Posted 2016-01-17Reality Check (Great Books + Travel Update)
Some of last week’s Grooves (listed below) were about removing the barriers to perceiving Reality, prompting several readers to ask if Byron Katie has influenced my writing. Indeed she has, and I often recommend learning her simple process called “The Work,” which is a great tool for liberating yourself from the reality-distorting effects of judgmental thoughts.
But long before Katie wrote her classic, Loving What Is, I began questioning “the way things are” thanks to several great books...
The first of these books was A Fly Went By, which my mother read to me as a child, many times. Each time, I was deeply moved by the book’s dramatic portrayal of the way fear distorts reality, and truth dispels fear.
Once I could read, I’d ride my bike to the library and make a beeline to the Dr. Seuss section. What attracted me to Dr. Seuss’s books, besides the delightful illustrations, was the way they encouraged me to see the truth behind the illusions of our culture — especially those illusions that divide people from each other, from nature, and from their own heart’s desires. Of course I couldn’t have articulated it that way at age 8, but I could feel the truth through the stories. That was the genius of Dr. Seuss.
As a teenager, the sci-fi classic Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein, was hugely influential, as was the semi-fictional Illusions, by Richard Bach. And around the time I became a parent, Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, and The Continuum Concept, by Jean Liedloff, helped me dispel our culture’s distorted perception of human nature.
If you love books that can blow your mind, any of the above would do the trick!
Travel Update, Etc.
Want to meet me in person? My upcoming trip to the eastern United States will include some events that are open to the public, and more may be organized by the time I get there in about 10 days. Get the latest info here.
Finally, I started a new post category called “diary” for personal, off-topic, and un-honed thoughts I feel inspired to share with the world. So far, the only post in the new category is about the category. Frankly, the idea of sharing raw thoughts is a bit scary for me. Guess I need to re-read A Fly Went By.
The Daily Groove “Classic”
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