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Trying to get educated... halp?

S

Sientist

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Dec 25, 2011
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Hello, I'm just trying to get some opinions on specific books that would help me on my quest for knowledge. I've experienced what I believe to be enlightenment and it's given me a strong hunger for information since my experience. Specific genre of books that I am looking for would be ones of spirituality, Buddhist teachings, meditation, etc. I understand that there's already a lot of information here on P&S but I'm currently busily entangled with "The God Effect" (see what I did there?) and after that I have "The Philosopher's Handbook" which leaves me with limited time to post and ask questions on here. So if anyone has any books or videos they would like to recommend I highly appreciate it, thank you. =D
 
youll get some good sugestions, one of which will be to do a search ;) but ill say to let yourself find the books - or maybe let the books find you.

just start looking and see what hollers out at you. you know?
start searching for what really compels and interests you, now matter how random, find it consume it and start refining.

you cant learn about yourself ;) you have to find and be yourself, by allowing time for little lead-ways of what has lead you this far, you will find what you are looking for.


identify what that "lead" feels like, and allow what feels most honest to happen.
& it honestly will happen.

__________________
A natural history of the senses

Diane Ackerman's lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planet Earth. "Delightful . . . gives the reader the richest possible feeling of the worlds the senses take in."--The New York Times. (Literature--Classics & Contemporary)
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source and reader reviews
 
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it really depends on what is your actual goal. do you just want someone to confirm what you already think, or do you actually want to have a real education?
 
Thanks for your replies. I figured I'd get the "Use search button" response but what I'm looking for is a collaborative thread of books worth indulging into. My goal is to take what I've learned from psychedelic experience and 're-learning' it in the physical reality. I'm not looking for someone to confirm what I already think.. that sounds kind of pointless. I would rather learn about anything and everything that deals with spirituality, enlightenment, quantum physics, even synthesis though I won't stray for that per-se as I don't want to cross any rules (especially since I'm new to BL). An example, Panic in Paradise recommended "A History of the Senses". I didn't put anything down about sensory though I will gladly take up his / her recommendation as it can help me with better understanding sensory deprivation for my MXE + Isolation Tank trials. With that being said, thank you Panic :).

I've got an open mind right now whether its reassuring something I already know or new knowledge to better educate me, it doesn't matter. In the end it'll be applied in a positive manner. I'm also asking on here because when I went to the book store for the first time in my life (Not a very long one so don't judge) it was like walking into Toys R' Us as an 8 year old child... So that's why I'm here trying to get some recommended readings from wiser individuals. =]
 
Sientist said:
Thanks for your replies. I figured I'd get the "Use search button" response but what I'm looking for is a collaborative thread of books worth indulging into. My goal is to take what I've learned from psychedelic experience and 're-learning' it in the physical reality. I'm not looking for someone to confirm what I already think.. that sounds kind of pointless. I would rather learn about anything and everything that deals with spirituality, enlightenment, quantum physics, even synthesis though I won't stray for that per-se as I don't want to cross any rules (especially since I'm new to BL). An example, Panic in Paradise recommended "A History of the Senses". I didn't put anything down about sensory though I will gladly take up his / her recommendation as it can help me with better understanding sensory deprivation for my MXE + Isolation Tank trials. With that being said, thank you Panic :).

I've got an open mind right now whether its reassuring something I already know or new knowledge to better educate me, it doesn't matter. In the end it'll be applied in a positive manner. I'm also asking on here because when I went to the book store for the first time in my life (Not a very long one so don't judge) it was like walking into Toys R' Us as an 8 year old child... So that's why I'm here trying to get some recommended readings from wiser individuals. =]
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Godel Escher Bach an Eternal Golden Braid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel,_Escher,_Bach

_______________________________
http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/conscious/index.html
Consciousness In The Cosmos
6 perspectives of cosmic consciousness
 
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an excellent starting point.
http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Mind-Classical-Contemporary-Readings/dp/019514581X

take care with that "kid in a toy store" feeling, such intensity will certainly not last. don't start this journey if it is merely novel to you. it's a long road, and the destination is never actually reached. i don't mean to rain on your parade, this is indeed a worthy endeavour, albeit ultimately fruitless. :) but that's life to a tee =D the "reward" is the journey, not the destination.
 
hiphophippy said:
Fuck all that, the first half of the tao te ching is all you need.
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any particular english interpretation youd recommended?

We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the wheel depends.
We turn clay to make a vessel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends.
We pierce doors and windows to make a house;
And it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends.
Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the usefulness of what is not. (chap. 11, tr. Waley)
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nice...depend on nothing, for anything and everything
-
anything and everything, depends on something
--
one thing depends on anything, to feel complete
-
i am nothing with out you, i am finally.
 
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Thanks for the recommendations guys. I'll def look into them. N I doubt I'll turn into a spiritual junkie... wife would never allow that to happen haha.
 
Sientist said:
Hello, I'm just trying to get some opinions on specific books that would help me on my quest for knowledge. I've experienced what I believe to be enlightenment and it's given me a strong hunger for information since my experience. Specific genre of books that I am looking for would be ones of spirituality, Buddhist teachings, meditation, etc. I understand that there's already a lot of information here on P&S but I'm currently busily entangled with "The God Effect" (see what I did there?) and after that I have "The Philosopher's Handbook" which leaves me with limited time to post and ask questions on here. So if anyone has any books or videos they would like to recommend I highly appreciate it, thank you. =D
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I don't have any choice in whether or not to post this comment, in fact I do not even have a choice whether or not to explain the comment.

Nor do the mods have a choice in whether to remove this comment or leave it alone.

Do you understand?
 
http://musicophilia.com/
^web-site dedicated to the novel Musicophilia and the author Oliver Stacks research.
"Oliver Sacks explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition. In Musicophilia, he shows us a variety of what he calls "musical misalignments." Among them: a man struck by lightning who suddenly desires to become a pianist at the age of forty-two; an entire group of children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; people with "amusia," to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans; and a man whose memory spans only seven seconds - for everything but music. Dr. Sacks describes how music can animate people with Parkinson's disease who cannot otherwise move, give words to stroke patients who cannot otherwise speak, and calm and organize people who are deeply disoriented by Alzheimer's or schizophrenia." - Back cover
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you could only read Ovid's Metamorphoses, and information about it, and have your days filled the rest of your life...;)

The Metamorphoses, written in dactylic hexameters, was completed when Ovid was in his fifties. "My mind is intent on singing of shapes changed into new bodies", he said. The title of the work was a Greek word meaning 'changes of shape'. Its fifteen books dealt with mythological, legendary, and historical figures and recorded the history of the world from chaos to the apotheosis of Julius Caesar and the reign of Augustus. Hexameter was familiar to Ovid from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid. Characteristic of the epic is the view of the unpredictable nature of things and the instability of the forms of nature. Starting from Heraclitus's "all things flow, nothing abides", the idea that everything always changes had been an essential part of Greek thought, and was a driving force behind the history of the expansive Roman Empire. In the Metamorphoses men are transformed into women and vice versa; stones become people; a statue is changed into a woman; a girl becomes a laurel tree, Neptune changes into a fierce-looking ox. Early Christian leaders regarded this kind of bodily transformations as heretical, though in the book of Genesis Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt.
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/ovidius.htm
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i have gone through most of Allen Mandelbaum translations, it is devastating.
 
you could try the gnostic library. they've got some interesting ancient interpretation. other than that if you like the whole "get rid of attached possessions that enslave us" sort of spiritual stuff you could try the power of now where something as basic as a perspective is a possession we become bound to. also try zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, which is about subject-object dualism and controlling emotional reaction to forces that be.
 
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I've always liked some of Friedrich Nietzsche's works. The man taught the 'Will to power' and discussed a lot of the slave morality behind Christianity (No offense to Christians, it's just a different viewpoint). If you want to read his works, I'd suggest 'Beyond good and evil', it basically validates his position as one of the towering philosophers in history. As for spirituality, I usually read up on Hermetic order of golden dawn writings by Rider Waitte and other members of the organisation, and Aleister Crowley's works. They might not appeal to you, however, as they're rather occult in terms of spirituality - but regardless, they're quite enlightening considering the god's mentioned can simply be interpreted as archetypes. If you want spirituality integrated with relation to drugs, then try one of Aldous Huxley's older works. I believe the two books appropriate by Aldous Huxley are 'The Doors of Perception' and the sequel, 'Heaven and Hell'.
 
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