Most enlightening book/author

hades · Post by **hades** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 10:53 pm

What would you say is the most 'enlightening' or influential book (or author?)you've read. An important one that perhaps made you question or search for what is real and true....etc

I'm not sure what mine is. I think Cosmos by carl sagan was pretty eye-opening for me, considering I read it when I was 9 :P

DHodges · Post by **DHodges** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 12:22 am

hades wrote:What would you say is the most 'enlightening' or influential book (or author?)you've read. An important one that perhaps made you question or search for what is real and true....etc

The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way by Nagarjuna. Not an easy read, but defintely worthwhile.

sevens · Post by **sevens** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 7:20 am

Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathrustra.

hades · Post by **hades** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 7:26 am

sevens wrote:Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathrustra.

Why?

sevens · Post by **sevens** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 7:44 am

Nietzsche's eloquent expression of the colder regions of the philosophic path. Through him I was able to begin. His words struck chords. His tongue, a lethal instrument -- to hone, and adapt. The book: it's subdivisions; it's continuity; it's holistic approch: a brillant exegesis of modern man's peril. A venerable edification genesis.

sschaula · Post by **sschaula** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 8:14 am

You just like the style of writing. It appeals to your emotions, seven.

Mine would have to be Wisdom of the Infinite by DQ. It's so easy to understand.

MKFaizi · Post by **MKFaizi** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 9:01 am

Ecce Homo.

Faizi

Shardrol · Post by **Shardrol** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 10:14 am

Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud.

Before I read this (when I was 13) I had no idea I wasn't the only person who was obsessed with understanding why people are the way they are.

I no longer see Freud's theories as the revelation they were then, but that was the beginning.

MKFaizi · Post by **MKFaizi** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 10:34 am

Going back to young adolescence -- thirteen or fourteen -- William S. Burroughs.

Faizi

Leyla Shen · Post by **Leyla Shen** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 11:20 am

Alice in Wonderland; Lewis Carroll.

â€œWho are YOU?â€ said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, â€œI--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.â€

"I've had nothing yet,â€ Alice replied in an offended tone, â€œso I can't take more.â€
"You mean you can't take less,â€ said the Hatter, â€œit's very easy to take more than nothing.â€

Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

A cat may look at a king.
I've read that in some book, but I don't remember where.

David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 12:07 pm

"The Politics of Ecstacy" - Timothy Leary.
"The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga" - Paul Brunton.
Kevin Solway's material.
Zen Teachings of Huang Po.
Kierkergaard's Journals.

These are fine works, but they all pale into insignificance compared to Nature's own great book. Reading that has had the most impact on me.

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MKFaizi · Post by **MKFaizi** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 1:29 pm

Burroughs sees addiction as a general condition not limited to drugs. Politics, religion, the family, love, are all forms of addicticton.

This is the main idea I gleaned from Burroughs. Just took forty years for it to fully set in -- for me to fully realize the real nature of addiction and to recognize it in myself. I am still a junkie, I reckon. Just less teats out there dangling than, say, nine years ago -- less ego with false need to attach itself.

Burroughs was pre-Leary thinking. LSD before LSD.

Faizi

MKFaizi · Post by **MKFaizi** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 1:38 pm

Nature's own great book.

I think this goes back to something Kevin wrote recently on the Brothel -- the idea to reach for the stars. You don't need a guru. You need desire and passion for truth and realization.

The ideas and experiences of others may be spurs toward truth and realization -- especially in youth -- but ultimately it is the individual path that brings one to enlightenment.

Otherwise, one is a perpetual reader of fiction.

Faizi

Jamesh · Post by **Jamesh** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 1:58 pm

These are fine works, but they all pale into insignificance compared to Nature's own great book. Reading that has had the most impact on me.

Don't underestimate what you learnt from books though, ibncluding science. If it was just nature you'd just be some tribal dude full of delusionary myths. You don't really have much orginal thought. Most of what you regard as original thought is just regurgitated stuff.

hades · Post by **hades** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 2:07 pm

Jamesh wrote:These are fine works, but they all pale into insignificance compared to Nature's own great book. Reading that has had the most impact on me.

Don't underestimate what you learnt from books though, ibncluding science. If it was just nature you'd just be some tribal dude full of delusionary myths. You don't really have much orginal thought. Most of what you regard as original thought is just regurgitated stuff.

oh this is gonna be good

LooF · Post by **LooF** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 2:13 pm

So of course, jesus or buddha was a tribal dude full of delusionary myths.

David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 4:06 pm

I don't consider any of my thoughts to be original. But they are my thoughts.

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hades · Post by **hades** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 5:24 pm

DavidQuinn000 wrote:I don't consider any of my thoughts to be original. But they are my thoughts.

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what are you?

gimme the absolute truth

Spinwiz@Spindoc · Post by **Spinwiz@Spindoc** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 7:34 am

hades wrote:What would you say is the most 'enlightening' or influential book (or author?)you've read. An important one that perhaps made you question or search for what is real and true....etc

I'm not sure what mine is. I think Cosmos by carl sagan was pretty eye-opening for me, considering I read it when I was 9 :P

D) All of the above.
The more view points for perspective, the better the description for the object in view.
If I have to narrow down the hundreds to one favourite, I would have to choose " 'People Skills', Dr Robert Bolton Phd" ,
Because it Helped me to strip away my own predudice, and beliefs, and move from subjective reality to vantage closer to
Objective reality...
For inlighting books, and insightful persons I will bring to you a short list in 12 hrs :-)

La Verdad · Post by **La Verdad** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 3:32 pm

Sex & Character - Otto Weininger
This book has disturbed me morally more than any other. I'm still re-reading it.
There are some Criminal elements of my personality that I really do not want to change. If Weininger commited suicide (and thereby submitted to criminality) I'm not sure if I stand a very good chance either if I choose to become a genius.

Oration on the Dignity of Man - Pico della Mirandola
Pico affirmed my belief in the natural hierarchy of excellence that pervades reality. Starting with God (who I see as an archetypal ideal - not an actual being), seconded by Genii, then continuining on with lesser men, animals (and women - here I'm in disaccord with Weininger, who classed them as being ontologically parallel with plants), plants, micro-organisms, and ending with inanimate objects.

This is of course a spectrum of consciousness.

It also affirmed my belief that equality doesn't really exist beyond the realm of mathematics, and at times in jurisprudence (though not in the actual execution of law) and religious abstractions (e.g Heaven).

GENIUS FORUMS

Most enlightening book/author

Most enlightening book/author

Re: Most enlightening book/author

Nietzsche

Re: Most enlightening book/author