A "Lost" Review of The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder

Here's a 5-star review from last year that it appears I failed to post from a Harry Federci:

Author Todd Wright skillfully uses the rather ordinary theme of a murder mystery to explore the extraordinary difference between organized religion and what is known at the present time as New Age spirituality. Detectives Bookman and Berg - no first names are ever divulged - are assigned to a criminal case involving the murder of a young woman. In the course of their investigation, they are exposed to profound literature which radically alters their perceptions of reality. The teachings of Aristotle, Socrates, St. Paul and Jesus Christ all come into play in this most unusual crime novel. I highly recommend it to anyone with an open mind who wishes to explore the big questions of life and doesn't know quite where to begin.

Thanks, Harry!

Another 5-Star Review for The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder!

Another five-star review for The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder, this one from Karen G. Thanks, Karen!

 I've seen a spike in sales lately. Seems it's become a cult classic in Japan. I expect a feature-length anime film to be announced any day now.

The latest review of The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder is a good one!

AAA writes:

"The book is a great subtle murder mystery with unusual educational value. The plot intertwines and builds on a summary of the best-respected motivational, philosophical, and spiritual books of all time. Final plot twists inspired reading or rereading of several of the referenced books. It will continue to serve as a quick reference to the best of the best."

Thanks, Triple-A!

Rate My Haiku

Bluejay Through a Kitchen Window 

Drip in the kitchen
Bluejay in a barren tree
Keep pipes from freezing.

Why is haiku so fun to do? I think it's because they tend to just come to you, presenting themselves almost fully formed, arising out of a moment, very much like the moment itself.

Then you can look at it later and relive that moment, and remember that it was a moment, which in tern (no pun intended, this was supposed to be "turn") helps you to remember the present moment and come back to it quickly.

What do you think? Is this one any good? Feel free to put one of your own in comments.

Photo curtesy of Garden Walk Garden Talk.

Latest Book Review of The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder

Thanks to CLW for the latest review of The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder - A Mystery by Todd Wright:

Self Improvement AND Murder?The Self Improvement Book Club Murder, by Todd Wright, is a murder mystery about Detective Bookman's journey to enlightenment, along the way, he just happens to solve the murder of Sue Ellen Pinkus, who was a member of the so called Self Improvement Book Club. Detective Bookman and his partner Alec Berg are faced with some "Self Improvement" of their own as they search for clues within the books from the club.

Wright's work of fiction sent me on a personal quest to read the non-fiction books the club members were so passionate about, such as; A New Earth, The Power of Now, The Secret, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Think and Grow Rich, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and many more. Two thirds of the way through The Self-Improvement Book Cub Murder, I was no longer concerned with "who did it" (I had complete confidence in Bookman) instead I wanted to follow Detective Bookman's path of personal growth! I was encouraged to start my own Self-Improvement book club (one where we actually read the books) and I have recommended this book to several friends.

I enjoyed the fictional setting and appreciated Wright's depth of understanding of "New Earth" concepts, which were very obvious through the insights and application of those concepts he brought out in his character's daily lives, all in just over 200 pages! If you are a Tolle fan, you don't want to miss this book! I look forward to improving myself further with Wright's next book.

Who Would You Invite to Your Dinner Party?

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this lately. I don't know if it's because I'm going to win a contest soon or what, but it's kind of a fun question.

Almost as much fun as picking the guests is choosing the ground rules.

First, all of my personal friends and family are excluded. The reason for this rule is obvious. I can't invite all of them to this once-in-a-lifetime event, so I need to have recourse to a rule that excludes them all equally. That way I can shrug and say, "If it were up to me . . . "

But for this rule, I would invite my octogenarian uncle who would thoroughly enjoy the night, though he may not appreciate most of my selections. This would be especially true of my aunt who would undoubtedly be his date. I would invite them anyway if I could. But rules are rules.

What's Your Drama?

Ok, I'll go first.

My drama has been to allow my pain-body to take over my thinking in the context of a love relationship.

No, that's too abstract. Let's try again. My drama has been to take things personally in the context of a love relationship. There, now that's something people can relate to, I think. 

Things said and done by my significant other would be felt as intense "emotional pain."

[Ok, now I've said the same thing in three different ways. Take a moment and look at those three descriptions of my drama and try to understand how they're all saying exactly the same thing.]

This "emotional pain" would cause me to react against the supposed source of this pain, my significant other. But of course, she wasn't impacting my physical body in any way, so how could she have been the source of my pain? She couldn't. In fact, it was my own thoughts that were causing this "emotional pain," so called. I was doing it to myself.

Your Outer World is a Reflection of Your Inner State

Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in a marital relationship. It's one thing to believe that the person sitting across from you at the dinner table is mean, a jerk, exhibits all sorts of negative unconscious behavior. That very well may be true, and you can work very hard to try to "fix" that person. That effort is unlikely to succeed, but you can try.

 The more important question is why? Not, "Why is this person like this?" Most people in bad relationships spend the bulk of their time pondering this question, both in their heads and out loud. It's a futile inquiry. The better "why" questions is, "Why is this person part of my world?" For the answer to this one you have to look inside yourself. That's where the title to this post comes in.

Introducing The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder Book Club

For those of you in the Lexington (Kentucky) area, I've decided to form an exploratory committee to gauge interest in what would be the first of its kind in the world: a loose-knit social organization I've pithily dubbed The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder Book Club, or the SIBCMBC for short.

The SIBCMBC would meet once a month to discuss one of the books featured in my novel, The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder, books like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, A New Earth, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Secret and others. We would start with The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder as a roadmap to the other books. And when we get through all the books, who knows where we'll go from there.

We would have food to eat (a potluck arrangement) lots of good conversation and games for the kids (I made this last one up, there will be no games and probably no kids).

If you think you might be interested and/or have ideas, please let me know. Feel free to leave a comment of send me an email at toddwrightnow@gmail.com.

Avoid Dramatic People

What a liberating feeling! I've learned to avoid dramatic people! I used to fall pray to their painful whimsy because I used to be dramatic myself. And this is really the key to getting past these people: recognizing and acknowledging your own drama.

Without a nice soft spot to sink their drama hook into, dramatic people have no hope of reeling you into their made-for-TV movies. Don't judge them and don't judge yourself, just recognize and acknowledge on both counts. And don't try to help them. The more you engage, the more you get sucked in.

The only way to help them is to avoid them altogether, leaving them to occupy a world of their own making, full of drama and other dramatic people. If this is not a formula for sufficient suffering that stands a chance of breaking them free of the self-inflicted burden they carry, I don't know what is. Perhaps by being forced to go ever deeper into their drama in this way they will emerge free on the other side of it.

One thing I've learned: Life plays chicken with you until you learn not to flinch. Drama is the bad habit of flinching at everything that life brings your way. And Life won't stop bringing these "opportunities" your way until you learn not to react to them, that is to say dramatize them.

And this is one of the many ways that we can understand that the Universe is truly a beneficent place. It will never give up on all of us drama queens.

You might also like: Dramaholic

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 10

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

If you would not be known to do any thing, never do it. A man may play the fool in the drifts of a desert, but every grain of sand shall seem to see. He may be a solitary eater, but he cannot keep his foolish counsel. A broken complexion, a swinish look, ungenerous acts, and the want of due knowledge, — all blab. Can a cook, a Chiffinch, an Iachimo be mistaken for Zeno or Paul? Confucius exclaimed, — "How can a man be concealed! How can a man be concealed!"

On the other hand, the hero fears not, that, if he withhold the avowal of a just and brave act, it will go unwitnessed and unloved. One knows it, — himself, — and is pledged by it to sweetness of peace, and to nobleness of aim, which will prove in the end a better proclamation of it than the relating of the incident. Virtue is the adherence in action to the nature of things, and the nature of things makes it prevalent. It consists in a perpetual substitution of being for seeming, and with sublime propriety God is described as saying, I AM.

A New Review for The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder on Amazon

Shopper writes:

From the first page of The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder I was hooked. I took the book on vacation to have something to read while I was gone but I couldn't put it down and finished it before reaching Greensboro, NC. Mr. Wright takes the theories behind self help books and brings them all together to develop an excellent murder mystery. I enjoyed the evolvement of the characters, how the detectives develop a tie between the individual books and the murder. Wright's knowledge of the self help books he uses as a basis for the novel is extremely detailed and intriguing. I find myself compelled to pick up a self help book. A must ready for anyone who has doubt of how to live in the here and now or if you just want to enjoy a good book.

Thanks, Shopper!

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 9

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

In like manner the effect of every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds. The great man knew not that he was great. It took a century or two for that fact to appear. What he did, he did because he must; it was the most natural thing in the world, and grew out of the circumstances of the moment. But now, every thing he did, even to the lifting of his finger or the eating of bread, looks large, all-related, and is called an institution.

These are the demonstrations in a few particulars of the genius of nature; they show the direction of the stream. But the stream is blood; every drop is alive. Truth has not single victories; all things are its organs, — not only dust and stones, but errors and lies. The laws of disease, physicians say, are as beautiful as the laws of health. Our philosophy is affirmative, and readily accepts the testimony of negative facts, as every shadow points to the sun. By a divine necessity, every fact in nature is constrained to offer its testimony.

Daily Tolle #7

This quote encapsulates well what both The Power of Now and A New Earthare all about:

"Most of the thousands of letters and emails that have been sent to me from all over the world are from ordinary men and women, but there are also letters from Buddhist monks and Christian nuns, from people in prison or facing a life-threatening illness or imminent death. Psychotherapists have written to say that they recommend the book to their patients or incorporate the teachings in their practice. Many of those letters and emails mention a lessening or even a complete disappearance of suffering and problem-making in people's lives as a result of reading The Power of Now and putting the teachings into practice in everyday life. There is frequent mention of the amazing and beneficial effects of inner-body awareness, the sense of freedom that comes from letting go of self-identification with one's personal history and life-situation, and a newfound inner peace that arises as one learns to relinquish mental/emotional resistance to the "suchness" of the present moment." 

Eckhart Tolle, Author's Preface to the Paperback Version of The Power of Now

Read the entire book: The Power of Now - The Entire Book

Daily Tolle Number 6

"Avoid watching [TV] programs and commercials that assault you with a rapid succession of images that change every two or three seconds or less. Excessive TV watching and those programs in particular are largely responsible for attention deficit disorder, a mental dysfunction now affecting millions of children worldwide. A short attention span makes all your perceptions and relationships shallow and unsatisfying. Whatever you do, whatever action you perform in that state, lacks quality, because quality requires attention. 

"Frequent and prolonged TV watching not only makes you unconscious, it also induces passivity and drains you of energy. Therefore, rather than watching at random, choose the programs you want to see. Whenever you remember to do so, feel the aliveness inside your body as you watch. Alternatively, be aware of your breathing from time to time. Look away from the screen at regular intervals so that it does not completely take possession of your visual sense. Don't turn up the volume any higher than necessary so that the TV doesn't overwhelm you on the auditory level. Use the mute button during commercials. Make sure you don't go to sleep immediately after switching off the set or, even worse, fall asleep with the set still on."

Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth , pp. 232-3

This advice also works well for computer use.

You might also like: The Power of Now - The Entire Book

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 8

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

The effect of any writing on the public mind is mathematically measurable by its depth of thought. How much water does it draw? If it awaken you to think, if it lift you from your feet with the great voice of eloquence, then the effect is to be wide, slow, permanent, over the minds of men; if the pages instruct you not, they will die like flies in the hour. The way to speak and write what shall not go out of fashion is, to speak and write sincerely. The argument which has not power to reach my own practice, I may well doubt, will fail to reach yours. But take Sidney's maxim: - "Look in thy heart, and write." He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public. That statement only is fit to be made public, which you have come at in attempting to satisfy your own curiosity. The writer who takes his subject from his ear, and not from his heart, should know that he has lost as much as he seems to have gained, and when the empty book has gathered all its praise, and half the people say, 'What poetry! what genius!' it still needs fuel to make fire. That only profits which is profitable. Life alone can impart life; and though we should burst, we can only be valued as we make ourselves valuable. There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every man's title to fame. Only those books come down which deserve to last. Gilt edges, vellum, and morocco, and presentation-copies to all the libraries, will not preserve a book in circulation beyond its intrinsic date. It must go with all Walpole's Noble and Royal Authors to its fate. Blackmore, Kotzebue, or Pollok may endure for a night, but Moses and Homer stand for ever. There are not in the world at any one time more than a dozen persons who read and understand Plato: - never enough to pay for an edition of his works; yet to every generation these come duly down, for the sake of those few persons, as if God brought them in his hand. "No book," said Bentley, "was ever written down by any but itself." The permanence of all books is fixed by no effort friendly or hostile, but by their own specific gravity, or the intrinsic importance of their contents to the constant mind of man. "Do not trouble yourself too much about the light on your statue," said Michel Angelo to the young sculptor; "the light of the public square will test its value."

Response to Atheist Op-Ed About Miracles

Professed atheist posted an op-ed piece to the Lexington Herald-Leader today called Miracle: Just a puzzle science has not solved.

I posted the following response, to which a not-so-cleverly-disguised Richard Dawkins, himself (Hawkins? Rhymes with Dawkins? Come on, Richard, we know it was you!) posted the below rebuttals.*

Mr. Dawkins will be speaking at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond to day and tomorrow.

Me:

Existence itself is supernatural and something that science will never be able to explain until it changes its antiquated philosophical framework. Where did the universe come from and why did it arise? What was there before it arose? Science is but a tiny sliver of Consciousness (God), which many have experienced through direct contact with reality, but which science lacks the philosophical tools to comprehend. So all this eyewitness testimony is simply ignored. A good book on the subject is The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder, which I just happen to have written.

Fellows like Dawkins live entirely in their minds, and so have never experienced reality directly. To him, science and the material world is all there is. If he could shut down that voice in his head for a minute and live life through his body (i.e. his own little slice of this reality we share) he might be quite surprised what (and some might say Who, with a capital W) he would find there.

Aaron Hawkins:

Well I feel that eyewitness testimony is not enough to prove anything. If you were to go around believing everything that people said they saw, then you would have to believe in bigfoot, werewolves, vampires, and aliens just to name a few of the things that now exist just because someone said they saw it. This is not enough evidence to base a decision on. You have to look at motives and understand reasons that people say what they say. Am I calling them liars? No, there are many explanations and maybe they did see what they said they saw, but by no means does this hold enough weight to call it proof of existence.   

As for the later part of your post that isn't plugging your book, you say that Dawkins has closed himself off to the reality that would show proof of existence. While I may agree with you that he is science based and as such leaves no credibility to superstition, mysticism, or metaphysics. You base your ideas on the same line of thought, only reversed. Perhaps if you shut the "good" book and started living in the real world you would see his views. Not that I am literally trying to get you to do so, it just shows that your argument gets us no where.

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 7

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

What avails it to fight with the eternal laws of mind, which adjust the relation of all persons to each other, by the mathematical measure of their havings and beings? Gertrude is enamoured of Guy; how high, how aristocratic, how Roman his mien and manners! to live with him were life indeed, and no purchase is too great; and heaven and earth are moved to that end. Well, Gertrude has Guy; but what now avails how high, how aristocratic, how Roman his mien and manners, if his heart and aims are in the senate, in the theatre, and in the billiard-room, and she has no aims, no conversation, that can enchant her graceful lord?

He shall have his own society. We can love nothing but nature. The most wonderful talents, the most meritorious exertions, really avail very little with us; but nearness or likeness of nature, - how beautiful is the ease of its victory! Persons approach us famous for their beauty, for their accomplishments, worthy of all wonder for their charms and gifts; they dedicate their whole skill to the hour and the company, with very imperfect result. To be sure, it would be ungrateful in us not to praise them loudly. Then, when all is done, a person of related mind, a brother or sister by nature, comes to us so softly and easily, so nearly and intimately, as if it were the blood in our proper veins, that we feel as if some one was gone, instead of another having come; we are utterly relieved and refreshed; it is a sort of joyful solitude. We foolishly think in our days of sin, that we must court friends by compliance to the customs of society, to its dress, its breeding, and its estimates. But only that soul can be my friend which I encounter on the line of my own march, that soul to which I do not decline, and which does not decline to me, but, native of the same celestial latitude, repeats in its own all my experience. The scholar forgets himself, and apes the customs and costumes of the man of the world, to deserve the smile of beauty, and follows some giddy girl, not yet taught by religious passion to know the noble woman with all that is serene, oracular, and beautiful in her soul. Let him be great, and love shall follow him. Nothing is more deeply punished than the neglect of the affinities by which alone society should be formed, and the insane levity of choosing associates by others' eyes.

Daily Tolle #5

"Nonresistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe. Through it, consciousness (spirit) is freed from its imprisonment in form. Inner nonresistance to form--whatever is or happens--is a denial of the absolute reality of form. Resistance makes the world and the things of the world appear more real, more solid, and more lasting than they are, including your own form identity, the ego. It endows the world and the ego with a heaviness and an absolute importance that makes you take yourself and the world very seriously. The play of form is then misperceived as a struggle for survival, and when that is your perception, it becomes your reality."

Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, pp.208-9

You might also like: The Power of Now - The Entire Book

Do You Believe in Magic? Comments on a Psychology Today Article

About a year and a half ago, a friend of mine brought this Psychology Today article (Do You Believe in Magic? : Eckhart Tolle, the Dalai Lama, and the Future of Psychotherapy) to my attention and I posted a couple of comments. I'm not sure why--maybe PT reposted the article--but new comments began showing up in my email in the last week or so, and I was moved again to respond to some of the responses posted by the author of the original article, a psychiatrist, Dr. Stephen A. Diamond. I thought you might enjoy reading the exchange:

Your Comments on Tolle

Submitted by Todd Wright on March 16, 2010 - 10:01am.

Dear Dr. Diamond,
Spoken like a true Aristotelian.

But perhaps you should read Tolle's books before you comment on them. And if you could refrain from ad hominem attacks on people (even gurus) that would be lovely.

Also, the colorful language you use to subtly slur ideas you don't agree with is probably counter-productive, if your goal is an honest discussion. Probably better to present their ideas objectively and then tell us where you disagree.

Interesting stuff about Jung and the Dalai Lama though. Thanks!

Todd

Reply to Todd

Submitted by Dr. Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. on March 16, 2010 - 10:34am.

You are welcome for those things you found interesting. But tell me/us: What is your take on this topic?

Daily Tolle #4

"The deeper interconnectedness of all things and events implies that the mental labels of 'good' and 'bad' are ultimately illusory. They always imply a limited perspective and so are true only relatively and temporarily. This is illustrated in the story of a wise man who won an expensive car in a lottery. His family and friends were very happy for him and came to celebrate. 'Isn't it great!' they said. 'You are so lucky.' The man smiled and said, 'Maybe.' For a few weeks he enjoyed driving the car. Then one day a drunken driver smashed into his new car at an intersection and he ended up in the hospital, with multiple injuries. His family and friends came to see him and said, 'That was really unfortunate.' Again the man smiled and said, 'Maybe.' While he was still in the hospital, one night there was a landslide and his house fell into the sea. Again his friends came the next day and said, 'Weren't you lucky to have been here in hospital.' Again he said, 'Maybe.'"

A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle, pp. 196-7.

You might also like: The Power of Now - The Entire Book

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 6

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, however near to his eyes is the object. A chemist may tell his most precious secrets to a carpenter, and he shall be never the wiser, - the secrets he would not utter to a chemist for an estate. God screens us evermore from premature ideas. Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the time when we saw them not is like a dream.

Not in nature but in man is all the beauty and worth he sees. The world is very empty, and is indebted to this gilding, exalting soul for all its pride. "Earth fills her lap with splendors" not her own. The vale of Tempe, Tivoli, and Rome are earth and water, rocks and sky. There are as good earth and water in a thousand places, yet how unaffecting!

People are not the better for the sun and moon, the horizon and the trees; as it is not observed that the keepers of Roman galleries, or the valets of painters, have any elevation of thought, or that librarians are wiser men than others. There are graces in the demeanour of a polished and noble person, which are lost upon the eye of a churl. These are like the stars whose light has not yet reached us.

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 5

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

If a teacher have any opinion which he wishes to conceal, his pupils will become as fully indoctrinated into that as into any which he publishes. If you pour water into a vessel twisted into coils and angles, it is vain to say, I will pour it only into this or that; - it will find its level in all. Men feel and act the consequences of your doctrine, without being able to show how they follow. Show us an arc of the curve, and a good mathematician will find out the whole figure. We are always reasoning from the seen to the unseen. Hence the perfect intelligence that subsists between wise men of remote ages. A man cannot bury his meanings so deep in his book, but time and like-minded men will find them. Plato had a secret doctrine, had he? What secret can he conceal from the eyes of Bacon? of Montaigne? of Kant? Therefore, Aristotle said of his works, "They are published and not published."

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 4

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

We like only such actions as have already long had the praise of men, and do not perceive that any thing man can do may be divinely done. We think greatness entailed or organized in some places or duties, in certain offices or occasions, and do not see that Paganini can extract rapture from a catgut, and Eulenstein from a jews-harp, and a nimble-fingered lad out of shreds of paper with his scissors, and Landseer out of swine, and the hero out of the pitiful habitation and company in which he was hidden. What we call obscure condition or vulgar society is that condition and society whose poetry is not yet written, but which you shall presently make as enviable and renowned as any. In our estimates, let us take a lesson from kings. The parts of hospitality, the connection of families, the impressiveness of death, and a thousand other things, royalty makes its own estimate of, and a royal mind will. To make habitually a new estimate, - that is elevation.

What a man does, that he has. What has he to do with hope or fear? In himself is his might. Let him regard no good as solid, but that which is in his nature, and which must grow out of him as long as he exists. The goods of fortune may come and go like summer leaves; let him scatter them on every wind as the momentary signs of his infinite productiveness.

Daily Tolle #3

"A person with a strong, active pain-body has a particular energy emanation that other people perceive as extremely unpleasant. When they meet such a person, some people will immediately want to remove themselves or reduce interaction with him or her to a minimum. They feel repulsed by the person's energy field. Others will feel a wave of aggression toward the person, and they will be rude or attack him or her verbally and in some cases, even physically. This means there is something within them that resonates with the other person's pain-body. What they react to so strongly is also in them. It is their own pain-body." 

-Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth , p. 174

See also The Power of Now - The Entire Book

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 3

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. He who sees moral nature out and out, and thoroughly knows how knowledge is acquired and character formed, is a pedant. The simplicity of nature is not that which may easily be read, but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made. We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope, knowing that the perception of the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth. The wild fertility of nature is felt in comparing our rigid names and reputations with our fluid consciousness. We pass in the world for sects and schools, for erudition and piety, and we are all the time jejune babes. One sees very well how Pyrrhonism grew up. Every man sees that he is that middle point, whereof every thing may be affirmed and denied with equal reason. He is old, he is young, he is very wise, he is altogether ignorant. He hears and feels what you say of the seraphim, and of the tin-pedler. There is no permanent wise man, except in the figment of the Stoics. We side with the hero, as we read or paint, against the coward and the robber; but we have been ourselves that coward and robber, and shall be again, not in the low circumstance, but in comparison with the grandeurs possible to the soul.

Another Review The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder on Amazon

Another Review The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder on Amazon, this one from Tom Thompson, of Southern Pines, North Carolina. Tom gave it 5 stars and wrote:

"Great book! I enjoyed it very much. Not at all what I expected. Nice review of the self-improvement literature intermixed with a murder mystery complete with detectives, suspects, and Catholic priest. The author really goes into some depth with the whole Aristotelian model vs. wisdom/in- tuition. Highly recommended for those wishing to explore this area more deeply and from a new angle."

Thanks, Tom!

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 2

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

The lesson is forcibly taught by these observations, that our life might be much easier and simpler than we make it; that the world might be a happier place than it is; that there is no need of struggles, convulsions, and despairs, of the wringing of the hands and the gnashing of the teeth; that we miscreate our own evils. We interfere with the optimism of nature; for, whenever we get this vantage-ground of the past, or of a wiser mind in the present, we are able to discern that we are begirt with laws which execute themselves.

The face of external nature teaches the same lesson. Nature will not have us fret and fume. She does not like our benevolence or our learning much better than she likes our frauds and wars. When we come out of the caucus, or the bank, or the Abolition-convention, or the Temperance-meeting, or the Transcendental club, into the fields and woods, she says to us, 'So hot? my little Sir.'

The Power of Now is in the Public Domain

I'm happy to report that Eckhart Tolle has seen fit to allow his seminal book, The Power of Now, to slip into the pubic domain, which means it's now free. I've posted it in its entirety to my Pages section (right). Let me know if you find this format helpful.

Please take a few moments to take a look at it. Click once or twice on each page to enlarge the print to your liking. A page or two each day while seated at your desk between tasks or clients is guaranteed to change your life.

Daily Tolle #2

"'At this moment, this is what you feel,' I said. 'There is nothing you can do about the fact that at this moment this is what you feel. Now, instead of wanting this moment to be different from the way it is, which adds more pain to the pain that is already there, is it possible for you to completely accept that this is what you feel right now?'" [Italics original]

-Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth , p. 165

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

SPIRITUAL LAWS

The living Heaven thy prayers respect,
House at once and architect,
Quarrying man's rejected hours,
Builds therewith eternal towers;
Sole and self-commanded works,
Fears not undermining days,
Grows by decays,
And, by the famous might that lurks
In reaction and recoil,
Makes flame to freeze, and ice to boil;
Forging, through swart arms of Offence,
The silver seat of Innocence.

When the act of reflection takes place in the mind, when we look at ourselves in the light of thought, we discover that our life is embosomed in beauty. Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. Not only things familiar and stale, but even the tragic and terrible, are comely, as they take their place in the pictures of memory. The river-bank, the weed at the water-side, the old house, the foolish person, - however neglected in the passing, - have a grace in the past. Even the corpse that has lain in the chambers has added a solemn ornament to the house. The soul will not know either deformity or pain. If, in the hours of clear reason, we should speak the severest truth, we should say, that we had never made a sacrifice. In these hours the mind seems so great, that nothing can be taken from us that seems much. All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart unhurt. Neither vexations nor calamities abate our trust. No man ever stated his griefs as lightly as he might. Allow for exaggeration in the most patient and sorely ridden hack that ever was driven. For it is only the finite that has wrought and suffered; the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose.

Daily Tolle #1

"If there are other people around, preferably your partner or a close family member, the pain-body will attempt to provoke them--push their buttons, as the expression goes--so it can feed on the ensuing drama. Pain-bodies love intimate relationships and families because that is where they get most of their food. It is hard to resist another person's pain-body that is determined to draw you into a reaction. Instinctively, it knows your weakest, most vulnerable points. If it doesn't succeed the first time, it will try again and again It is raw emotion looking for more emotion. The other person's pain-body wants to awaken yours so that both pain-bodies can mutually energize each other."

Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, p. 148

Bumping into God - Part 1

You know that feeling you get when you first fall in love? You might feel it all over your body or it might be localized in your heart or even your teeth. It's a feeling of pure joy in the very cells and molecules of your physical being.

You might feel this feeling of physical joy at other times too, like when you see a baby or think about your children. Whenever that happens, don't miss it! Something profound has taken place. That's salvation. You've bumped into God.

One More Review of The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder

My request to you is this: If you've read The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder, please go to its page on Amazon and write a review. If you haven't read it, please get a copy and do so as soon as possible! Everybody's talking, you don't want to be left out! Scott gave it 5 stars and wrote:

The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder was a recommendation to me from a colleague, and I ended up reading and enjoying it in just three sittings. The personalities that were developed really spoke to me -- they became as famailar as friends by the end of the read. Even the injected references to well-known and respected volumes in the "self-help" genre -- Covey, Hill, Nirenberg, Persig and others -- provided me with additional insights that I had never considered before. What a rare combination -- a fictional work that provided a 'value-added' quantity for everyday events through the teachings of the self-help masters. And, as with any respectable mystery novel....I certainly did NOT see the ending coming....

Thanks, Scott!

New Reviews for The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder

If you've read The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder, please go to its page on Amazon and write a review. If you haven't read it, please get a copy and do so as soon as possible! Everybody's talking, you don't want to be left out! Keith gave it 5 stars and wrote:

"The Bible is the first self-help book" was my favorite idea that came from this well written concise, little nugget of a book. Getting all of the ideas from all of the most popular self-help books rolled into one exciting murder mystery was a great idea and Mr. Wright has an uncanny way of explaining all of the different concepts that I have had trouble understanding. I highly recommend that everyone read this book to enjoy a happier, more satisfied life. A little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down.

Angie gave it 5 stars and wrote:

I love a good "who done it" and have found great solace in many of the writings highlighted in The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder. Wright's thoughtful book brings both genres together in an enlightening and entertaining page turner. I was happily intrigued by the unique character development and thought provoking exerpts which lead me to consider the possibility that, we are what we read. 5 Stars and I can't wait for the next one!

Thanks Keith and Angie!

The Enlightened Life in Just 3 Words

The translation of the Tao to Ching that I cut my teeth on was the one (pictured) by Stephen Mitchell. I'm no Chinese scholar by any means but I've read several different translations and the one by Mitchell strikes me as having been written by someone who not only knows Chinese (and English) but who also embodies the Tao, as the Tao te Ching says all superior men do upon hearing of it.

But the translation by Gia Fu Feng & Jane English contains one phrase that is superior for what I would call its "arrestiveness,"that is, its ability to put thinking on hold for a moment, to arrest thought, one of the main goals, I would argue, of the Tao te Ching. This one simple phrase incapsulates the entirety of the enlightened life in just 3 words.

An Actual Judge's Order in a Divorce

Some judges' orders say more than others, and this one says it all.

Affirmations Help You Live Consciously

The most important affirmation you can incorporate into your life is, "I am fully committed to feeling great 100% of the time," followed closely by any affirmation you can come up with having to do with self-confidence. Feeling great 100% of the time is self-confidence, in my opinion, and since self-doubt doesn't feel great at all, it's covered in this one. Say it as often as you think of it throughout your day--especially when you don't feel like feeling great--and it will change your life.

So what's happening when we engage in this simple exercise of affirmation? What's happening is, you're beginning to live your life consciously. Plato said, "The unobserved [i.e. unconscious] life isn't worth living," and as most of us who have suffered through a lot of unnecessary suffering at the hands of unconscious living can easily attest, Plato was right.

A Cure for Anxiety - Part 1

Inner peace is a purely physical phenomenon. Your soul is deep and unaffected by the tempests your ego tosses, but your body is not.

Without doubt, anxiety has its roots in attitudes that you hold, but lots of people have those same attitudes without also engaging in anxiety. So it's wise to focus first on the physical dimension.

Once you learn this simple technique to ratchet down the negative energy you're constantly spewing into your physical being, you will then be free to evaluate the spiritual and emotional bases for this behavior as you desire and at you leisure.

In Relationships It Only Takes One to Tango

In a relationship, the job is non-reaction. Another word for non-reaction, according to spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, is forgiveness. Forgiveness works wonders. As the Good Book says, "Love covers a multitude of sins." Forgiveness doesn't require participation from your significant other. It only requires your participation.

Tolle's first book, The Power of Now is in question-and-answer format. The question (in this case, actually, a comment): 

I suppose that it takes two to make a relationship into a spiritual practice, as you suggest. For example, my partner is still acting out his old patterns of jealousy and control. I have pointed this out many times but he is unable to see it. [Italics original]

Tolle's answer: "How many people does it take to make your life into a spiritual practice? Never mind if your partner will not cooperate. Sanity--consciousness--can only come into this world through you." If you wait for your partner to come around, Tolle says, you may be waiting forever.

Two Approaches to Psychological Problems in Children

When I come across an article like "How Quiet is Too Quiet? When Shyness is Actually a Disorder," I always recall the line from Robert Persig's classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts, information, theories and hypotheses, it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones.

This article is exactly what Persig is talking about. In it, a mother, Kim O'Connell, recounts her experience with her son Declan's extended periods of complete silence, which she discovered has a name: Selective Mutism.

So science has added another category, that's what science is all about. It's a process that began with Aristotle. It's called classification. Selective Mutism is unique, requiring unique handling, unique treatment and possibly unique drugs--multiplication of facts, etc., leading from single absolute truths (root causes, if you will) to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones. The child's behavior, in other words, is meaningless. These are just symptoms of a disease that he's come by at random.

The Human Addiction

Do you stay to long in relationships that are going nowhere? Is your girlfriend, boyfriend or spouse a negative influence in your life? Does he/she treat you badly (we might even ask simply, does he or she treat you in a way you don't prefer to be treated)? Does it seem like you can never quite get on the same sheet of music, so to speak? And to quote the song, "How long has this been going on?"

A long time, right?

Your significant other is not your problem. As with absolutely every aspect of life, if there's a problem, YOU are that problem. In this case, you may suffer from the human addiction.

Where Do Affirmations Come From?

You are your consciousness. Your consciousness and Consciousness are one. You are Consciousness. Your voice is the voice of your consciousness. Your voice is the voice of Consciousness. When you use your voice, Consciousness is taking its rightful dominion. Use the voice of Consciousness to dictate to subconsciousness exactly what Consciousness wants for your life. These vocal directions are affirmations. Awareness of this simple process in the miracle of humanity.

But where do affirmations come from? This is an important question. In much the same manner as described in "How We Know Stuff," affirmations arise from being. If you give them a try, you'll find that you can't just pick any affirmation you want. You may get that affirmation down on paper and you might be able to say it a few times. But each time you do, it won't sit well with you. You'll find yourself pondering that affirmation, scrutinizing it, until finally you modify it or reject it as not in line with your being, with who you are.

Received in Email - A Call for Term Limits

I couldn't agree more with the below email I received yesterday.

* * *

Please consider forwarding, if you agree.

I have cleaned this e-mail of all other names, sending it to you in hopes that you will keep it going and keep it clean. This is something I believe in and I hope you all read it all the way through.

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.

I'm asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011:

Fully Commit to Feeling Great

Are you fully committed to feeling great? Your (quite logical) response to this question might well be, "Of course, I'm fully committed to feeling great, you idiot! Who wouldn't say yes to that?"

But are you? Think about it. How much of your day is spent in negative thoughts and feelings? That's not a rhetorical question. How much? If you take inventory during the next 24 hours, I think you'll be surprised.

How to Find the Doing That Arises from Your Being

"I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was." --Muhammad Ali

One of the best tests for figuring out if you're doing that which arises from your being is to modify Muhammad Ali's famous affirmation by saying out loud: "I am the greatest _____________ of all time," and fill in the blank with what you're doing right now. If this isn't really the doing that arises from your being, you probably won't even be able to finish saying this short sentence. And if you do finish it, the words will feel like bits of cardboard in your mouth.

If, on the other hand, the words roll off your tongue with fluidity and ease, you've found the right doing for you (and you probably already know that). Now, to achieve greatness in that doing, put aside any misplaced, misguided, culturally-induced sense of supposed humility you're supposed to harbor within your soul and say your own version of this affirmation as many times as you think of it throughout the day. Tinker with it to come up with your own wording to make it more personal to you, then make it your habit to think it and to say it as often as possible. Say it both to yourself and to other people. That's right, say it to other people. If you do, you will achieve greatness, guaranteed.

Self-Confidence: A Commitment to Feeling Good

Self-confidence is the key to all success. So what is it exactly?

We have already said that self-confidence is "the bond that connects being with doing," and "the strength to do that which arises from one's being, come what may." See "Use Daily Affirmations to Strengthen Self-Confidence"). But one might also say that self-confidence is a commitment to feeling good.

"How does that work?" you ask. It works like this.

Connection with being is that which gives rise to good feelings inside you. To get the sense of what I mean, go to "An Exercise for Experiencing the Joy of Being," and then come back and finish this article. Go ahead, we'll wait . . .