Books

The following are books that I have found to be useful and/or entertaining over the years. Some I read once, others I have returned to many, many times. I use them as reference sources for my own life. What does the book have to do with my life? It is not JUST a story, it is a way of looking at and/or interpreting my life.

Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing   
by Jed McKenna

    The first of a trilogy. Before even getting into the damn thing, the blurbs by all sorts of people are highly entertaining. My sort of guy, Jed. Cold water face splashing full force. If you just dance across the surface of it, it’s a good journey through a whole lot of ideas and concepts circling around spiritual enlightenment. Dig a bit deeper and you might find whole subcontinents of your paradigm/narrative falling away. Had a friend who had to put it down for a while because, “there’s too much light in that damn thing.” 

    One thing I suggest is to hold onto is that you are reading a trilogy. Promise yourself that if you start this one, you will see the journey through. Jed gets into what I consider the heart of the matter in book 3 and 1 leads to 2 which leads to 3. Personally, I have no desire to go anywhere near enlightenment. I’m more for becoming fully human. And, as Jed puts it, if the enlightenment bus is meant to run over your ass, ain’t much you can do about it. I found the bit about following teachers to be particularly funny. If you’re fond of find the right way to do things, I’d suggest finding another book. 

Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment    
by Jed McKenna

Book 2 by the American enlightened curmudgeon. “Could it be as good as the first?” Starting off with the “fan” letter, then party games, then Moby Dick, then Krishnamurti, then Walt Whitman and the little bastard. Absolutely great. Takes the roller coaster of SE:TDT and increases both the rate of speed and the steepness of the plunges. “America kicks spiritual ass!” He just keeps putting it out there, bare ass naked. Hurts, frightens, encourages, a breath of heady draught. 

Spiritual Warfare   
by Jed McKenna

From this side, this is what it is all about, becoming fully human. Or adult. I keep wanting to ask people what their version of the woman falling is but I chicken out. It’s a really hard thing to do, to keep that in front on you every single day, waiting for the titration to tip the scale. I reread the last chapter every month or so. 

The Way to Love   
by Anthony de Mello

Very small book loaded with straight to the core pointedness. If you can find any videos or audios of him, he is great to hear/see. His brother has a tribute site for him. Rumor has it that the “Catholic Church” has him killed as he had gotten way radical (root) in his approach to the truth of being human. Probably not true but after listening or reading him, you could understand why any sort of hierarchy would try to expel someone like him. He uses the Christian Bible as a launching point and very quickly leaves the codification of it’s message behind. 

This book is a collection of small reflecting/meditating stories. Very handy thing to carry with you so that when the inevitable waiting for something happens, you can pull it out and read a chapter or two and be taken somewhere else. Or more into the moment, depending on your leanings. 

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah    
by Richard Bach

Let’s see, must have been in sometime in 1978 or so. Was wandering around the library in Helena, Montana, looking for something interesting. Saw it in the “New Arrivals” section and recognized the author from “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.” 

“What the hell. It’s not that big a book.” Sat down and, seriously, my life was never going to be the same. EVER. 

Was the first book about personal evolution that spoke in a non-philosophical, very personal way. Felt like this was something I wrote. Further on down the time line, natch. But still something that could have come from my soul. I laughed out loud so many times in recognition. That moment when some optical illusion pops into understanding.... many, many moments of that. Eventually, the librarian came over (after shushing me from across the room numerous times) and asked me to leave if I couldn’t contain myself. 

Finding my self, finding my tribe, finding my language, finding my voice, finding a friend.... all applied. There was hope. There was a promise, “If he could make it, so can I.” So many suspicions confirmed.

A funny thing was that it took me almost 10 years to get everything that was in there. No, not intellectually. Experientially. I remember the last thing was either the bit about practicing being fictional or you’re free to choose a different past. 

JLS is the only other one of his works that speaks to me like Illusions. The rest are ok but not as piquant.  

The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi    
by Andrew Harvey

While I felt that Illusions could have been written by me, The Way of Passion was about me. No, I’m not putting myself up there with Rumi. What I’m saying is that the way that Andrew Harvey talks of Rumi, he talks about me. Way different levels of the same experience. Somehow, the prose that Andrew Harvey offers amplifies the substance of Rumi. You can read Rumi without having any idea of what was going on, who the man was, or what he did. The words will have a certain nutrition. When someone slows down the dance and shows you what it means, it’s a whole different kinda thing. 

If you at all interested in mystical union and can read scholar, it’s a beautiful concert. 

Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill    
by Robert Whitaker

Started out as an investigation as to why treatment outcomes are so poor for schizophrenia in the US. Turned into a history of the treatment of the mentally ill in the US. Real eye opener. Really surprising to see what global research says about what successful treatment of the mentally 'ill' is. From my point of view, in the Western model, it's all about how to do it the easiest way that makes the most profit. Much easier to feed someone chemicals that make them docile than having to deal with someone not acting all there. Reading the epilogue is recognizing that the gulag is alive and well, albeit in chemical form. 

Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society’s Betrayal of the Child    
by Alice Miller

Another one of those books that turned on a light in a dark room that I was certain was not empty. Added fuel to my belief that so much of the pain of being human is unnecessary, that it is done to us unconsciously, we are not at choice, we accept it because we know no different, it becomes part and parcel of us, and we start passing it out to others, unconscious of what we’re doing and the impact it has. Very, very depressing in one way. Hope to learn differently from another. It might change how you look at what you think are “normal” ways of raising/interacting with children.  

The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir    
by Toni Bentley

Spent a lot of my life being bigoted about anal sex. (How’s that for a first line?) Toni Bentley does an incredible job of both writing and “...navigat(ing) the psychosexual terrain.... when she meets a lover who introduces her to a radical and unexpected pleasure, to the “holy” act that she came to see as her awakening.” (from the back cover). The paths are way too numerous to count. Me, I like it when people go unconventional and then explain it really, really well. Especially about stuff that I have issues about. 

First and Last Men and Star Maker    
by Olaf Stapleton

Two separate novels in one book in the edition I have. Written in the 30s, just insanely great speculative science fiction. “First and Last Men” describes the history of humans from the present out to two billion years and eighteen distinct humanspecies, of which our own is the first and most primitive. “Star Maker” takes on the history/evolution of the universe. I remember reading these and getting a feel for how grand the human experience might be (over enough time) and how small my own experience is. The sheer strangeness of where humans might evolve to and how he makes it all hang together. A word of warning, however. He was a college-educated Englishman in the 20s and 30s, so the writing reflects that. Kinda dry in places.

Recalling Chögyam Trungpa   
by Fabrice Midal

You may not know this, but Trungpa is one of my heroes. The human who lived at one time kind. The depth of his understanding of things that most humans are not going to get, much less talk about, is pretty amazing. He chose to look deeply into what the West was and demand to know what was needed for the transmission of the Dharma to those damnedable Westerners. Can you imagine being as deeply seeped in Tibetan Buddhism as he was, seeing that what was needed was to climb down from the dais and join hoi polloi, and then DO IT!! Man, he had them the size of coconuts. 

I also greatly enjoy his jumping out of categories, the way he whapped people on the head/heart/habit. 

“A wide variety of writers explore the innovative contributions of a renown Tibetan Buddhist meditation master to the spiritual and cultural discourse of our time.” 

Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirt   
by Daniel Quinn

An absolutely amazing presentation of, “There are certain truths that your culture has you believing are human truths or even transcendent truths. But they aren’t.” Granted, at this point in his career, Quinn is not that polished a writer. He has a very amazing philosophy and he uses this novel to deliver it. If you can take what is here and apply it to your life, reality can lose some of its surety. You might even get to, “Son of a bitch! None of it’s real.” 

The Story of B: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit    
by Daniel Quinn

The second of the trilogy. Same philosophy cast in a different novel with a bit more detail. From this one, I walked away with, “What exists is what counts. Not the story. Or the anti-story. What exists is the result of evolutionary pressures: physical, mental, emotional, or other. You don’t have to like it. You're not liking it doesn't make it untrue.” Through that lens, I look at my life not in terms of what I want or don’t want or what I like or don’t like. I look at what exists and know that it exists because, within my personal reality, evolutionary pressures have led to its existence.

My Ishmael: A Sequel   
by Daniel Quinn

The third of three. More a novel. The ideas are much more gently and thoroughly introduced. By the time they detonate, they are way down in the substrata and the cracks can’t be polished over. Thank god.

Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words    
by Peace Pilgrim

My other real-life hero. She walked her talk. And walked. And walked. And walked. A beautiful example of, “What else could I do? Either I do this or I cease to have relevancy in/to my life/creator.” There is a whole land/spirituality/human-goodness-decency out there that never makes it to the national level of attention. “It’s not what you think or feel about what I’m doing. I’m doing this because I really have no choice. For me to be me, I have to do this. And I do it with an incredible sense of gratitude.” (My interpretation.)

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal   
by Christopher Moore

Absolutely my favorite of Moore’s. Probably my favorite funny novel. Granted, if you don’t like sarcasm, dry humor, and lots of physical humor, don’t even bother. Oh, and there is the sacrilegious nature of the book. Moore has crafted a very human cut on Jesus, and his best bud, Biff. I do know people who refused to finish the book as Moore does not paint all that flattering a description of angels. This is a Jesus that I would have liked to have spent some time with.

If you like the funnier parts of Monty Python, pick it up. I’ve read it so many times that I splurged and got the faux leather bound one.