This is my first ever entry to a challenge! Weird or what?!- And I'm not sure when the entry date was so here is mine anyway before I miss it all!
Books!
Those things of which have no touchscreen and they work without electric too, definitely very under-rated in this modern day with toddlers trying to swipe and scroll down on physical paper magazines who will never get to appreciate what a book is later on in adult life.
I seem to only read books on psychology, that's all that interests the me these last 10 years, although whilst growing up I was only reading fictions such as Steven King, and usually crime also. I had an all-inclusive holiday in Germany after being caught with 'a lot' of weed with me at a festival, and I got to read many books there, but that was mainly books such as Sherlock Holmes and Lord of the Flys ect - but still they were also good to pass the time.
Gutted I had no clue about meditation in these times because that would have been quite nice too.
It was all in good time..
The Books that I learn from.
I can remember reading Blink - The Power of Thinking, Without Thinking years ago in young adult life, one that I would like to find a read again because it was full of social experiments carried out and it was a great book.
I've been travelling the last 9 or 10 years, all be it that the last 6 years I've been settling for longer periods of time in one place - but the first few years was just full on random spontaneous events of saying yes to everything. After a year or 2 I ended up looking after someones house for 3 months in a nice place in SouthSpain (just down the track from trucklife-family actually!) and had started to get a bit depressed of the commitment to staying in a house. Also traveling a little too hardcore with no financial backup had got to me. Its hard to survive there, dumpsterdiving is impossible and there's not much work around because of WOOFing offers free labour, but its just the magic of place that certain people get attracted to even if it can be hell sometimes its a balance.
I was travelling with an English girl and we both were looking after the house in 2011. She was very well on her journey of awakening, but although I'm stereo-classed as a hippy because of my looks, but back at this point in life my mind was just not into what it called 'That hippy bullshit' (more conditioning from society, so we wont explore the spiritual side of course.)
In the days of the me being depressed which lasted a whole week, she gave me a book to read and said that it would really help me out and teach me some things - and that book was and I guess that it will be mentioned a lot in the challenge..
But No, this great best selling book didn't help me out..
..because I started reading it and the voice in the head said "What the fuck is this?! This just isn't for me.." and not even 5 minutes later the book was closed and I gave it back to her - and she just smirked peacefully.
It would be 4 or 5 more years before it would cross my path again, not that I was constantly depressed, but it would be that long until the time came when suddenly the mind was ready and I started to explore meditation. I was in Bern in Switzerland. I had money from working and had rented an apartment for 2 months over the winter, and for entertainment I ended up in an English book shop, and saw a book called MIND CALM I cant remember exactly what triggered all this there was something, but I was drawn to the book because of its description as "A non spiritual guide to Meditation" (something along those lines..)
I guess it was just the deep spiritual talk of entering other dimensions etc from people I met who were not that grounded at all but claimed to meditate, which I just found controversial and all that had deterred me from exploring meditation.
If there's anyone who is also not into trippy spirituality so much but are curious, I really do recommend this book because its full of different methods to silent the mind and even some ways with the eyes open and not sitting like the holy Buddha whilst getting cramps in your legs!
Even though it was years ago, I still share the exercises with people I meet in life because they are so simple and effective, and to show people (who even have more than one voice in the head) that its possible even just for 1 or 2 seconds to silence them all instantly becomes quite rewarding.
I read only the first half of this book and that was enough to start exploring. I remember sat in the kitchen and completed very easily my first ever meditation of 1 hour, using an hour long video from Youtube (scum) with relaxing sounds. That hour went very fast and it felt just like 10 minutes!
After moving from Switzerland I ended up finding a cool guy online who gave lots of talks on the mind and after watching nearly all that was available over several months, I discovered that the guy was the same person who had written that book 4 or 5 years previously that "just wasn't for me".
I ended up listening to the audiobook and then getting the book to read twice and a year or two later I also came across another book from him called A New Earth
This is an awesome book focusing mainly on The Ego and the emotional aspects of ego which he calls The pain body. I read it twice and gave it to someone who if they were ready to read it, would have helped them a lot. Maybe they did read it but I only met them for a short time somewhere so who knows.
Today I just popped into the book shop to go see the narrow shelves of the English section and was time to buy one that a few people have directed me towards and that is..
I have seen the author on a TED Talk and now I have his book. I like his maybe accidental humor of using the word 'brief' considering the book is around 480 pages!
Im looking forward to seeing some books that interest me from this great challenge!
Great minds think a like and I am almost certain that all the books will get my attention. i am 100 pages into the book I started "Sapiens" and even after a few pages I would recommend it already.
