Eight Books Every Spiritual Seeker Should Read

July 11, 2019 Ben Gilberti Leave a comment

Eight Books Every Spiritual Seeker Should Read

“You want weapons? Go to a library. Books are the best weapons in the world.” ~ Doctor Who

We all know about the big spiritual doctrines: The Bible, The Koran, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, The Tao Te Ching, but there are other books that have the spiritual substance to split your heart wide open and cut your previously held perceptions to shreds with their sacred ruthlessness and transcendent magnanimity.

Keep in mind that the books chosen are just the opinion of the author. You should in no way be limited by this short selection. There are just as many books that I could have switched out for the following that are just as deserving.

banned_book_with_lock

Look at them like stepping stones or springboards toward higher reading, if you will.

Either way, please enjoy the soulful nourishment of the following eight books that every spiritual seeker should read.

1) Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin

“The caterpillar is to the butterfly as an uninitiated ego is to an initiated one. The imaginal buds are to the caterpillar as the soul is to the uninitiated ego.” ~ Bill Plotkin

Nature and the Human Soul is a spiritual blueprint for the healthy advancement of the human soul. In it, Bill Plotkin takes us on a heroic journey through the Eight Soul-centric/Eco-centric Stages of Human Development. It begins with The Innocent in the Nest, followed by The Explorer in the Garden, and then The Thespian at the Oasis.

These three stages round out the lower ego-centered stages of human development. The majority of people in Western society never get beyond these stages, and so authentic psychological and spiritual maturity has become an uncommon achievement, and genuine, venerated elder-hood is nearly nonexistent.

Arguably the most critical stage is the fourth: The Wanderer in the Cocoon, where the ego is deconstructed (ego death), and we learn how to stretch comfort zones, break mental paradigms, and pass through existential thresholds.

Upon exiting the cocoon, our ego becomes fully formed (individuated), and we become a creature with the capacity to experience “soul initiation” (self-actualization). The stages continue with The Soul Apprentice at the Wellspring, The Artisan in the Wild Orchard, The Master in the Grove of Elders, and end with The Sage in the Mountain Cave.

2) The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman

“You haven’t yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. The peaceful warrior’s way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability–to the world, to life, and to the Presence you felt. All along I’ve shown you by example that a warrior’s life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love. Love is a warrior’s sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death.” ~ Dan Millman

If you want to learn about the Zen of fearlessness then the way of the peaceful warrior is for you. Based on a true story about Dan Millman’s youth, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior is a teacher-student story pitting the naïve and passionate student, Dan, with the wise and resolute teacher, Socrates. Socrates teaches Dan how the peaceful warrior’sway is a spiritual path of absolute vulnerability in the moment.

Socrates: “Where are you?”
Dan: “Here.”
Socrates: “What time is it?”
Dan: “Now.”
Socrates: “What are you?”
Dan: “This moment.”

He teaches how courage, strength, and discipline are the foundation of love. He teaches Dan how courage is not being invulnerable. It is a soft plasticity. He reveals how there is strength in absolute vulnerability that those with invulnerable power can never know.

We are all ordinary human beings having an extraordinary experience. There are no ordinary moments, only ordinary precepts and perceptions. This book is the spiritual seeker’s Rocky.

The inspiration gained will leave your heart bursting with courageous love.

3) The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker

“Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level.” ~ Ernest Becker

Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction in 1974, The Denial of Death builds on the works of Søren Kierkegaard, Sigmund Freud, and Otto Rank, among others. This is a tour de force of existential anxiety meets higher reasoning.

Becker grabs us by the ankles, chops off the makeshift wings given to us by cultural conditioning, and brings us back down to earth, where he exposes our hypocrisy and how we are nothing more than insecure, fallible creatures “who need continued affirmation of our powers.”

But then he reveals the more authentic path to enlightenment and spirituality: making our own wings through the discovery of the “symbolic self.” It is through this continued artistic affirmation that we discover our symbolic self, which we use to transcend the limits of our insignificance through art and higher creativity.

This leads to our embarking on an “immortality project,” in which we become part of something we feel will last forever, beyond death. It is at this point that we transcend the dilemma of mortality through cosmic heroism. Becker speaks like his own tongue was the tongue of a Hero of a Thousand Faces itself, lashing like existential whips at the heart of the human condition.

He forces our head over the edge of the abyss, challenging us to trump small-mindedness by being heroically creative and responsible for bringing meaning, purpose, and significance to the bigger picture of our lives.

4) Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola-Estes

“As with any descent into the unconscious, there comes a time when one simply hopes for the best, pinches one’s nose, and jumps into the abyss. If this were not so, we would not have needed to create the words heroine, hero, or courage.” ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Women Who Run With the Wolves is a masterpiece of mythological insight and should be read by all people, but especially women. It takes the reader through wise fables, parables, legends, and myths while interpreting it through a feminine, eco-conscious lens of “deep knowing” that mystically reveals how all things can be connected through the power of human stories.

Particularly poignant is the following wise alliteration of spiritual advice – forego: leave it alone; forebear: abstain from punishment; forget: refuse to dwell; and forgive: abandon the debt.

Pinkola-Estes strikes the heart of the female condition, while also tapping the cornerstone of the human condition, by revealing the elusive philosopher’s stone of deep Truth in balance with the human soul.

Through wild knowing and sacred mythmaking, this book is a salve for the many wounds inherent within the human condition, and a spiritual boon for the religiously perplexed. Wild woman (La Loba, Wolf Woman) has much to teach women, let alone men.

As Clarissa Pinkola-Estes advises in the book, “Be homesick for wild knowing.”

5) Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse

“This ceaseless change does not mean discontinuity as a person; rather change is itself the very basis of our continuity as a person. It is because I cannot see what you see that I can see at all.” ~ James P. Carse

Finite and Infinite Games is a succinct and gripping exploration of the human condition seen through the lens of a unique flavor of game theory. Carse introduces two contrasting game players: the Finite Player and the Infinite Player. He explains how “a boundary is a phenomenon of opposition (finite). A horizon is a phenomenon of vision (infinite).”

The spiritual undertones are exemplary, and a kind of sacred humor is felt throughout. The Finite Player plays within boundaries, while the Infinite Playerplays with boundaries. The Finite Player plays in all seriousness, while the Infinite Player plays in jest. The Finite Player plays for power, while the Infinite Player plays with power.

The Finite Player consumes time, while the Infinite Player generates time. The Finite Player aims for eternal life, while the Infinite Player aims for eternal rebirth. For the Finite Player, the rules of the game always stay the same; while for the Infinite Player, the rules of the game must change in order to continue play.

For the Finite Player the game inevitably ends, while for the Infinite Player the game phenomenally continues. The only true infinite game is the game of life.

6) PHI: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul by Giulio Tononi

“Murky thoughts, like murky waters, can serve two purposes only: to hide what lies beneath, which is our ignorance, or to make the shallow seem deep” ~ Giulio Tononi

Phi takes the reader on a mind-altering journey through the nature of consciousness. It interweaves science, art, and the imagination with golden ratios, Fibonacci sequences, and fractal cosmology.

The reader has the joy of perceiving the world through such masters as Galileo, Alan Turing, Darwin and Francis Crick, among others. From neuroscience to pseudoscience, from deep introspection to mindful meditation, Tononi elucidates on how consciousness is an evolving, ever-deepening awareness of ourselves as finite, spiritual beings in an infinite universe.

We learn how consciousness is integrated information and how the power of that integration requires the utmost responsibility and credulity.

It teaches how the brain is the seat of our perceptions, and is a creative force par excellence, and can even create new shapes and new qualia and how, by growing consciousness, the universe comes more and more into being, and synthesizes the one and the many, the ego and eco, the individual and interdependence of all things.

7) A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle

“When the creative power of the universe becomes conscious of itself, it manifests as joy. You don’t have to wait for something “meaningful” to come into your life so that you can finally enjoy what you do. There is more meaning in joy than you will ever need.

The “waiting to start living” is one of the most common delusions of the unconscious state. Expansion and positive change is more likely to come into your life if you can enjoy what you are doing already, instead of waiting for some change so you can start enjoying what you do.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

This is the self-improvement book to end all self-improvement books. Capitalizing on the monumental success of his book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle takes the reader on a spiritual journey on how to create happiness without material possession in the present moment.

According to Tolle, the book’s singular purpose is “not to add new information or beliefs to your mind or to try to convince you of anything, but to bring about a shift in consciousness.”

He is intent upon instilling a mindset of honest self-evaluation and puts forth a concept of “evolutionary transformation of human consciousness” in order to change the way human being’s perceive reality. He proceeds to vivisect the ego, and from the carnage rises the unvanquishable soul of the human condition, which is eternally present and thus forever joyful in the moment.

A New Earth teaches, above all else, how important it is for human beings to create and to cultivate meaning in the here and now.

8) Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

“Belief in truth begins with doubts of all truths in which one has previously believed.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Thus Spoke Zarathustra is arguably Nietzsche’s magnum opus. It is incredibly well-crafted, and turning the human soul inside out seems to be its main objective. If the reader is open enough to receive it, the message of self-overcoming is well-received. Otherwise it loses readers in a sea of mystical but entertaining highfalutin.

It has everything from the death of God to the rise of the primordial Übermensch to themes of “eternal recurrence.” It possesses a unique experimental style, sang in poetic dithyrambs narrated by the books protagonist and instigator, Zarathustra.

It’s neither prose nor poetry, neither non-fiction nor fiction, but subsumes it all, somehow, rising above the typical. It breaks all the literary rules but comes out smelling like a bouquet of roses someone laid on God’s grave.

Nietzsche’s elegant and far-reaching conclusion is that while autonomy and self-overcoming are not easily attained, their absence proves catastrophic to both the individual, culture, and the world, as interdependence (self-overcoming in communion with cosmos) cannot be achieved without the freedom of independence (individuation) from codependency (dogmatism).

https://fractalenlightenment.com/34024/spirituality/eight-books-every-spiritual-seeker-should-read

How To Recover When The World Breaks You

July 11, 2019 Mike Zonta Leave a comment

We all break. The key is to become strong in the broken places.

Ryan Holiday

May 31, 2018 · (medium.com)

There is a line attributed to Ernest Hemingway — that the first draft of everything is shit — which, of all the beautiful things Hemingway has written, applies most powerfully to the ending of A Farewell to Arms. There are no fewer than 47 alternate endings to the book. Each one is a window into how much he struggled to get it right. The pages, which now sit in the Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, show Hemingway writing the same passages over and over. Sometimes the wording was nearly identical, sometimes whole sections were cut out. He would, at one moment of desperation, even send pages to his rival, F. Scott Fitzgerald, for notes.

One passage clearly challenged Hemingway more than the others. It comes at the end of the book when Catherine has died after delivering their stillborn son and Frederic is struggling to make sense of the tragedy that has just befallen him. “The world breaks everyone,” he wrote, “and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills.”

In different drafts, he would experiment with shorter and longer versions. In the handwritten draft he worked on with F. Scott Fitzgerald, for instance, Hemingway begins instead with “You learn a few things as you go along…” before beginning with his observation about how the world breaks us. In two typed manuscript pages, Hemingway moved the part about what you learn elsewhere and instead added something that would make the final book — “If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them.”

My point in showing this part of Hemingway’s process isn’t just to definitively disprove the myth — partly of Hemingway’s own making — that great writing is something that flows intuitively from the brain of a genius (no, great writing is a slow, painstaking process, even for geniuses). My point is to give some perspective on one of Hemingway’s most profound insights, one that he, considering his tragic suicide some 32 years later, struggled to fully integrate into his life.

The world is a cruel and harsh place. One that, for at least 4.5 billion years, is undefeated. From entire species of apex predators to Hercules to Hemingway himself, it has been home to incredibly strong and powerful creatures. And where are they now? Gone. Dust. As the Bible verse, which Hemingway opens another one of his books with (and which inspired its title) goes:

“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever…The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose…”

The world is undefeated. So really then, for all of us, life is not a matter of “winning” but of surviving as best we can — of breaking and enduring rather than bending the world to our will the way we sometimes suspect we can when we are young and arrogant.

I write about Stoicism, a philosophy of self-discipline and strength. Stoicism promises to help you build an “inner citadel,” a fortress of power and resilience that prepares you for the difficulties of the world. But many people misread this, and assume that Stoicism is a philosophy designed to make you superhuman — to help you eliminate pesky emotions and attachments, and become invincible.

This is wrong. Yes, Stoicism is partly about making it so you don’t break as easily — so you are not so fragile that the slightest change in fortune wrecks you. At the same time, it’s not about filling you with so much courage and hubris that you think you are unbreakable. Only the proud and the stupid think that is even possible.

Instead, the Stoic seeks to develop the skills — the true strength — required to deal with a cruel world.

So much of what happens is out of our control: We lose people we love. We are financially ruined by someone we trusted. We put ourselves out there, put every bit of our effort into something, and are crushed when it fails. We are drafted to fight in wars, to bear huge taxes or familial burdens. We are passed over for the thing we wanted so badly. This can knock us down and hurt us. Yes.

Stoicism is there to help you recover when the world breaks you and, in the recovering, to make you stronger at a much, much deeper level. The Stoic heals themselves by focusing on what they can control: Their response. The repairing. The learning of the lessons. Preparing for the future.

This is not an idea exclusive to the West. There is a form of Japanese art called Kintsugi, which dates back to the 15th century. In it, masters repair broken plates and cups and bowls, but instead of simply fixing them back to their original state, they make them better. The broken pieces are not glued together, but instead fused with a special lacquer mixed with gold or silver. The legend is that the art form was created after a broken tea bowl was sent to China for repairs. But the returned bowl was ugly — the same bowl as before, but cracked. Kintsugi was invented as a way to turn the scars of a break into something beautiful.

You can see in this tea bowl, which dates to the Edo period and is now in the Freer Gallery, how the gold seams take an ordinary bowl and add to it what look like roots, or even blood vessels. This plate, also from the Edo period, was clearly a work of art in its original form. Now it has subtle gold filling on the edges where it was clearly chipped and broken by use. This dark tea bowl, now in the Smithsonian, is accented with what look like intensely real lightning bolts of gold. The bowl below it shows that more than just precious metals can improve a broken dish, as the artist clearly inserted shards of an entirely different bowl to replace the original’s missing pieces.

In Zen culture, impermanence is a constant theme. They would have agreed with Hemingway that the world tries to break the rigid and the strong. We are like cups — the second we are made we are simply waiting to be shattered — by accident, by malice, by stupidity or bad luck. The Zen solution to this perilous situation is to embrace it, to be okay with the shattering, perhaps even to seek it out. The idea of wabi-sabi is precisely that. Coming to terms with our imperfections and weaknesses and finding beauty in that.

So both East and West — Stoicism and Buddhism — arrive at similar insights. We’re fragile, they both realize. But out of this fragility, one of the philosophies realizes there is the opportunity for beauty. Hemingway’s prose rediscovers these insights and fuses them into something both tragic and breathtaking, empowering and humbling. The world will break us. It breaks everyone. It always has and always will.

Yet…

The author will struggle with the ending of their book and want to quit. The recognition we sought will not come. The insurance settlement we so desperately needed will be rejected. The presentation we practiced for will begin poorly and be beset by technical difficulties. The friend we cherished will betray us. The haunting scene in A Farewell to Arms can happen, a child stillborn and a wife lost in labor — and still tragically happens far too often, even in the developed world.

The question is, as always, what will we do with this? How will we respond?

Because that’s all there is. The response.

This is not to dismiss the immense difficulty of any of these ordeals. It is rather, to first, be prepared for them — humble and aware that they can happen. Next, it is the question: Will we resist breaking? Or will we accept the will of the universe and seek instead to become stronger where we were broken?

Death or Kintsugi? Fragile or, to use that wonderful phrase from Nassim Taleb, Antifragile?

Not unbreakable. Not resistant. Because those that cannot break, cannot learn, and cannot be made stronger for what happened.

Those that will not break are the ones who the world kills.

Not unbreakable. Instead, unruinable.

WRITTEN BY

Ryan Holiday

Bestselling author of ‘Conspiracy,’ ‘Ego is the Enemy’ & ‘The Obstacle Is The Way’ http://amzn.to/24qKRWR

Nikola Tesla predicted the modern smartphone in 1928

July 11, 2019 Mike Zonta Leave a comment

There’s a reason Tesla’s birthday is worth celebrating. The inventor was a scientific Nostradamus, predicting globalized wireless communication nearly eight decades before it came to fruition.

“When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”

– Nikola Tesla

The Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza

July 10, 2019 Ben Gilberti Leave a comment

TED talk: How do you explain consciousness?

July 10, 2019 Mike Zonta Leave a comment

Our consciousness is a fundamental aspect of our existence, says philosopher David Chalmers: “There’s nothing we know about more directly…. but at the same time it’s the most mysterious phenomenon in the universe.” He shares some ways to think about the movie playing in our heads.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
David Chalmers · Philosopher
In his work, David Chalmers explores the “hard problem of consciousness” — the quest to explain our subjective experience.

The future of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy

July 10, 2019 Mike Zonta Leave a comment

Rick Doblin
TED2019

The future of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy

Could psychedelics help us heal from trauma and mental illnesses? Researcher Rick Doblin has spent the past three decades investigating this question, and the results are promising. In this fascinating dive into the science of psychedelics, he explains how drugs like LSD, psilocybin and MDMA affect your brain — and shows how, when paired with psychotherapy, they could change the way we treat PTSD, depression, substance abuse and more.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Rick Doblin · Psychedelics researcher
As the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, Rick Doblin crusades for the safe and legal use of psychedelics in therapy.

The Gentle Giant: Oliver Sacks and the Art of Choosing Empathy Over Vengeance

July 10, 2019 Mike Zonta Leave a comment

By Maria Popova (brainpickings.org)

“Compassion,” Karen Armstrong wrote in her stirring meditation on the true meaning of the Golden Rule, “asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.” But when our own hearts are gripped with the threat and terror of imminent pain, how can we step outside this fear-fraught circumstance and consider, with kindness and openhearted goodwill, the reality of another?

That’s what the wise and wonderful Oliver Sacks (July 9, 1933–August 30, 2015) captures in one of the many ennobling anecdotes in On the Move: A Life (public library) — his altogether magnificent memoir of love, lunacy, and a life fully lived.

He recounts an incident from the spring of 1963, in the heyday of motorcycling and weightlifting obsession, embedded in which is an allegory of the singular genius that would come to define his career and legacy — the delicate and demanding art of peering into another’s mind with empathetic curiosity and seeing the vulnerable humanity that animates it.

oliversacks_onthemove20.jpg?zoom=2&w=600

Dr. Sacks at Muscle Beach with his beloved BMW motorcycle, 1960s

Dr. Sacks writes:

I was riding along Sunset Boulevard at a leisurely pace, enjoying the weather — it was a perfect spring day — and minding my own business. Seeing a car behind me in my driving mirror, I motioned the driver to overtake me. He accelerated, but when he was parallel with me, he suddenly veered towards me, making me swerve to avoid a collision. It didn’t occur to me that this was deliberate; I thought the driver was probably drunk or incompetent. Having overtaken me, the car then slowed down. I slowed, too, until he motioned me to pass him. As I did so, he swung into the middle of the road, and I avoided being sideswiped by the narrowest margin. This time there was no mistaking his intent.

I have never started a fight. I have never attacked anyone unless I have been attacked first. But this second, potentially murderous attack enraged me, and I resolved to retaliate. I kept a hundred yards or more behind the car, just out of his line of sight, but prepared to leap forward if he was forced to stop at a traffic light. This happened when we got to Westwood Boulevard. Noiselessly — my bike was virtually silent — I stole up on the driver’s side, intending to break a window or score the paintwork on his car as I drew level with him. But the window was open on the driver’s side, and seeing this, I thrust my fist through the open window, grabbed his nose, and twisted it with all my might; he let out a yell, and his face was all bloody when I let go. He was too shocked to do anything, and I rode on, feeling I had done no more than his attempt on my life had warranted.

oliversacks_onthemove1.jpg?zoom=2&w=600

Photograph by Oliver Sacks, 1960s (Courtesy of Dr. Sacks / Kate Edgar for Brain Pickings)

Shortly after this heart-stopping encounter, Dr. Sacks found himself in a strikingly similar incident while driving to San Francisco on a desert road. An aggressive driver suddenly appeared onto the empty expanse and, moving at 90 mph, deliberately forced the motorcycle off the road. What happened next reveals Dr. Sacks as a sort of gentle giant, both deeply human in his capacity for fury and in possession of superhuman empathetic sensitivity:

By a sort of miracle, I managed to hold the bike upright, throwing up a huge cloud of dust, and regained the road. My attacker was now a couple of hundred yards ahead. Rage more than fear was my chief reaction, and I snatched a monopod from the luggage rack (I was very keen on landscape photography at the time and always traveled with camera, tripod, monopod, etc., lashed to the bike). I waved it round and round my head, like the mad colonel astride the bomb in the final scene of Dr. Strangelove. I must have looked crazy — and dangerous — for the car accelerated. I accelerated too, and pushing the engine as much as I could, I started to overtake it. The driver tried to throw me off by driving erratically, suddenly slowing, or switching from side to side of the empty road, and when that failed, he took a sudden side road in the small town of Coalinga — a mistake, because he got into a maze of smaller roads with me on his tail and finally got trapped in a cul-de-sac. I leapt off the bike (all 260 pounds of me) and rushed towards the trapped car, waving the monopod. Inside the car I saw two teenage couples, four terrified people, but when I saw their youth, their helplessness, their fear, my fist opened and the monopod fell out of my hand.

I shrugged my shoulders, picked up the monopod, walked back to the bike, and motioned them on. We had all, I think, had the fright of our lives, felt the nearness of death, in our foolish, potentially fatal duel.

On the Move, for reasons articulated here, remains one of the most moving books I’ve ever read. Complement this particular passage with Jane Goodall on empathyand Brené Brown on the crucial difference between empathy and sympathy, then revisit Oliver Sacks on storytelling and the curious psychology of writing, the paradoxical power of music, and this final farewell to the beloved science-storyteller.