The Book of Enlightened Masters
Western Teachers in Eastern Traditions

Andrew Rawlinson

The Book of Enlightened Masters is a comprehensive and fascinating account of Western (mostly American) teachers who fulfill the role of guru or master, a role usually associated with Eastern religions. These teachers have done more than copy Eastern models; they have discovered the Eastern traditions, absorbed them and, in the process, changed them and been changed by them.

"The Book of Enlightened Masters is the best resource available—comprehensive, intelligent, useful, and perhaps more important, wonderfully readable. Once you start to flip through its oversized pages you might find it hard to stop. This is not so much a story of how the wisdom of the East came to the West, but how the West has begun to make that wisdom its own—and, in so doing, is transforming those traditions."
—Yoga Journal

"Rawlinson puts forth a fascinating model of experiential comparative religion. . . he emerges as a friendly and reliable guide to a multi-faceted phenomenon that he claims is changing western culture. His approach is balanced without being bland, sympathetic without being uncritical."
—The Times Higher Education Supplement

"A remarkably comprehensive Who's Who of Western spiritual teachers—from Gurdjieff and Madame Blavatsky to Ram Das and Toni Packer—plus useful advice on how to evaluate various mystical traditions."
—Utne Reader