Blackstone Yoga Center Newsletter

Reading books that lift my consciousness and challenge my assumptions have become a constant in my life; I may have three books going at the same time, unless one really captures me and then the others wait until I finish that one. Reading uplifting books has also given me a community of spiritual teachers to belong to, a place where I can walk with another’s soul and share what we have learned on the spiritual path together. Reading the writings of spiritual teachers is like reading one’s own heart because spiritual truth needs relationship to be born. It is the mix of souls that gives God his Voice.

Here are some books and fellow travelers on God’s Path that I have met and want to introduce to you. If I were to pull out one of the threads that run through these books, it would be that all point from various perspectives and experiences on how to live in the present moment instead of being trapped in our ego’s conceptual identity.

One can feel very isolated and under attack from the anxiety shells that television lobs into our minds every day. For us who rely on TV as our only source of information, we are not unlike those in London during the German air attacks, alone and in the dark.

I find that there is a great current of spiritual awakening flowing through our culture now. Like a lawn that was plugged with new seeds in a previous season, the green grass of hope is springing up everywhere. This spiritual seed is spread through a silent but fast spreading community of souls that is receiving the transmissions of a higher vibration than that of television.

But this hope does not come in the form of an external savior who is going to ride in on a white horse and save us. Rather, it is the awakening of our own spiritual consciousness, which in itself gives us peace and a course of action that we cannot receive from the media or our own past experience.

Alan Watts. I read some of his books in the 60s, but it wasn’t until this last year that I rediscovered him, and now I guess I’ve read all his books and listened to some of his fabulous talks. You can hear a few on pod casts. While all of his books are good, here is one that is a good intro: The Wisdom of Insecurity.

Another writer, whom I’ve just met, is Thom Hartmann who wrote The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight and The Prophet’s Way, which I’m still reading. Ancient Sunlight is a map to understanding why our civilization is at the end of its 7000 year journey, which began with the first agricultural city-states in Mesopotamia and now finds itself looking at the empty sign hanging over the earth’s once full tank of oil.

But Hartmann also is a guide through the talking heads of conflicting scientific reports into the sunlight of a rising consciousness in humanity. There is no quick fix or technological breakthrough out of the double bind we find ourselves in, he says. Only a shift in consciousness from our current domination cultural story to a cooperation mythos will save our civilization in the long run from eating itself out of its only home.

Thank you,
Ed
Om Peace
3/4/07
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