Fear not. Dive in. This is the sort of book one keeps around for decades.

Books sometimes are like children's clothes - they have to be grown into. This is one of them.

Look for yourself. Avoid others' conclusions. Look for yourself. Like a grown up.

You'll find nothing. And everything.

THE HIERARCHY OF HEAVEN AND EARTH : A New Diagram of Man in the Universe. By D. E. Harding. With an Introduction by C. S. Lewis. 268 pp. Gainesville : University Presses of Florida, 1979 (originally published by Faber and Faber, London, 1952).

The present book has been reprinted a number of times, and I suppose all Douglas Harding fans have at some point acquired a copy of it. After all, Harding Sensei's fantastically important discovery of the spiritual technique of "reversing the arrow of attention" places him squarely in the forefront of the world's spiritual masters, and if a figure such as Bankei can be considered one of Japan's three greatest Zen Masters (the other two being Dogen and Hakuin), I see nothing wrong in considering Douglas Harding as, in a sense, Britain's greatest 'Zen' Master.

Given this, everything Harding Sensei writes ought to be worth reading. Unfortunately, although this was certainly the case with the ORIGINAL manuscript of 'Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth,' the present 'popular' edition of it was so severly cut by Harding himself for publication as to leave it, though still a philosophic masterpiece, impenetrably obscure, and, so far as I am aware, very few readers actually succeed in making their way through the book.

With pretty well all of the great mass of examples and illustrations found in the original extensively annotated 650 folio-sized pages of the manuscript having been cut, the shortened version becomes just too difficult for most folks to follow. Readers who are as brainy as C. S. Lewis should have no trouble, but unfortunately most of us aren't.

Those who would like to read what Harding actually wrote, the original and uncut version of 'Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth,' will have to find the sumptuous facsimile of Harding's typewritten manuscript. At the urging of his colleagues and friends, this was published in a limited edition of 300 numbered copies by The Shollond Trust, London, in 1998. It can be found by searching the web, and a few copies may still be available. Those who have read it have greatly enjoyed it, and have found it to be far more intelligible than the shortened version.

Newcomers to Harding would be far better off starting with his other books, particularly his classic 'On Having No Head : Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious' - that is if they are lucky enough to be able to find a copy. It's a short book which gives the quintessence of Harding's approach in just 81 pages, and it provides an excellent foundation for approaching the Master's later books. In fact, it may turn out to be the only Harding book you will ever need.