Not Less Than Everything: One Man’s Quest for Spiritual Enlightenment is the inspirational true story of how author, August Turak overcame depression and meaningless despair through a daring quest for life’s ultimate meaning and purpose.

A search for transcendence.

As a troubled young college student in 1971, Turak was seized by the idea that the mystical experience various religious traditions call Enlightenment, Satori, Nirvana, Samadhi, the Unio Mystica, or Cosmic Consciousness not only exists, but might be attainable by him. 

This sparked a life altering quest as Turak became in turn,…

…the first student of a rough-hewn, hillbilly Zen master;

…the protégé of the founder of the IBM Executive School;

…the client of a mystical psychologist doing government funded research with LSD;

…a member of the original team that launched MTV: Music Television;

…a successful hi-tech entrepreneur and even a frequent monastic guest at a Trappist monastery. 

It was this same spiritual roller coaster that dropped him off twenty-five years later in a tiny room of a rundown motel in Baltimore, Maryland deeply depressed, fearing for his sanity, and with nowhere else to turn. Or so it only seemed…

Through a series of true, wildly entertaining spiritual adventures and practical life lessons, Turak offers his listeners an accessible, universal blueprint for a life overflowing with joy, peace, higher purpose and above all gratitude.