What book changed your life?

[Shezbeth]

Excellent selections!

I didn't see/missed:

The 48 Laws of Power
The 33 Strategies of War
The Art of Seduction
- Robert Green

The Complete Drizzt Do'Urden Series
- R A Salvatore

Ender's Game
- Orson Scott Card

Lies My Teacher Told me
- Unknown

[dianna]

Hugh Prather "Notes to Myself" -- the very first time I understood the term "honesty"

Within me is the potential to commit every evil act I see

“You say you just want to be my friend. I know that you mean you want to relate to my mind but not my body. I can understand that and will not ask you to relate to me in a way that you don't want to, or talk to me about subjects you find uncomfortable. But likewise I refuse to castrate myself for you by pretending not to have the feelings I have."

[dianna]

Marquis de Sade "Justine"

The first time I understood the idea of the "libertine"

Very much misunderstood this idea, just like de Sade himself

My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others!
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/qu...gm36YYWb55P.99

It is only by enlarging the scope of one's tastes and one's fantasies, by sacrificing everything to pleasure, that that unfortunate individual called man, thrown despite himself into this sad world, can succeed in gathering a few roses among life's thorns.

[meeradas]

Posted by pumashared (here)
reading is my favorite thing to do. im wondering what book you guys read that changed your life for the better.

Posted by pumashared (here)
could i ask everyone who posts from now on to state how and why these books changed their life. i think that will not only help us understand what the book is about it but how also you were changed personally by it
thanks

So far, you've asked and received, but given nothing yourself.
How'd you answer your own questions?

[dianna]

Long Day's Journey Into Night Eugene O'Neill

The first time I understood what a "train wreck" life could be

The "makings of a poet. No, I'm afraid I'm like the guy who is always panhandling for a smoke. He hasn't even got the makings. He's got only the habit. I couldn't touch what I tried to tell you just now. I just stammered. That's the best I'll ever do, I mean, if I live. Well, it will be faithful realism, at least. Stammering is the native eloquence of us fog people.”

[pumashared]

Posted by meeradas (here)

Posted by pumashared (here)
reading is my favorite thing to do. im wondering what book you guys read that changed your life for the better.

Posted by pumashared (here)
could i ask everyone who posts from now on to state how and why these books changed their life. i think that will not only help us understand what the book is about it but how also you were changed personally by it
thanks

So far, you've asked and received, but given nothing yourself.
How'd you answer your own questions?

to be honest its not that i do not want to give anything but rather the fact that im young in my journey of knowledge and am no where as close in terms of thinking compared to many members of project avalon. i do not think someone as minuscule as me has any worthy opinion. however since you asked i will list the books that changed my life.

Enders game= this book really changed my life. it taught me that there is no sides. you are always being used or miniplated by someone somehow.

Moonwalking with Einstein= a great book about how to remember complex data words. its an easy read but then i found a website dedicated to training you on using his method to remember stuff. i have done p90x and do intense cardio and ill tell you that if you give me the choice of doing the brain exercises of the website or doing extreme workouts, i would chose extreme workouts. the brain exercises are extremely hard.

[meeradas]

Thanks!
No need to make yourself small; and, your opinion is as worthy or unworthy as anyone's.

To answer your original question :
Believe it or not, it was a simple (in the best sense of the term) math book which i got during a vocational retraining, years ago.
Taught me that all this complicated stuff i couldn't figure out before is quite easy to grasp, if simplified. That changed my (outlook on) life a lot.

All of Däniken's taught me, one can construct a totally different world(view) with the same data the 'establishment' use; that the way of looking at things can change everything.

Other books that 'changed my life' (rather 'facilitated my still-being-around') were M's "Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna",
Satprem's "Adventure of Conciousness", Tweedy's "Daughter/Chasm of Fire",
and Aurobindo's "Savitri" (which i never read fully)... amongst many, many others.

[13th Warrior]

"Heavens Mirror"- Graham Hancock

"A Sand County Almanac"- Aldo Leopold

"The Secret Teaching of All Ages" Manly Palmer Hall

"Lords of the Left-Hand Path"-Stephen E. Flowers, Ph.D.

[GreenGuy]

I love to read too. It'd be nigh-impossible to pick just one. Here are a few...

Return Of The Bird Tribes by Ken Carey. A lovely exploration of Native American spirituality.

Digital Mosaics: The Aesthetics of Cyberspace by Steven Holtzman. Opened my mind to the possibilities of the internet, in a time when it was all about AOL.

Forgotten Truth by Huston Smith. Showed me that our perception of reality is really very limited, but has endless potential.

The Bible What can I say? I am not religious, yet I return to some of the sublime passages, again and again.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. Took me eight years to get through. I've just started over. One of the best expositions of history ever entered into the record. Written in the 18th century but still a great read.

Anna Karenina and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Some of the most perceptive explorations of human nature in all of literature. Some say Anna Karenina is the best novel ever written.

Gems of Divine Mysteries by Baha'u'llah. All the Baha'i scriptures are full of sublime revelations and insights.

I know I could come up with more, but these have been extraordinarily influential in my life. Ovid, Homer, Ekhart Tolle, Paramahansa Yogananda, Richard Bach, and many others get honorable mention.

[StandingWave]

What a great thread! Thanks to OP for posing the question and a huge thanks to all who have contributed so far. Wonderful to have some great new titles to look forward to reading yet!

If there is one book that changed my life I would have to say it was Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. But in truth it has been a group of books and these are they:

- When I was a young boy of ten or so, my class teacher at the time gave me a book on the Spanish conquest of South America whose name and author I cannot recall. That book moved me so deeply and literally ripped my eyes open to the horrors of the 'reality' we have had foisted on us.

- Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda was given to me by a close friend when I was 20 and this single book upended everything I assumed to be true yet it set everything in a beautiful new order at the same time. The introduction alone 'did it'. I proceeded to read all of Castaneda's books and have since re-read the series at least eight times and have discovered that, each time I read through them, everything written has made more sense. These books have been the most accurate barometer of my unfolding grasp of the simple complexity of Being.

- Ishmael by Daniel Quinn was the bombshell that truly changed the trajectory of my life. I bought it on the strength of a comment on the cover by Jim Britell (who wrote 'The Whole Earth Review'): "From now on I will divide the books I have read into two categories - the ones I read before Ishmael and those read after." This book is the single reason that I now live in a remote region of the world on an almost self-sustainable domain as detached as is realistically possible from the 'western world' and its 'culture'.

- The Culture of Make Believe by Derek Jensen was a gruelling marathon of a read that fueled my resolve to get out of the unholy mess of western 'culture' and make sure I was no longer contributing to it as fast as possible.

- The Ringing Cedars of Russia series by Vladimir Megre confirmed that the way I am headed is indeed The Way To Go.

- I Am That a collection of discussions with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj sealed the deal as to what 'I' am!

- The Open Secret by Tony Parsons amplified and confirmed everything Nisargadatta had said and popped by 'personal' bubble of erroneous convictions.

- Always Coming Home by Ursula le Guin is a magnificent novel that highlights the difference between healthy and sick cultures. Le Guin is one of my all-time favourite writers, I envy anyone that has yet to discover her extraordinary talent.

Being a real bookworm I could list a lot more but these will do for now...

[dianna]

Not In His Image (John Lamb Lash)



Catalyst for my interest in the Nag Hamadi Codices

[AxisMundi]

Way of the Peaceful Warrior-Dan Millman

The Holographic Universe-Michael Talbot

Journey of Souls-Michael Newton

[vilcabamba]

I enjoyed Journey of the Souls Michael Newman ..I also like Shirley McClain's books like Out on a Limb.

[Karezza]

Autobiography of a Yogi: Last Gift of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was so influenced by the Autobiography of a Yogi that he read through the book each year. Hundreds of influential leaders in business, politics, and popular culture were introduced to Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi at the 2011 memorial service of Steve Jobs, by express wish of the late founder of Apple Computer.

In a video interview posted online in September 2013, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff related this and other stories to share what he saw as Mr. Jobs’ deep, though sometimes hidden, spirituality. A summary of the interview reported on CNET news includes the following excerpt:

“Benioff told his story of attending the memorial service following Jobs’ death, where the attendees were handed a small brown box on their way out. ‘This is going to be good,’ he thought. ‘I knew that this was a decision he made, and whatever it was, it was the last thing he wanted us all to think about.’

“The box contained a copy of Paramahansa Yogananda’s book, Autobiography of a Yogi. It was a spiritual book that inspired Jobs throughout his life. The book, first published in 1946, espouses ‘self-realization’ and the practice of Kriya Yoga meditation.

“According to [Walter] Isaacson's biography, ‘Jobs first read it as a teenager, then reread it in India and had read it once a year ever since.’ In 1974, Jobs traveled to India, seeking some spiritual enlightenment. ‘He had the incredible realization that his intuition was his greatest gift, and he needed to look at the world from the inside out,’ Benioff said.”

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4rO_Vs4M29k

On intuition, Steve Jobs observed: (snipped from Good Friday 2012)

Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than going to India. The people in the Indian countryside don't use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world. Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That's had a big impact on my work.

Western rational thought is not an innate human characteristic; it is learned and is the great achievement of Western civilization. In the villages of India, they never learned it. They learned something else, which is in some ways just as valuable but in other ways is not. That's the power of intuition and experiential wisdom.

[Zampano]

For me a good book is the book I can read more then one time:
1) Holographic Universe, Michael Talbot
2) The Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda
3) Journey of Souls, Michael Newton

And the last one-when I read the first 30 pages I really got the feeling: Wow, after this book I will not need any other books to read!
And so it is! Bought in November and I still read and contemplate.

Be as you are, Sri Ramana Maharshi
Thats the book

[Ahnung-quay]

Boy, this is a tough question. If one really stops to think about it all books will change a person's life, even if in only a minute way. Here's my pick list-

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy-JRR Tolkien-read several times since age 14.
The Convergence series, Vol 1-3- David Wilcock
The Kybalion- Three Initiates
The Book of Aquarius- Annonymous
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee-Dee Brown-first initiation into the fact that our whole society is just wrong, age 16.
When God Was a Woman-Merlin Stone
Walking in a Sacred Manner- Mark St. Pierre and Tilda Long Soldier
The Spiritual Science of the Stars-Pete Stewart
Quest for the Zodiac-John Lash
Mother Earth Spirituality-Ed McGaa

And, the list could go on....

[42]

For me it was "Journeys out of the Body" by Robert Monroe... this was the book that started my awakening to the reality that i am a spirit on a temporary human adventure.

"Flying Saucers Have Landed" by George Adamski and Desmond Leslie was a thrilling 60's read as well...

[Soda]

The Celestine Prophecy by Redfield and the original Conversations with God Trilogy by Walsch
However my opinion on Walsch is that he was hijacked by the cabal/elite before finishing the second book because in that one "God" says he is a fan of Clintons and Bushes and says that a New World Order is the answer for our planet to survive. So even though it changed my life, I don't recommend it. LOL

[Roisin]

"Magnificent Obsession" is a 1929 novel by Lloyd C. Douglas

"Robert Merrick is resuscitated by a rescue crew after a boating accident. The crew is thus unable to save the life of Dr. Hudson, a doctor renowned for his ability to help people, who was having a heart attack at the same time on the other side of the lake. Merrick then decides to devote his life to making up for the doctor's, and becomes a physician himself." wiki

At the time of the boating accident, Merrick was an irresponsible party-boy from an affluent family but the accident changed his life once he found out about what happened to the doctor and the kind of person he was.

Merrick found out about Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal. "The secret was the literal practice of doing good deeds secretly, and thereby reaping spiritual power to use in becoming an excellent doctor." wiki

When Merrick found out about the journal, he too practiced doing good deeds secretly, just like Dr. Hudson did and not surprisingly, became a respected doctor in his specialty.

It's a beautiful story and one that changed my life for the better many years ago when someone loaned me a copy of that book.

Here's a free online version of that book:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks04/0400631h.html

[yuhui]

If the number is limited to one, then "The Happy Prince"……

If not, then "Tibetan book of the dead", "The Greatest Story Never Told", "The Occult Anatomy of Man"...these are what I remember at the moment.