Product Description

This classic work by tells the compelling story of Feild's journey along an ancient and powerful spiritual path. It tells of Field's exhilarating explorations into mystical Turkey, a land of whirling dervishes and the tombs of great saints, but also a world that opens into the divine love that lies at the heart of all.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #231056 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
'A rare journal of one man's struggle towards true freedom, this compelling story carries the stamp of undeniable authenticity.' -- Watkins Review, Spring 2003.

About the Author
Reshad Feild is one of today's best-known Western Sufi teachers.

Customer Reviews

As wise, articulate and astonishing today as it was in 1978.
My brother gave me the recently published first edition of this book for my eighteenth birthday and, without a doubt, it was then the most exciting book I had ever come across. New to the subject of spirituality and the Sufis, I found dazzling revelations on almost every page. Yet somehow what was being described sounded familiar, even though I had never encounted anything like this before, and it aroused in me a strange longing (almost a nostalgia for something that I seemed to have forgotten). I read it and re-read it, and even read it aloud with an old schoolfriend who was also interested in these things. But then a few months later I discovered Rafael Lefort's 'The Teachers of Gurdjieff' and the next step of my journey became clear. I left 'The Last Barrier' behind and didn't think about it again.

Until last month when, after three people had mentioned it to me in apparently unrelated contexts, I finally decided to give it another look. Having recently celebrated my 44th birthday a long time has passed since my last reading - long enough for Reshad Feild to have issued this 25th Anniversary edition, complete with an update on his story. Bulent Rauf, the enigmatic Sufi teacher 'Hamid' at the heart of this story, had passed on in 1987. And Feild himself has become well known as an author and teacher in the intervening time. Much water had also passed under my bridge in that time and I wondered what I would make of this book now. Well, if I had any doubts, I was in for a pleasant surprise: revisited, 'The Last Barrier' seems every bit as wise, articulate and astonishing as when I first read it a quarter of a century ago.

This is the story of one man's encounter with the ancient mystical tradition of the Sufis, as mediated through an extraordinary living exemplar. Feild runs into 'Hamid' in a dusty London antique shop and surprises himself by asking if this man he knows nothing about can tell him something about the dervishes - the followers of the Sufi way. Thus begins a chain of events that culminates with Feild being invited to join Hamid in Turkey for a series of 'journeys' - both literal and metaphorical - which lead him towards a greater understanding of himself and his place in the world. And the experience of learning - the pain and the sweetness, the revelations and the confrontations - is beautifully described. Everyone's journey in this Way is quite different (as indeed are the methods and individuality of the teacher) but Reshad manages to convey its unique quality - the 'texture' of working with a Sufi master - in a way that will be immediately recognisable to anyone who has ever experienced it.

When I read it originally this book left me feeling an intense 'hunger'. In those days I didn't know where to look and was willing to investigate anything that held out the promise of a similar kind of teaching to that which 'The Last Barrier' describes. After several false starts and trails that petered out, I eventually found what I was looking for in the work of Idries Shah. Things are different today and those who find themselves in a similar predicament after reading this book might it fruitful to look at Juan Sgolastra's 'The Way' or Marco Santello's 'Between Heaven and Earth' (both listed here on Amazon).

An excellent journey indeed
Coincidence or what the book took me too most of the places I had visited in Turkey as well as the longest journey I had ever taken from my head to my heart. A very good book for those searching enlightenment. Enjoy

Beautiful and captivating
The best book I have read for a long long time. So much so that when I had finished reading it, I immediately read it again and I never remember doing this for any book before. Deep, profound and inspiring. A truly amazing book.