True happiness is dependant upon a meaningful foundation. Here are a few books to help guide you on your journey.
Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope, Bantam Books, 1999.
Genre: nonfiction
Audience: Anyone interested in getting something more out of yoga than the coveted “yoga butt.”
Summary: This book is an excellent introduction to the philosophy and practice of yoga from the perspective of a psychotherapist.
Quote: Though we may appear separate from one another, we are no more separate than the wave is separate from the sea, or the air in a glass jar is separate from the surrounding air. (pg. 41)
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert, Penguin Books, 2006.Genre: travel memoir
Audience: Women who are searching for a new way to live their lives. Also, divorcees and people with wanderlust.
Summary: After a painful divorce, the author spends one year traveling to Italy, India and Indonesia where she explores how to live her life with pleasure, prayer and balance.
Quote: If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That’s the only thing you should be trying to control. Drop everything else but that. Because if you can’t learn to master your thinking, you’re in deep trouble forever. (pg.178)
The Wild Iris by Louise Glück, The Ecco Press, 1992.
Genre: poetry
Audience: People who are trying to understand how an Eastern concept of God can fit in Western culture. Also, anyone who wants a sample of amazing contemporary American poetry.
Summary: This collection of poems is a dialogue between a God figure and a human being. The motifs of a garden and morning and evening prayers arch through the book. Note: each poem stands alone beautifully, but there is also meaning in the order. Observe the human first resisting, then learning to meld together with God.
Quote: From “Early Darkness,” Never forget you are my children./ You are not suffering because you touched each other/ but because you were born,/ because you required life/ separate from me. (pg.45)
The Geography of Bliss: One Grumps Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner, Twelve, 2008.Genre: travel memoir meets nonfiction research
Audience: People who wonder if the grass really is greener on the other side.
Summary: An NPR correspondent travels to ten countries seeking the key to human happiness.
Quote: Maybe this is how enlightenment happens. Not with a thunderclap of lightening, but as a steady drip, drip, drip until one day you realize your bucket is full. (pg.292)
Fearless Living: Live Without Excuses and Love Without Regret by Rhonda Britten, A Perigee Book, 2001.Genre: self-help
Audience: People who feel stuck in a rut and need tools to break out of it.
Summary: A pioneer in the field of life-coaching shares her philosophy and techniques for transforming your life from fear into freedom. Britten’s heart-wrenching personal experiences lend authenticity and insights to her highly effective exercises.
Quote: The very act of setting yourself free from fear protects you from the pain you’ve been trying to avoid all along. The paradox of Fearless Living is that you are safer when you’re free than when you’re attempting to stay safe by avoiding risks. (pg.178)
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