Unraveling experience, what is a good book to regain blance in life.?

Question

I can't be specific about subject, sorry... just can't.

Certain cards have been played against me. You could almost say these people are like the spawn of Satan in the way they wield their power and destroy lives. It was so cleverly crafted that it will take about 20 years (or executed tomorrow) for them to come to fruition and in the end it will leave me a broken man. It will take my worldly possesions, leave me in an old and crippled state. I will finish the last years of my life struggling and working like I never had too work, a loaf of bread and cheese will be a feast... and there is nothing more I can do too prevent it from happening....

what book, story would you suggest for me too read to try and re-center my life. (although I do love the bible....lets find something inspired by god and written by a poet or authors hand).

One of my favorite reads was, Les Miserable by Victor Hugo, what other books, poems, would you suggest?

Answer 1

'The Monk who sold his Ferrari' by Robin Sharma. A great learning experience with terrific insights.
Hope 2007 will be better for you !

Answer 2

Dear friend,

We have a saying in our country, to highlight the fickle mindedness of people. They say that it is enough to tell someone " Donot think of the monkey when you are taking this medicine". Whenever he takes any medicine the first thing that he will think will be the monkey!

You are in that state. Plase , please donot succumb to that idiotic threat. No one will be able to tell you what will happen to you 20 years hence. And , indeed if you believe in it be sure that whoever has said that to you will surely have an antidote. . That person knows your vulnerability and he/ she is exploiting you.

No book will help in this . If anything it will confuse you. Even Bible , at this stage. All you would need is immense faith in yourself. You could try , though books on hypnotism that will tell you that hypnotism will help you regain your confidence and balance.

Answer 3

Read " As a man thinketh" by James Allen and "the Impersonal life" by Joseph brenner.(author was unknown until after his death)then see syda.org/theguru to rebuild after reading the above books, read "Three magic words" by U S Andersen

Answer 4

You could always read 'Tao Te Ching,' translated by Stephen Mitchell. It is the book of the way, or 'The Art of War,' by Sun Tzu.

Answer 5

The Little Prince by

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Answer 6

"The Chambered Nautilus". Click this link to read the poem:
http://www.legallanguage.com/poems/ChamberedNautilus.htm

Answer 7

Life 101 - it really helped me

Good luck, hoping things will be better soon.

Answer 8

I can't begin to understand or empathize with your current situation. So, of course, I can't begin to know what book you might need/want to read at this time in your life.

All I can do is to recommend one that has recently been an oasis of significance during a period of grief, suffering, and transition.

So I'd like to answer by calling attention to the book I have read most recently (twice!) that is changing my thinking and giving me a whole new vision of life. The first time I read it through hurriedly because I was so excited by what I was finding. Then I read it again, intentionally limiting myself to about five to seven pages a day and reflecting on each passage, recording some of my thoughts in writing.

It's a book that was written back in 1945 but has recently been re-released (also old, used copies are available inexpensively from booksellers listed in www.abebooks.com). The author is Sheldon Cheney (no, not that other Cheney!) and the book is called Men Who Walked with God. The author, a renowned art critic in the first half of the 20th century, intended to write a history of mysticism, but instead chose to concentrate on ten or so individuals who found God (some of them might say Spirit, the Infinite, or the Other Within) and shared their enlightenment. Each of Cheney's essays gives some biographical details about the figure, a clear explanation of the person's experience and thinking, and a warm appreciation of his contribution to his fellow mortals. The work of many other visionaries, including some women, is summarized in the background of the ten or so Cheney chose to focus on.

He begins with Lao Tse, author of Tao Te Ching, and founder of Taoism. He hooked me so on this work that I've begun a collection of translations of Tao Te Ching. I think you have to read many translations to get a sense of the depth of its multiple meanings.

He proceeds from Gautama Buddha through such figures as Plotinus, Saint Bernard, Meister Eckhardt, Fra Angelico, and Jacob Boehme, concluding with William Blake. I have been a student of Blake's work for many years, but this simple, thoughtful essay opened a whole new dimension for me. I have always admired Blake the genius, Blake the artist, Blake the poet, and Blake the iconoclast. Cheney reminded me that Blake was also a sweet simple believer.

My favorite prayer has always been, "I believe, help thou mine unbelief." After reading Cheney's book I have added a prayer adapted from one of his visionaries, concluding, "I pray, realizing that, in answer to this seeking, sometimes the gate to Divine Mystery may be opened to me; if so, immediately, in an instant, I would understand more than I have come to understand in all my many years of reading and study, of college and university life, of experience and personal reflection."

Preparing this response for you, I picked the book up once again and turned randomly to one section. Here's the passage I found, and it is typical of the commitment the book evokes. It is from the chapter on Jacob Boehme, and you would need to read the whole chapter to get the specific details that support this conclusion:

"When Jacob Boehme comes into the presence of God, he experiences divinity as a sweet radiant glow through all his being. . . . Very simply he avers that any one of us may come out of the darkness of worldly living by tending the flame of the divine that has been kindled in each human being, that yearns back toward home in God, toward a Paradise that is a glowing, luminous realm.

"Curiously, what has seemed to so many [of us] dim and mysterious and shadowed, what has been called occult and obscure, is disovered in the report of Jacob Boehme to be clear, lucent, radiant. . . .

"Let Jacob himself, however, have the last word to the reader. 'But open your eyes,' he said, 'and the world is full of God.'"

I am a teacher (and lover) of great literature, but I have never found a novel that proved to be as enlightening as this book. If I had to choose a novel, it would probably be Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, or Eudora Welty's Losing Battles or maybe the old classic War and Peace.

If I were to choose lyrical poems to read over and over again along with Cheney's book, it would be William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, perhaps his satiric Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and certainly "Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau." For a longer poem, I would definitely choose T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, to meditate with him upon "the still point of the turning world."

As I have grown old along with Eliot I have learned from experience, "What we call the beginning is often the end / And to make an end is to make a beginning"; "Love is most nearly itself / When here and now cease to matter"; "We must be still and still moving / Into another intensity"; "in my end is my beginning."

But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint.
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime's death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, thought and action.
The hint half-guessed, the gift half-understood, is
Incarnation.

Blessings!