Reading is like Thinking with Someone Else’s Thoughts

I read Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth a few years ago. I was so moved by reading this book which seemed to describe everything one ever needed to know about being alive, clear, AND happy, that I quickly decided I never needed to read another book again.

Time went by and Tolle’s insights that so delighted me began to recede into my thought shadows, you know, like that warm cozy corner of the room that slowly loses its blanket of sunlight as the afternoon wears on. I was in a really difficult relationship at the time and life was kicking my ass. Like trying to hold on to a ray of sunlight, I couldn’t hold onto the comforting insights A New Earth revealed for me.

Then I found Byron Katie’s book, Loving What Is. Some people think she’s crazy. I totally agree … crazy in the juiciest way.

Whatever. Anyway, I decided to dive into Katie’s book because I realized that reading books are a form of meditation. It’s a time when you literally think with someone else’s thoughts. The words others put down in a book get recreated inside your own brain. If they resonate and don’t bring up flags of resistance, they begin to forge their own pathways in your brain.

If you invite inspiring thoughts in enough, eventually they’ll become yours.

The trick is to keep the meditation going by continuing to invite in those thoughts that inspire you to live the life you want to live.

MY SHORT INSPIRING BOOK LIST

There are so many. In the interest of brevity, here’s a very short list of books that completely changed my world view, and that you might enjoy wearing grooves in your own neural pathways:

• Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl ~ holocaust survivor who’s insights will completely change the way you think about suffering
• Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés ~ a must-read masterpiece for women AND men
• Running From Safety by Richard Bach ~ dangerous to read if you haven’t jumped off your cliff yet
• The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain (click the book to READ NOW)~ a visionary short fiction story about a curious angel named Satan, and the wonder of existence
• Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke ~ every sentence pure inspiring poetry
• Siddhartha by Herman Hesse ~ an inspiring classic tale about a Buddha’s awakening. Bewildering what one can learn from a river.
• Ishmael by Daniel Quinn ~ the enlightening story of an ESP-capable Gorilla who teaches a man about himself. it changed my world view.

I’d love to know your suggestions! Leave a comment for all to see. Thanks!

INSPIRED WORDS OF THIS MOMENT 

“Reading is thinking with someone else’s head instead of one’s own.”
~ Arthur Schopenhauer, The Art of Literature