This is a personal memoir of Reshad Feild's mystical experiences and personally-realized spiritual wisdom. It is a work of spiritual advice, an anthology of major insights about life and the spiritual journey. Feild is a great storyteller in many senses. But if you seek the promise suggested by the title of the knowledge of breathing or how to breathe (i.e. Feild's "Mother's Breath" of the 7-1-7 rhythm [which, as narrated in Feild's first book "The Last Barrier," Feild learned from the esteemed Sufi master Bulent Rauf]) you will find that breathing is only treated in the very short last chapter. I did not find Feild's "wisdom" very enlightening, but I have been blessed to be lead to read some cutting-edge spiritual writing by authentic (traditional) Sufi masters. So for those who seek a non-Islamic Sufi path, this is an ideal book of interesting remembrances and insights narrated brilliantly. But I find Feild to be overly eager and presumptuous in presenting these insights as authoritative guidance for the spiritual journey. Instead of Feild's book one should read in its place genuine classic Sufi writings such as Rumi's Discourses, (titled as "Signs of the Unseen" as translated by Wheeler Thackston) or Hujwiri's "Revelation of the Mystery." If one seeks a alternative contemporary voice, then read Kabir Helminski's "Living Presence." If you seek an anthology of Sufi wisdom, (and an introduction with a modern voice) then read James Fadiman and Robert (Shaikh Rejip) Frager's "Essential Sufism." And ultimately, the best alternative to Feild's book is Shaikh Muzaffer Ozak's "Love is the Wine," another introduction to Sufism based on the mastery of storytelling, but rooted in an authentic Sufi tradition.
