Moving beyond th eBig Book

[navysteve]

I am interested in literature you folks use to help you grow spiritually. I am no Big Book purist and believe that we should be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer. Some authors who have helped me are:

The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life
By Emmet Fox

One thing that stuck out with Fox was when he said contemplation was the highest form of prayer. That led me to Thomas Merton and the Seeds of Contemplation ( among others.)

Here is a link to seeds:

New seeds of contemplation - Google Books

Zen Mind:

http://www.vidyaonline.net/arvindgupta/zenmind.pdf

I was a pagan by VC Kitchen. And a few other good ones You can download here:

Downloads Stepstudy.org

[Rob B]

Interesting timing on this Steve. I have a friend who got sober about a year after I did, he went through the work, maintained spiritual fitness, and walked away from AA about two years ago.

He has recently returned, he is changed, he has what I want. I asked him what he has been doing, he uses 10-12 daily, but the profound difference in him was working with a text called A Course in Miracles. I have been praying for a new teacher to be put in my life, and Daniel was sent. I have been blessed with a few men who have an continue to be my mentors, the trouble is they live across the country. Of course my Ego bucked around a bit because Ï have more "time" than he does, I just smiled at this thought and asked him if he would be my guide. We start our formal work this morning.

[miss communicat]

For me:
Guide to the I Ching by Carol Anthony
The Bhagavad Gita
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
A Course In Miracles

[Pagekeeper]

Too many to list, but here's a few:

The First and Last Freedom by Jiddu Krishnamurti

Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology by Gerald May

Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil

Any of Thich Nhat Hanh's books . . .


Thank you for this thread!

[freya]

Using a very broad definition of "Spiritual," these are a few of the books that have influenced me / changed my life the most:

Dark Night of the Soul, St. John of the Cross
Dark Night of the Soul, Thomas Moore
Anatomy of the Spirit, Carlyn Myss
Fire in The Belly: On Being a Man, Sam Keen
Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes
The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron
Gyn/Ecology: The MetaEthics of Radical Feminism, Mary Daly
Interior Castle, St.Teresa of Avila
The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America, David Whyte
Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad
Moby Dick, Herman Melville

freya

[24hrsAday]

i am reading "In god's Care" from hazelden.. i always read it before i go to bed and meditate on the daily thought. it has helped me very much..

[navysteve]

Thanks folks,
some interesting literature listed here. I also get a daily email from the Henri Nouwen society. Here is today's:

Living Our Passages Well

Death is a passage to new life. That sounds very beautiful, but few of us desire to make this passage. It might be helpful to realise that our final passage is preceded by many earlier passages. When we are born we make a passage from life in the womb to life in the family. When we go to school we make a passage from life in the family to life in the larger community. When we get married we make a passage from a life with many options to a life committed to one person. When we retire we make a passage from a life of clearly defined work to a life asking for new creativity and wisdom.

Each of these passages is a death leading to new life. When we live these passages well, we are becoming more prepared for our final passage.

[bballdad]

24,I read that book occasionally too

Steve,I usually end back up in the Holy Bible since I am a member of a Holiness Church.
I have dozens of books here I have read,and some I have even studied,but few I have tried to practice what they teach.

[jimhere]

I am a Big Book purist, and being a purist, it also says something to the effect that there are many helpful books. Books have been teachers to me.

The ones that have been helpful to me are too many to list. Thomas Merton was mentioned, there are several on the list.

"Open Heart, Open Mind" by Thomas Keating. An introduction to centering prayer.

"The Philokalia" Instructions on the the disciplines of the spiritual life based on the teachings of the ancient Desert Fathers. Compiled by the Orthodox monks at Mt. Athos in Greece in the early 18th century.

"The Way of The Pilgrim." anonymous.

"Christian Meditation" by James Finley. Finley was a novice monk at Gethsemane Abby where Thomas Merton was his teacher. He left the order and now lives in Los Angeles and is a therapist and spiritual director. I was directed to him by a teacher of mine.

Lately I've been leaning towards Buddhist practices. What got me going in that direction was "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. Although not a Buddhist, Tolle's practices are very simple and compliment Buddhist disciplines.

Here are few more:

"The 12-Step Buddhist" by Darren Littlejohn. Not sure what I think about this one yet. I just read it.

"Joyful Wisdom" Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

"The Force of Kindness" by Sharon Salzberg

Two by Jack Kornfield" "A Path With Heart," and "After The Ecstasy The Laundry"

I'd better stop. This could go on and on.
Jim

[tomvlll]

I remember hearing a speaker tape of Jimmy Burwell. He said 4 books were his influences in writing Alcoholics Anonymous.

1. The Bible.

2. Believing World by Lewis Browne. A text on the world's religions-how they came about and in some cases, how they fell apart.

3. Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox.

4. Varieties of Religious Experience. AFAIK, the only other book mentioned in the BB.

I highly recommend all 4.

Alos, The "seven habits of highly effective people" dovetails very nicely with AA and AA is mentioned frequently in that book.

[McGowdog]

I stay plugged into the 12 Steps via the A.A. book no matter what, but do some things in line with "there are many helpful books also" as mentioned in our 11th Step.

Those would be;

The Bible
Jose Silva - The Silva Mind Control Method - for meditation
Carlos Castaneda- The Teachings of Don Juan - a Yaqui Way of Knowledge, The Second Ring of Power, The Power of Silence, The Active Side of Infinity, Journey to Ixtlan, etc.
Anthony De Mello - Awareness
Viktor E. Frankl - Man's Search For Meaning
David R. Hawkins, Power vs Force
Todd Michael - The Twelve Conditions of a Miracle
Dr Bob and the Oldtimers
Sermon on the Mount, an interpretation - Emmitt Fox
William James - The Variety of Religious Experiences
C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity
Stuff by Deepak and Wayne Dyer and Tolle have helped me too.

But once I'm back in the middle work (4-9), I put all this stuff away until I'm done with my last amend.

I stay plugged into A.A. no matter what.

[navysteve]

William James - The Variety of Religious Experiences

Read that a few years ago. ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz......

Good stuff but a tough read for me. Maybe I will break it out again and see

[Fluttering]

"Under the Influence"
and
"Beyond the influence"

"The Twelve Steps for Christians"

I believe in reading anything & everything that will feed the spirit

[McGowdog]

No doubt Steve. That book took me years to plod through. It taught me something about my desire to become a saint. Let's just say, you don't see to many college courses on "How to become a Saint."

These people have much in common with me when I've been at the most dreadful low spot in my life and when I've been there, God showed up.

[bballdad]

Steve,there is a interesting book made into a movie that was pretty cool and I loved it..
The Way of the Peacefull Warrior by Dan Millman

it is one of those books when I read i could not put it donw

[DaveBB164]

Originally Posted by navysteve

William James - The Variety of Religious Experiences

Read that a few years ago. ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz......

Good stuff but a tough read for me. Maybe I will break it out again and see

I learned more about tolerance and patience trying to wade through that than I ever have!

[tomvlll]

Originally Posted by navysteve

William James - The Variety of Religious Experiences

Read that a few years ago. ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz......

Good stuff but a tough read for me. Maybe I will break it out again and see

LOL.
Yeah ,imagine sitting through those Gifford lectures!!(the book is a written version of a series of lectures James gave known as the Gifford lectures.)

When I first read it , though, I thought " aha!this book has the intellectual heft that the Big Book lacks!" . I have since been disabused of that notion.
I have no less respect for Varieties-it's brilliant. Just more respect for the BB.

[Ago]

by Jack Kornfield" "A Path With Heart" (specifically the last two chapters)

The Tao of Pooh (super super good primer to Taoism)

A New pair of Glasses

I keep 6 copies of the Tao Te Ching, and will read the same chapter in all six versions

I am a reader and always have a few books "working" so too many to list but those are some of the important ones that I have read and reread repeatedly over a few decades, I will read books such as Eckhart Tolle writes but I always find myself going back to the masters such as Lao Tzu and Buddha

To me once I learned "the answer" was a spiritual one, I threw myself into studying, and I think AA is a great "spiritual kindergarten", AA needs to remain my "foundation" and some folks are able to "ascend" and "evolve" using nothing but AA, I am not one of them, AA remains "my foundation" however.

The thing about studying spirituality, AA and The Tao agree:

The Tao Te Ching praises self-gained knowledge with emphasis on that knowledge being gained with humility. When what one person has experienced is put into words and transmitted to others, so doing risks giving unwarranted status to what inevitably must have had a subjective tinge. Moreover, it will be subjected to another layer of interpretation and subjectivity when read and learned by others. This kind of knowledge (or "book learning"), like desire, should be diminished. "It was when intelligence and knowledge appeared that the Great Artifice began." (chap. 18, tr. Waley) And so, "The pursuit of learning is to increase day after day. The pursuit of Tao is to decrease day after day." (chap. 48, tr. W.T. Chan)

So the moment I take pride in my knowledge of the BB and AA for example, the more unhappy I am, but the closer I LIVE AA and The BB the happier I am, people don't like it when I am a Buddhist, but like it when I am a Buddha, or people don't like me when I "preach" "the principals" of AA, but love me when I live them for example.

Knowledge to me can be a double edged sword.

Trying to "describe and pursue" spirituality or a "spiritual experience" to me is like:

We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the wheel depends.
We turn clay to make a vessel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends.
We pierce doors and windows to make a house;
And it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends.
Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the usefulness of what is not.

It's like "The Blues", "If you have to ask, you will never know", all we can do is describe "the room" we can't describe the experience of being in the room.

Once you strip away the dogma it's all the same thing written over and over really, but once you have had your own "spiritual awakening" reading spiritual literature is like the blind men "seeing the elephant", it's not that it's not helpful, I NEED to be reminded on a daily basis, I NEED "different views" of the elephant, but IMO these books are all describing the same elephant.


It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"
The first blind man of six blind men feels the side of the elephant and interprets it as a wall.

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"
The second blind man of the six blind men feels an elephant tusk and interprets the elephant to be like a spear.

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"
The third blind man of the six blind men touches the elephant's trunk and interprets it to be a snake.

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
" 'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"
The fourth blind man of the six blind men touches the elephant's leg and mentally visualizes it to be a tree.

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"
The fifth blind man of the six blind men touches the elephant's ear and imagines it to be a fan.

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"
The sixth blind man of the six blind men touches the elephant's ear and interprets it to be a fan.

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

So while I enjoy watching people here discuss "the elephant", and reading other "wisemen's" pursuit of the elephant, frequently I gain more "knowledge" as it were by watching the squirrels play in the yard and mowing the lawn, surfing, watching a sunset, and working with a newcomer, because the truth of the matter is I'm not the wise man and chances are I will never be.

"After the Ecstasy, The Laundry' to coin a phrase

So while I DO read a lot, I always end up back in the same place, being amused by the Blind men and the elephant

[Music]

The quickest way to continued spirituality is daily reading of the Bible, contemplation and prayer. To spend a little time each day with the one who gave me this gift of sobriety, is a challenge for me but I try. And, like the Big Book, I don't question it, I just believe it.

[Charmie]

i have a very dear friend in the fellowship and he has recomended "The Sermon on the Mount" by Emmet Fox.after reading you all talking about it i shall now put it on my next to buy list.i did see though that ther is the key to the success in life and an interpritation mentioned on here,what is the difference,and which one would you recommend? thanks.

[Boleo]

Where Did The Big Book Come From?

What were the sources of the ideas and principles of the recovery
program of Alcoholics Anonymous? Bill W. answered this question in an
address delivered to the Medical Society of the State of New York on
May 9, 1944.

Bill W. stated: "At the very outset we should like to make it ever so
clear that A.A. is a synthetic concept - a synthetic gadget, as it
were, drawing upon the resources of medicine, psychiatry, religion and
our own experience of drinking and recovery. You will search in vain
for a single new fundamental. We have merely streamlined old and
proven principles of psychiatry and religion into such forms that the
alcoholic will accept them. And then we have created a society of his
own kind where he can enthusiastically put these very principles to
work on himself and other suffers."

"Alcoholics Anonymous has made two major contributions to the program
of psychiatry and religion. These are, it seems to us, the long
missing links in the chain of recovery.

1- Our ability as ex-drinkers, to secure the confidence of the new man
- to build a transmission line into him.

2- The provision of an understanding society of ex-drinkers in which
the newcomer can successfully apply the principles of medicine and
religion to himself and others."

I have put this information together so as those interested in
Alcoholics Anonymous and it's program of recovery may gain some
insight into the sources of the Big Book's insights.

Sources

Man, The Unknown
By Alexis Carrel

Published in 1935, this 346 page volume was the turning point in
determining what focus the Big Book should take.

Carrel's main point is that the world is full of specialists who can
create things out of the elements above and below the ground, but when
it comes to man himself very little is known.

Carrel claims that the mistake being made is that man is allowing
himself to be governed by science when man is a natural being and is
driven by instincts and must be governed by the laws of nature.

Bill W., in an address to the Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies
stated: "On reading that book, some of us realized that was just what
we had been groping towards. We had begun to build a program out of
our own experiences. At this point we thought, let's reach into other
people's experiences. Let's go back to our friends the doctors, let's
go back to our friends the preachers, the social workers, all those
who have been concerned with us, and again review what they have got
and bring it into synthesis. And let us, where we can, bring them in
where they will fit.

So our process of trial and error began and at the end of four years,
the material was cast in the form of a book known as Alcoholics
Anonymous."

The Bible

The early members read and studied the Bible and special
emphasis was given to the following two areas:

1- I Corinthians XIII. Paul listed the aspects of love and points of
what love is not. He also points out the contrast between gifts,
perfection and love.

2- The Book of James. The theme of the book of James is Christianity
in action and it deals with a series of topics which were of great
interest to the alcoholics. These topics are:

- 1:1-18 Trials and Temptations

- 1:19-27 Listening and Doing

- 2:1-13 Mercy and Judgement

- 2:14-26 Faith and Works

- 3:1-12 Taming the Tongue

- 3:13-18 True and False Wisdom

- 4:1-12 Friendship With God

- 4:13-5:12 Investing In the Future

- 5:13-20 Power of Prayer

The phrase "Faith Without Works is Dead" is taken directly from the
Book of James.

The Varieties of Religious Experience
By William James

Published in 1902, this 526 page book was read by Bill W. following
his spiritual experience in Towns Hospital, in order to understand
what had happened to him.

Spiritual experiences, James thought, could transform people. Some
were sudden; others came on gradually. Some flowed out of religious
channels; others did not. But nearly all had the great common
denominators of pain, suffering and calamity. Complete hopelessness
and deflation at depth were almost always required to make the person
ready.

Bill W. reasoned that to have a spiritual experience or awakening
required:

1- There had to be a complete failure of the will in a certain part of
one's life. With the alcoholic it was the control of alcohol.

2- There had to be an admission of failure.

3- There must be a cry for help.

Thus, the A.A. procedure of telling one's story and stressing the
progressive loss of control and the fatal malady consisting of the
physical allergy and the mental obsession. When this is driven home
the alcoholic will surrender to the problem and then, is open to the
solution.

The Greatest Thing In The World
By Henry Drummond

Written in 1883 at a mission station in Africa, Drummond
first delivered his sermon on Love at the 1887 Northfield Conference
in Massachusetts.

The sermon is an analysis of I Corinthians XIII, which is
Paul's explanation of the supreme gift - Love.

Drummond describes the spectrum of Love as having nine elements.

PATIENCE - "Love suffereth long."
KINDNESS - "And is kind."
GENEROSITY - "Love envieth not."
HUMILITY - ""Love vaunteth not itself."
COURTESY - "Doth not behave itself unseemly."
UNSELFISHNESS - "Seeketh not her own."
GOOD TEMPER - "Is not easily provoked."
GUILELESSNESS - "Thinketh no evil."
SINCERITY - "Rejoiceth not in iniquity but in
truth."

To these nine aspects the early members added GRATITUDE
and TOLERANCE.

GRATITUDE - "The willingness to repay for gifts
received."
TOLERANCE - "To allow the other guy or gal their
right to be wrong. To resist
Not evil and to
understand that people who are spiritually sick
Will act poorly.

The early members used to practice one of these elements each week and
then discuss the results. This way they came to understand Steps six
and seven.

As A Man Thinketh
By James Allen

Published in 1902, this volume can vary in page quantity but is
usually printed as 59 pages. This book was used by early members to
understand the principle of "cause and effect."

Allen makes the following points:

- A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete
sum of all his thoughts.

- Man creates all of the circumstances of his life through thought,
and his environment is the reflection of these circumstances.

- The mind must be treated as a garden so we must learn to identify
and remove the weeds.

- We must learn to crucify ourselves on a daily basis as daily living
demands daily dying.

Thus, the core A.A. ideas that "we must get down to causes and
conditions" and "so our troubles, we think, are basically of our own
making." That, "some of us have tried to hold onto our old ideas and
the result was nil until we let go absolutely."

What Is The Oxford Group?
By The Layman With A Notebook

Published in 1933, this 132 page volume was considered as the basic
text and purpose was to explain the principles of the Group's life
changing program and the practical spiritual activities.

The Oxford Group had four basic points, which are the key to the kind
of spiritual life God wishes us to lead. These points are - Absolute
Honesty, Absolute Purity, Absolute Unselfishness and Absolute Love.

To be spiritually reborn, and to live in the state in which these four
points are the guides to our life in God, the Oxford Group advocated
four practical spiritual activities:

1- The sharing of our sins and temptations with another Christian life
given to God, and to use sharing as witness to help others, still
unchanged, to recognize and acknowledge their sins.

2- Surrender of our life, past, present, and future, into God's
keeping and direction.

3- Restitution to all whom we have wronged directly or indirectly.

4- Listening to, accepting, relying on God's guidance and carrying it
out in everything we do or say, great or small.

These spiritual activities have proved indispensable to countless
numbers who are living changed lives. They are not new ideas or
inventions of the Oxford Group. They are the simple tenants of simple
Christianity.

The Oxford Group had many traditional practices which can be found in
A.A.

- O.G. meetings opened with a moment of meditative prayer and closed
with the Lord's Prayer.

- O.G. had open and closed meetings. Open meetings were sharing for
witness and closed meetings sharing for confession.

- Each group had a business team which was responsible for the Group's
program, set-up and clean-up.

- Members practiced anonymity.

- Members celebrated the anniversary of their spiritual rebirth with a
cake.

- Advocated the practice of sponsorship. Their motto was "walk with
the new man until he becomes a life changer, then leave him alone as
the needs of others will drive him back to God.

- They organized round-ups and conventions.

For Sinners Only
By A.J. Russell

Published in 1932, this 347 page volume was a testament to the
effectiveness of the Oxford Groups. The book describes in detail the
aims and processes used to bring a person to a changed life.

The Oxford Group described "sin" as anything which blocks me off from
God and my fellow man.
From this book Bill W. borrowed much of the writings on self and the
functioning of self contained in Chapter 5. Most of the ideas
contained in Steps 3,4,5,8,9 came directly from this book.

The Common Sense of Drinking
By Richard R. Peabody

Published in 1934, this 191-page volume was written by a recovered
alcoholic who had utilized the program of the Emmanuel Movement in
Boston. Peabody went on to become a lay therapist in New York City and
he had an office near the Calvary Church where Bill W. was attending
meetings of the Oxford Group.

From this book, Bill W. borrowed phrases such as "once an alcoholic,
always an alcoholic" and "half measures are of no avail." In addition
the entire story of "a man of thirty" contained in the chapter More
About Alcoholism appears to have been lifted from Peabody's book.

Sermon On The Mount
By Emmet Fox

Published in 1934, this 199 page volume was used by the early A.A.
members and those in New York also attended Fox's lectures.

Fox explained that the Beatitudes are a prose poem in eight versus
(Matthew V) which is complete in itself and constitutes what is
practically a general summary of the whole Christian teachings.

The book was of special interest as the Oxford Group had adopted four
basic points: Absolute Honesty, Absolute Purity, Absolute
Unselfishness and Absolute Love as guides to our life on God.

Robert Speer had written The Principles of Jesus in 1902, in which he
had distilled the Beatitudes into the Four Absolutes.

Twice Born Men
Souls In Action
By Harold Begbie

These two book which were written in 1909 and 1911, respectively, were
volumes of "drunk stories" of men and women who recovered through
spiritual experiences and came in contact with the Salvation Army in
England.
The stories have titles such as A Tight Handful, The Criminal, The
Copper Basher, Lowest of the Low, Rags and Bones and Apparent Failure.
The Big Book contains similar anonymous titles.

A Way Of Life
By William Osler

Published in 1937, this 41 page volume was used by early A.A.s to
understand the concept of living one day at a time.

This volume is an address delivered by Osler at Yale University in
1913 and contains a philosophy of life. Osler drives home the
following:

- "Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but
to do what lies clearly at hand."

- "Our lives are like a great ocean liner. We must learn to walk
through the compartments each day

- "The load of tomorrow added to that of yesterday, carried today,
makes the strongest falter."

A NOTE THE IMPLICATIONS OF PSYCHIATRY, THE STUDY OF
INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS, FOR INVESTIGATIONS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
By Harry Stack Sulllivan,American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 42, July
1936 - May 1937, pp.848-861.

Abstract
The collection of data in social science inquiries is specifically
complicated by certain factors inhering in the personality of the
investigator. These factors are identical with a major preoccupation
of the psychiatrist. This article undertakes to indicate the character
of these complicating factors, their effects on inquiry, and the path
along which their influence may be minimized or removed.

THE NEUROTIC PERSONALITY OF OUR TIMES
By Karen Horney, M.D.

Written in 1937, this 255 page volume departs from Freud and his
emphasis on the biological and physiological origins of neurosis. She
maintains instead that the conflicts found in neurotic persons in a
given culture correspond to the ways of life characteristic of that
culture: "It is an individual fate, for example, to have a domineering
or 'self-sacrificing' mother, but it is only under definite cultural
conditions that we find domineering or self-sacrificing mothers, and
it is only because of these existing conditions that such an
experience will have an influence on later life."

[Ago]

Boleo posted elsewhere what I was trying to describe:

Originally Posted by Boleo

Pu is translated "uncarved block", "unhewn log", or "simplicity". It is a metaphor for the state of wu wei and the principle of jian. It represents a passive state of receptiveness. Pu is a symbol for a state of pure potential and perception without prejudice. In this state, Taoists believe everything is seen as it is, without preconceptions or illusion.

Pu is seen as keeping oneself in the primordial state of Tao. It is believed to be the true nature of the mind, unburdened by knowledge or experiences. In the state of Pu, there is no right or wrong, beautiful or ugly. There is only pure experience, or awareness, free from learned labels and definitions. It is this state of being that is the goal of following Tao.

For me, The goal of pursuing a "spiritual experience" is learning to be a "human being" rather then a "human doing"

For example, to become a great painter, you have to study all of the great masters, once you understand all of the principles of painting, you have to forget everything you have learned.

To me, spirituality is like that, Basho said:

Seek not to follow in the footsteps of the Wise
Seek instead what they sought

[Sugah]

I had what I think of as a spiritual breakthrough in my recovery when, at about two years sober, I found the Transcendentalists, more specifically Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I was operating on a borrowed concept of a Higher Power until I read that book.

Oh -- and I had trouble surrendering my intolerance of religion before I found Emmet Fox.

"We know only a little..."

Peace & Love,
Sugah

[sugErspun]

Great thread, and awesome responses. We share so many of the same tastes, rather - the same things resonate.

A short list, in no particular order:

Freedom From the Known - J Krishnamurti
Franny and Zooey - JD Salinger (weird right?)
Dharma Pun(x) - Noah Levine
Dharma Bums - Kerouac
Great Book of Natural Liberation through Understanding....Tibetan Book of the Dead
The psychedelic Experience (same as above, sorta) - Timothy Leary and company
New Seeds.. Thoughts in Solitude - Merton
Siddharta - Herman Hesse
The Doors of Perception - Huxley
Integral (bunch of books) - Ken Wilber
The Field - Lynne McTaggart
The Masks of God - Joseph Campbell
The Archtypes and Collective Unconscious - Jung

and on and on and on... listed more of the fiction where I find the same 'thing'. Just a brief look at the bookshelf (most stuff still in boxes since I moved last year )

Truth stays true in any form..and it can be seen or read everywhere.

[McGowdog]

Originally Posted by charmian

...i did see though that ther is the key to the success in life and an interpritation mentioned on here,what is the difference,and which one would you recommend? thanks.

Yeah, "an interpretation" refers to Sermon on the Mount" as he's obviously not the original Author of that one.

I like Power Through Constructive Thinking because it covers The Golden Key and Scientific Prayer.

Alter Your Life is another one I've read. I found it to be a bit hokey as he goes off about the American Spirit and Historical Destiny and stuff. It just seems kind of Neale Donald Walsch-ish to me now. Maybe there's some good stuff in there though.

I've heard complaints of some that claim his writings are somewhat new age, but I've gained so much interest in the Bible from its simplicity. I also note that the times... the early to mid 30s seems to be a hotbed of spiritual writings.

Originally Posted by sugErspun

The Archtypes and Collective Unconscious - Jung...

Yeah, I'm reading The Portable Jung, edited by Joseph Campbell now. It's another tough read, like Variety of Religious Experiences.