Primordial Grace: Earth, Original Heart, and the Visionary Path of Radiance

I feel tremendous gratitude toward those lamas, masters, and scholars who preserved the precious togal teaching in its Himalayan context. Without them, it would likely have been lost to the world. But must togal be tied to a Tibetan, Buddhist or Bon cultural framework? The experience of Robert and Rachel Olds, who completed a nine-year togal retreat, says otherwise. In this book, Primordial Grace, togal is liberated from its Tibetan Buddhist and Bon cultural presentations (and any accompanying feudal hierarchy) and given to us as a way that flows simply and freely out of our embodied human experience of the natural world. This is a togal that stands on its own, for people who want to stand on their own experience, a way of letting things be as they are and seeing them self-resolve into the open spontaneity of the basic ground. This approach to togal feels to me as if, rather than being something new for our current cultural situation, it is actually a rediscovery and recovery of a primal spiritual way. A togal, if you will, as it was before it became burdened by an ever-elaborating conceptual and gradualist support, and subject to various sectarianisms.Such speculation belongs to me, however, so back to the book. Primordial Grace is a complete, unrestricted, guide to the way of togal and its nonconceptual basis of opened and awakened Heart. It abandons Dzogchen jargon and is written in a contemporary English that conveys the authors’ experience of the togal way. I have found that it is possible to practice from this book alone, something Tibetan togal texts don’t generally support. This is a book of radiant openness, and the practice offered in it continues to be profoundly opening for me. It is a living text, and I believe that even the mere reading of the book will precipitate spacious presence in those who are ready.

This is a rare and valuable text. This unusual book takes the ultimate Dzogchen path of Togal, arguably, the highest teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, and restores them to their primordial ground as the natural radiance and spontaneous intent of all of nature. Stripped of cultural templates and overlays, Togal, becomes immediately accessible and intuitively obvious from our innate, original heart.The authors spent nine years in the wilderness practicing the teachings they had received and, through their own, direct experience moved through all four stages of the Togal path. Their clear, unambiguous guidance of the practice and the process which is found in this book arises out of their own, direct experience.I have been studying Dzogchen for over twenty years and this book is the most helpful practice manual I have discovered or been given.

I was profoundly touched by Primordial Grace. This book is a grace in itself. It is a radiant transmission of the deepest Truth made accessible to all who are called home to the Earth and to our original heart. The path of primordial grace contains a sacred teaching that has the power to transform all who are open to receiving it. In this time of increasing madness and destruction of our Mother Earth, this book serves as a bright light pointing the way back to our natural wholeness and its loving intent to welcome us all in an embrace of oneness and love.

Just pure nectar written from the heart. The most inspiring book I have ever read

Beautiful, detailed, rare, thank you for a great gift

Very good books, Got them on time

"We were both middle aged when we entered retreat, and we knew this was our last chance." - Robert Olds had a love story that resulted in signs of Rainbow Body, at the death of his beloved. Nine Years in retreat, and this is their teaching of the HIGHEST AND MOST SECRET OF ALL PRACTICES, so much so that I'm not naming the practice and it is presented non-denominationally. However, it cuts across the Himalayas as the single highest accomplishment, and here it is available to the public thanks to the age of the internet. This is an opportunity that surpasses being granted a thousand kingdoms over a thousand million year lives. It gives the opportunity to load up to the mother board and become one with the cosmic wifi. Having studied Tao, Tibetan and HIndu Maha Yogas, in Ashrams and with the reclusive masters, it is mandatory that I write this review, perhaps my only review ever written, because if one person is freed from the cycle of birth and death because this review helps the book fall into their hands, then there is one more search link bringing love to the top spot of the Universal Google. BESIDES the TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD, this is the book that provides a FINAL map to homecoming, so that the same visions of THE BOOK OF THE DEAD are experienced and fulfilled in this life instead of during the inbetween. This is my understanding.The Book is in two parts: So be sure that part two represents dissolution of the matrix, "On this primordial path, you rest in original heart, settle your body and eyes in specific postures and gazes and breathe in a specific way, to open a very subtle channel that leads from your heart to your eyes.

Beautiful illustrations and descriptions of the unfolding visions of Thogal, the culmination of the highest teachings in the Great Perfection. A beautiful, inspiring, and profound book. Truly rare!

accessible languagegreat appreciation for the authors.