1. Effects of Food
2. Stay Bright
3. Recipes
4.
Positive Books
5.
Finding Good Teachers
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For a spiritual person, finding good books
is not so easy. Most novels use unspiritual means to hold the reader's
attention: violence, negativity, loveless sex, cruelty, crude language.
Often the general tone of a literary work is depressing.
Spiritual books don't have to contain only love and roses. Spirituality
is very incomplete if it ignores the psychological and social problems
in the world. A book that vividly describes what is wrong, can be
spiritual -if that book also describes solutions.
A spiritual
book leaves the reader with a positive feeling. The reader finishes
such a book with hope, with the conviction that people can overcome
their personal problems, that the world can be changed.
A truly spiritual book offers the reader a wider view on life. It
offers the feeling that there is a bigger force in the universe
and that everyone can make contact with that force through a spiritual
practice.
Apart from books about meditation or spiritual
philosophy, I know very few books that are completely spiritual.
Most books, as I said, have elements of negativity that serve no
positive purpose.
Have you read a spiritual book that
you would like to recommend to others?
If you know novels or other books that
you can call truly spiritual, please let me know. Send me an E-mail
with "spiritual books" in the subject line. As far as
I can, I will check the books out and if they are suitable, I will
add them to the list with your name as the person who recommended
it.
Please do not send in the title of books about UFO's,
New Age etc.; they may be good but they are outside the scope of
this website.
Purely religious books may be very positive
and spiritual, but will not appeal to most of the readers of this
site. Books that are solely about a certain spiritual group or guru,
may also not be interesting for most people; these books should
be mentioned on the website about that group or guru.
Books that set out to teach about spirituality are obviously spiritual,
but what I am looking for are books that everyone can read, even
those who would never think about doing meditation. (These books
can be a great way to bring people to the spiritual path...)
I will consider both novels and non-fiction, as long as they have a spiritual atmosphere.
Examples:
- Paramahansa
Yogananda : Autobiography of a Yogi
- M.
Scott Peck : The Road Less Travelled (and other books)
- Benjamin
Hoff: The Tao of Pooh
- Joost
Boekhoven: Gem's story (can be read online)
- Gary
Zukav: The Seat of the Soul (author of: The Dancing Wu-Li Masters)
Especially
The
Road Less Travelled is for me a good example, because it is
not meant as a "spiritual" book. It hardly mentions meditation.
Nevertheless the atmosphere, the thought behind the book, is very
spiritual.
Gem's story is about
a beautiful spiritual journey. A shy girl meets the perfect monk
. . . (If you know more stories like this one, let me know.)
Autobiography
of a Yogi I include here because it can be read like a novel;
it can also be attractive for people who don't plan to meditate.
In short:
You can send in the title and a short description
of a book with a spiritual atmosphere. Explain why you think it's
spiritual.
The book should not be:
- about
a particular religion, a particular spiritual group or guru
- about
UFO's, pyramids and other mysteries
- about
physical health
- solely
about spiritual philosophy
- solely
a description of how-to-meditate
- abstract
or full of jargon
It's
the spiritual
atmosphere that counts, and the book has to be accessible for
the general public. I am looking forward to hearing from you! joostboekhoven@gemstories.com. For websites
with positive stories, click here.
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