The Best in Books
Current Favorites
Spiritual and New Age
Fiction and Literature
Six Books to Bring to a Desert
Island
Recently a reader asked
me for suggestions in the category of spiritual and new age books:
"Can you recommend a book about this kind of
stuff that actually is plausible/happening. Mostly what I see
is rehashed mystical whims....fictions are for some reason being
passed off as fact."
Here are is some of my reply, with recommendations and links:
Off the top of my hat, I would recommend two books by Bob Frissell:
Nothing
in this Book is True But It's Exactly How Things Are, and
Something
in this book is True...
The interesting thing about Nothing is, there's a lot
which does strain credulity. But there's also a strong core of
chapters in that book about "sacred geometry" which is undeniably,
graphically true to our left-brain brand of knowing. From that
core you can believe whatever you like about the rest--and in
this book it's all there laid out in plain view. Now, for a pricier
but more original handling of all this material, you can go to
Bob Frissell's mentor Drunvalo Melchezedek. Drunvalo has a new
book out which I haven't yet read but would recommend on the basis
of his videos. It's called The
Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life.
[Later...] There's more I wanted to say about these kind of books.
It's how I used to feel about the Bible...it's not the literal
did-this-really-happen-or-not question that matters to me, but
more the meaning for our present lives. I feel that way about
Bob's Nothing In This Book is True, But it's Exactly How Things
Are...the title is apt in this regard. The stuff about aliens
and so on, I just kind of say, maybe so or maybe not, but what
can we learn from this? For instance the problem of the "grays"
(an alien race supposedly well established on earth) is that they
are blocked from emotion. So to me that's just a reminder to watch
out for that limitation in myself and in others.
More on the subject of what works for me in reading these days,
I'd like to share with you my current core spiritual interests,
Breathing and Present time awareness. In this light I recommend
most highly a little volume called Breathing:
Expanding your Power & Energy, by Michael Sky.
The book establishes in a convincing way the primary importance
of birth in breathing. It also provides a succinct yet visionary
concept of matter and energy as experienced in the human body,
especially in terms of contraction from pain experienced in the
past. And it guides the reader gently to experience release of
breathing in present time, during the act of reading.
The
Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, by Eckhart
Tolle. This philosophy is familiar to any spiritual seeker, yet
I really appreciate Tolle's illuminating focus on this central
teaching. All the rest of philosophy and human searching can take
its place on the periphery, because at the center is what we experience
moment by moment. The past and future are fields of distraction
and anxiety, which we can choose or fall prey to, too often forgetting
to come back to where we are
(breathing...)
These two books both hold back from the outlandish scenarios
which much new age literature uses to embellish and decorate its
spiritual truths: window dressing. I like the core teachings in
their simple, sacred splendor, which unfold truth in the present
knowing, directly.
Finally here's another choice I remember reading a few years
back: The
Future of the Body : Explorations into the Further Evolution of
Human Nature -- by Michael Murphy
Murphy, known as head of Esalen Institute, gives us a survey
of documentation supporting the extraordinary potential of the
human body-mind. Athletes, saints, healers of almost superhuman
powers are presented here as evidence (such as it is with the
best of scientific, historical and anecdotal reporting), that
we can and do go beyond the normal limits of what is believed
humanly possible.
Back to the theme of favorites, I need to refer to the book which
has replaced the I Ching as my bedside spiritual companion, my
current "Bible." This is The
Mayan Oracle. It comes with a pack of oracle cards, so like
the I Ching, this book is divinatory. Also like the I Ching, it
is beautifully written to convey a body of unquestionable core
wisdom, always appropriate to the moment one brings to it.
To read an excerpt from The Mayan Oracle, click
here.
To read an earlier summary of my readings in spiritual and new
age books, click here.
Favorite Readings in Fiction and Literature
These recommendations are not only current, they are lifelong.
The authors in this select list are those to whom I say, "I
want to read everything you've written." Because I have largely
achieved this aspiration, I won't bother to list all their titles
here. And because these venerable masters are so well known, I
won't even take more of your valuable reading time to expound
on their virtues. (You will, however, find individual titles sprinkled
through the rest of these book review pages, primarily the literary
section. You can also search
this site quickly for links.)
To the task then: I refer you to the following authors, as referenced
with searches on author name at Amazon.com online bookstore:
Six Books to Bring to a Desert Island
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