Jeff Foster (born July 30, 1980) is a spiritual teacher from London, England. He studied Astrophysics at Cambridge University, yet he was plagued by feelings of despair and loneliness, which eventually led to physical illness and a personal breakdown soon after graduation. He was convinced he was going to die. He returned to live with his parents, reading and studying for a year on spirituality, searching for relief from his depression.
This ended in 2006 with the dissolution of the sense of separation, which he understood to be a spiritual awakening:
As the story goes, I was walking through the rain on a cold Autumn evening in Oxford. The sky was getting dark; I was wrapped up warm in my new coat. And suddenly and without warning, the search for something more apparently fell away, and with it all separation and loneliness.
And with the death of separation, I was everything that arose: I was the darkening sky, I was the middle aged man walking his golden retriever, I was the little old lady hobbling along in her waterproofs […] I was the raindrops falling on my head (although it was not my head, I did not own it, but it was undeniably there, and so to call it “my head” is as good as anything).
He wrote a book, Life Without a Centre (Non-Duality Press), and was invited to hold small gatherings. Eventually, several more books were written, and the gatherings were supplemented with retreats and one-to-one sessions.
In 2011 Jeff Foster wrote an article explaining why he no longer considered himself to be an “Advaita teacher” or “nonduality teacher,” pointing out problems with the one-sidedness of contemporary “radical Advaita” teachings. Instead of strict impersonal philosophy, he started to embrace and emphasize the relative, human, personal existence in his writings and gatherings, relativity which he felt was not in conflict with the impersonal Absolute.
Books:
- Life Without a Centre (2006)
- Beyond Awakening: The End of the Spiritual Search (2007)
- The Revelation of Oneness: Dialogues on Nonduality and Spiritual Awakening (2008)
- An Extraordinary Absence (2009)
- The Wonder of Being (2010)
- The Deepest Acceptance: Radical Awakening in Ordinary Life (2012)
- Falling In Love With Where You Are: A Year of Prose And Poetry on Radically Opening Up To the Pain and Joy of Life(2013)
Learn more at http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/
