Come together, over books.

I like to do a lot of reading. I’d like to give you an idea of some books that have recently served to stir around the soup inside my brain. I will do my best to share what it is about each book that has left an impact on me.

Hofstadter is a proponent of non-duality. This book endeavors to explore the nature of the thing that people call a “soul” or a “self” or simply “I.” To him, those words refer to the same thing, which is not made of a separate substance from the material world. Rather, it is something that emerges from the world of subatomic particles swirling about, bashing into one another without any clear cut boundaries. The interplay of symbols we know as “I” comes out of a process of making simplified representations of things that exist on the exterior of sufficiently complex nervous systems.

Hofstadter says that the “self” is an illusion, but although thinking of it as real involves a magical jump, it is an illusion that our exquisite gift of experiencing the world as an individual is dependent upon.

Integral theory is an operating platform for your brain. For those of you who haven’t read Wilbur, I dare you to give this work a try yourself. I found the IOS, or integral operating system, to be an amazing and deeply penetrating tool to sift through information overload.
Also a proponent of the awareness of our non-dual nature, Wilbur makes a case for the truths of the worlds “Perennial Philosophies.” Integral Spirituality, among other things, is one of the most poignant attempt to salvage what is good in them against the searing valid criticisms lumped against religion from modern and postmodern thinking.

I am currently in the process of reading the Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck. A deeply personal account of his process to make sense of a chaotic disintegrating world, he seems very confident that all signs are pointing to light on the horizon.

Drawing on just about everything from science and religion to ancient mythology and psychedelic experimentation, this book so far seems like quite a promising read.