book from Ken Wilber. This book was written early in his career and is more reminiscent (in its theories and style) to his first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness than his later more developed theories. In other words (the words of Integral theory) this book is mainly about the upper left quadrant of the Kosmos (the individual subjective) and don't touch on any other quadrants. With that said, this is in a way a strength of the book, since it is a much shorter and easier read than say for example The Religion of Tomorrow which is (in my opinion) a much better book, but also requires much more both in patience and previous knowledge of Integral theory to fully appriciate.

The content is great though and still relevant today, and the end of chapter recommendations for further reading is nice to see aswell (always like when good authors give tips about what they have enjoyed reading).

Nuff' I highly recommend this book!

[Lu · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Ali ako svaka granica nosi u sebi tehnološku i političku moć, ona takođe nosi i otuđenje, rasparčavanje i sukob - jer kada postavite granicu da biste nešto kontrolisali, vi se istovremeno izdvajate i otuđujete od onoga što pokušavate da kontrolišete."

"Živeti u sadašnjosti, iznad "vremena" i biti "dete Trenutka"..."

"Mi želimo da nađemo sebe u budućnosti. Nije nam dosta ovo sada - mi želimo još jedno sada, i još jedno, i još jedno, sutra i sutra i sutra."

"Tako vi postajete uzrok sopstvenih osećanja, a ne njihova posledica."

"(...) vi ste taj duboki izvor svih nevoljnih i voljnih procesa, a ne njihova žrtva."

"Ja imam misli, ali moje misli nisu ja. Ja mogu spoznati i naslutiti moje misli, ali ono što se može spoznati nije istinski Znalac. Misli dolaze i odlaze, ali one ne utiču na moje unutrašnje ja. Ja imam misli, ali moje misli nisu ja.
Ja sam ono što preostaje, čisti centar svesti, nepomični svedok svih svojih misli, emocija, osećaja i želja."