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The Significance of Your Spine on a Spiritual Journey

 “So, spine is one dimension of you, which determines which direction you go. How your spine is functioning; how the energies in your spine are functioning right now determines almost everything about where you go.” ~ Sadhguru

The seat of major energy meridians, chakras, and neurons, the Spinal cord defines the quality of our lives. In a mother’s womb, the spine is the first thing that is formed, and then the body, limbs, etc., take root.

Let’s find out the significance of your spine on a spiritual journey

Spine, the Source of all Energy

Significance of your Spine on a Spiritual Journey

From a physical point of view the spinal column is an important channel for all the bodily stimuli that are transferred via the nerves to the brain. It is part of our central nervous system along with the brain. But also on a spiritual level, the spine is the source of all our energy. It is where the three major energy channels or nadis in our body lie.

Starting from the base of the spine, the Ida and Pingala nadis move in spirals like the DNA helix, crossing at each chakra or energy portal. The third nadi, Sushumna, is the central channel of energy in the human body that runs from the base of the spine to the crown of the head and carries Kundalini energy, the primal evolutionary force within.

The seven major chakras, on the other hand, are located at the intersection of the Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna. These chakras are further responsible for our relationship to ourselves, others, and define our spiritual growth, our nature, thoughts, and so on.

Spine is referred to as Meru Danda in Sanskrit, where Meru also means the sacred mountain Meru from the Hindu Mythology, which was considered to be the axis of the Earth, having an entire solar system revolving around it. In other words, the spine is the axis for the human body, which acts as a connecting link between Earth and heaven.

According to Hindu mythology, once the gods and demons wanted to extract the nectar of immortality or ‘amrita’ and so they gathered near Mount Meru and started pulling the serpent coiled around Mount Meru back and forth. Thus churning the ocean of life to bring out the nectar of immortality. According to the Vedas, our spine is like Mount Meru, and when churned, the nectar of immortality and bliss, in terms of a disease-free & blissful life, can be extracted.

The Sacrum – The center of gravity

The spine has five different parts, cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacrum and coccyx, out of this the most significant one is the sacrum. It lies at the base of the spine and joins the upper and lower halves of the body.

Judith Harris in her book, ‘JUNG AND YOGA: THE PSYCHE BODY CONNECTION’ said, “The center of gravity is located at the top of the sacrum, which thus makes sacrum the focal point of our relationship to the ground, to the body, and to our human reality. “

As the gravity passes through our body from the head to the knees and the feet, the sacrum acts as a pivotal center for the flow of energy in opposite directions. Harris added, “Gravity will draw feet into the floor, giving us the anchor that we need to live in the world” yet it is “counteracted by the tendency of living things to expand and grow upward toward the sun.”

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In Hatha yoga, the sacrum is considered a sacred bone, because it literally connects the lower half of our body to the upper half. It is seen as a place of transformation, where the union of upper and lower, of above and below, of the divine and the human occurs.

The fact that most of us are suffering from lower back pain is because of neglecting this area and being disconnected from ourselves. Here is a simple spinal meditation to keep your spine healthy and free of blockages, with healthy wiring and firing of neuron transmissions.

Keep our spine straight and in line with the head and neck. Therefore, ensuring a proper posture for the uninterrupted flow of the Prana in our body.

Activating the Spine with Meditation

“You’re only as old as your spine is flexible.” ~ Joseph Pilates.

This holds true in its entirety, as our age is not defined by the number of years we have spent on the material plane, but it is based on the wear and tear of the various organs of the body, the ability of our cell to regenerate and keep us supple and flexible.

With the help of yoga and meditation, the age process can be reversed. Like the five Tibetan rites that result in youthfulness and longevity, spine meditation can lead to a healthy and a balanced life with an unrestricted flow of Prana in our system.

Here’s a step-by-step procedure to start Spine meditation

Step 1: Sit comfortably on a chair or on the floor in an easy pose, with your back erect and preferably away from the wall. Bring your hands in Meru Mudra, fold all your fingers towards your palm, while keeping just your thumb straight, pointing towards the sky in a thumb’s up position. Now, rest the hands on your thigh and stay here for a while.

Step 2: Close your eyes and bring your awareness to your breath. Feel the breath touching the tips of your nostrils, passing through the nasal passages to the lungs, diaphragm, abdomen and all the way out.

Step 3: Gradually move your awareness to the spine and visualize it. The long structure with curves and vertebrae, the spine will be easily visible in its perfect form. Look at your spine as an observer and gently move your awareness up and down, analyzing the curves of the spinal column.

Step 4: As you move your awareness in the spine, acknowledge a thread or the silver cord in the center of the spine, running from the base of the spine to its tip. This cord is the sutratma or the thread of life, which connects us to our higher self, reaching us in our physical body. Also, it connects all our bodies together, starting from the physical body to the ethereal body to the astral body, so on and so forth.

Step 5: Keep visualizing this silver thread and feel it lighting, which further fills your entire body with a new upsurge of energy. The silver cord removes any blockages in your spine from the light emitting from it as it heals all obstructions in the free flow of the prana or the life force, leaving you energized and recharged.

Keep at the meditation for as long as you want and recharge yourself completely. With regular practice, visualizing the spine, the silver cord and the light would become easier and quicker.

The spine is the axis on which the human body revolves. Keeping your axis supple, healthy, flexible and hydrated will reap long-term benefits both materially and metaphysically. But it is important to keep a good posture and practice this meditation as and when you can.

The Amazing Power of Your Spine

A Simple Practice To Increase Your Brain Power

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Kundalini

7 Phenomenal Quotes from Hunter Thompson to Shift your Perspective on Reality

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A lot of us were introduced to Hunter S Thompson with, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” perhaps one of the most interesting films to put a perspective of what Gonzo Journalism is from Hunter’s point of view. Although it was a beautiful movie it hardly covered Hunter’s complete character.

After Hunter lost his father at an early age he faced a trying life. But of course he made the most of it as it was literally the boredom that killed him in the end.

Quotes from Hunter Thompson

For someone who valued freedom above everything else, his debilitating condition symbolised the one thing that terrified him the most: indefinite suffering. Instead of prolonging his suffering, he pulled the trigger at the age of 67.

But in those 67 years Thompson has given us enough to last us generations as Hari Kunzru, the author put it, “The true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist … one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him.”

Let’s take a look at phenomenal quotes from Hunter Thompson.

1) “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
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How are you spending your “now”? Are you postponing to live life you’ve always wanted, until you have enough bank balance, or once you are at a higher rank or buy a new house? Why is happiness based on circumstances/ situations that might or might not happen in the future?

The present moment is all there is and it is all you have. Experience the blessing of being alive today rather than postponing it until further notice. Enjoy the ride, and when your life comes to an end, may be you say, “Wow! What a Ride!”

2) “We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”

When we talk about love, we often think of others and what others mean to us. What about loving yourself first? Only when you love yourself unconditionally, can you love others. Because when you love yourself, you won’t need others to fill the void. You deserve as much love and appreciation as everyone else. And before expecting to get all of these things from anyone else, you should first learn how to offer them to yourself. Don’t forget, happiness is an inside job!

3) “Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.”

The only way to evolve as a species is to learn from our mistakes. We are fallible creatures, and perfection is merely an illusion. The moment we accept our imperfections, we will begin to ease off, and and perhaps even garner a sense of humor about our fallibilities.

There will be things or situations that need to be taken seriously, but at the same time don’t forget a spark of humor can help turn things around for you. So let go, lighten up and embrace yourself!

4) “Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”

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We often go through life on autopilot, being too comfortable in our comfort zones and harboring a fear of the unknown. Life is to be lived, and not merely exist.

Break free from the mold and strive to think outside of the box. We all have a spark of madness within us, but its only up to us to recognize that and never let it die.

5) “A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”

We all procrastinate from time to time. It can be those mundane tasks or bigger things that require more attention and dedication. Its generally related to experiencing the emotional discomfort inherent in making changes in life.

Take the plunge, make the choice and move on before someone else forces it on you.

6) “THE EDGE, there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is the ones who have gone over.”

Ever been over the Edge? It exists after your cross the edge and things get a little warped, everyone has their own experiences when they break limits and barriers that were put in.

To push the limits of your sanity has its perks provided you have a safety-line to pull yourself back. As Thompson said there really is no way to explain it, perhaps because to people who haven’t shared similar experiences you will probably be labeled as crazy.

7) “We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.”

The state of affairs with the law enforcers is probably the same all around the world – brutality, fake encounters, corruption, the list goes on. Although some clouds have silver linings.

But what the world really needs is a police force that protects and looks after the civilians, not harass people based on their color or economic status. Do you feel respected by the police force? I personally feel they need to attend Hunter University.

Thompson lived his life the way he wanted to and even though he cut it short, he will always be remembered for his fascinating outlook of the world.

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Hunter Thompson

3 Ways to De-colonize the Human Condition

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dec3 “It would be a mistake to think this culture clear-cuts only forests, it clear-cuts our psyches as well. It would be a mistake to think it dams only rivers. We ourselves are dammed (and damned) by it as well. It would be a mistake to think it creates dead zones only in the ocean. It creates dead zones in our hearts and minds. It would be a mistake to think it fragments only our habitat. We too are fragmented, split off, shredded, rent, torn.” ~ Derrick Jensen

Colonialism, expansionism, imperialism, call it what you will. It has systematically destroyed both our psychological and ecological environments. It is a heartless man-machine hell-bent on conquering, consuming, controlling and repeating, ad infinitum. Like Frantz Fanon said, “Colonialism is not a machine capable of thinking, a body endowed with reason. It is naked violence.”

And in its naked violence it leaves paths of mass destruction that transform healthy environments into burnt-out husks. Unhealthy and unsustainable, colonialism is an engine with outdated machinery and parochial, dyed-in-the-wool equipment. It rampages over environments like a mindless, hyper-violent backhoe; close-minded and dogged in its obsolete dog-eat-dog worldview.

What gets chewed up isn’t just the biosphere but the human psyche, the human heart, and the human soul. And the only thing standing in its way are healthy, reasonable, compassionate, and eco-centric human beings. Self-aware people that understand and empathize with the Sioux proverb: “The earth was not given to you, but loaned to you. We do not inherit it from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” Here are three ways to decolonize the human condition.

1) Decolonize yourself
“Keeping one eye on the way the world ought to be, while never losing sight of the way it is, requires permanent, precarious balance. It requires facing squarely the fact that you will never get the world you want, while refusing to talk yourself out of wanting it.” ~ Susan Neiman
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In a colonized world, it’s extremely difficult to differentiate medicine from poison. It’s almost as if we have to become aware before we can become aware. Like George Orwell said, “Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” Frustrating indeed.

So in light of this contradictory self-awakening revolution, what is one to do? First and foremost, we have to be okay with getting uncomfortable. Like Brene’ Brown said, “You can have courage or you can have comfort, but you can’t have both.”

Once courage has sufficiently trumped comfort, we can challenge ourselves into building a new world in the shell of the old. We can deny the egocentric communities and embrace the creation of eco-centric communities. We can choose to break the cycle of rampant nature deprivation. Like Carl Jung said, “Civilized man is in danger of losing all contact with the world of instinct –a danger that is still further increased by his living an urban existence in what seems to be a purely man-made environment. This loss of instinct is largely responsible for the pathological condition of our contemporary culture.”

We can make a commitment to restore our connection to mother earth. We can wake up to what the native peoples of this earth have always known: that ultimately the damaging development of colonization serves only to separate us from each other and from the very foundation of life itself. We can realize that the oil-mongers and warmongers are us. And then slowly, systematically, begin to un-oil-monger and un-warmonger ourselves by replacing oil with renewable and violence with love.

2) Decolonize through progressive technology
“Revolution is at once the most tragic and redeeming social experience. It is what societies do instead of committing suicide, when the alternatives are exhausted and all the connections that bind men’s lives in familiar patterns are cut.” ~ Andrew Kopkind
modern civilization

We can use technology to progressively evolve instead of regressively devolve. We have the creative capacity to overcome our limits. We always have. This is what makes us most authentically human. And this creative capacity manifests itself through our technologies. It always has.

Technology can be progressive and constructive, or regressive and destructive; a kind of techno-ontological double-edged sword. We are created by what we have created: shoes, the wheel, and computers.

Likewise, we are destroyed by what we have created: guns, the atomic bomb, and run-away capitalism. There are healthy and unhealthy ways to use our technologies. We just have to get better at using them in healthier ways.

Technology has forever been like a second skin for humans. The question is: will that skin be armor-like and invulnerable, and thus destructive and unsustainable; or robust and adaptable, and thus constructive and sustainable. Balance is key. Moderation is the secret. The Golden Mean is forcing our head over the edge of the human abyss.

The Golden Ratio is slapping us across the face. The Middle Way is perhaps the only way to right the ship, but the vast majority of people are too busy sinking it with their extremist views to see that perhaps rocking the boat in moderation is the way to stay afloat.

Along with emerging renewable energy technologies, guerrilla gardening is an exceptional technology for decolonizing the human condition. Or what about the Venus Project and the Zeitgeist Movement, and their idea of moving towards a resource-based economy instead of a monetary based one – money being a huge hurdle for the evolution of our species. Like Douglas Adams said, “To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.”

Or what about Google and the collective consciousness of the internet, or the Hubble Telescope or the Overview Effect, or even the use of smart phones. These technologies have a way of creating what Jason Silva calls “techno-social wormholes” that literally shrink our “line of sight” and squash the outdated notion of “out of sight, out of mind.” With these “wormholes” we can shrink space and time and come together through eco-conscious cells, forums, threads, posts, websites, with which we can crush the overreach of colonialism from the inside out.

Cellphone Wormholes

3) Transform the Desert of the Real into the Garden of the New
“The Great Lie is that this is civilization. It’s not civilized. It has literally been the most blood-thirsty brutalizing system ever imposed upon this planet. This is not civilization, this is the Great Lie. Or if it does represent civilization, and that is truly what civilization is, then the Great Lie is that civilization is good for us.” ~ John Trudell

Who are the captains of spaceship earth? We are. Each and every one of us has a part to play in steering this most precious vessel. We must be able to transform the Wasteland of the Hyperreal into the Desert of the Real into the Garden of the New.
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The Wasteland of the Hyperreal is the world that has been left behind by outdated colonialism and parochial imperialism. It is the ravaged, burnt-out husk upon which we all currently walk blindfolded. The Desert of the Real is that blindfold removed, the psychological/spiritual/existential wakeup call to the extent of our destruction and to the full realization of the damage that the Wasteland of the Hyperreal has caused.

One cannot even fathom the possibility of the Garden of the New without first removing this blindfold. The Garden of the New is an updated, healthy, and sustainable world where eco-conscious people have rediscovered a sacred balance between nature and the human soul.

This evolution takes shape within the process of techno-social rewilding, keeping in mind that we are not regressing into savagery, but progressing into a healthier more sustainable world for us all. It takes place within the courageous heart of each of us decolonizing ourselves and rising up from the gutters of an outdated way of being human in the world.

It’s an awakening to both our roots and our wings, and how to balance the power of both. It’s an emergence, a re-imagining, an existential revelation and a spiritual revolution. In short: it’s providence, and the salvation of our species. But until such time can pass, dear reader, heed the wise words of John Trudell, “Protect your spirit, because you are in the place where spirits get eaten.”

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Trudell quote
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Garden meditation

A Beautiful Teaching by Buddha About Using Your Gifts

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Here’s a lovely story from Gautama Buddha about a rich father and his poor son, it reminds me a little about the prodigal son, a parable by Jesus.

Once there was a very rich man, but due to his wealth his son was lazy and did not know how to earn money. This used to trouble his father a lot, and he lost his sleep wondering what his son would do when he died.

As the father grew older, he was more worried as his son didn’t seem to change. He had a feeling that after he passes away, his son would end up spending all his inheritance and even end up selling the house.

Beautiful Teaching by Buddha
The Return of the Prodigal Son (1773) by Pompeo Batoni

The father filled with worry decided to do something about it, he made a black warm jacket for himself and wore it every day until it was old and lost its shine. He told his son, my son, when I die and if you end up selling everything, only promise me that you will not sell this jacket that you will inherit.

His son agreed, soon his father passed away and as his father expected he quickly ended up spending all his inheritance without the ability to earn. After a while he sold the house and ended up spending all the money.

All he was left with was the jacket and the clothes he wore, when his money was over his friends had left too. Homeless, he walked the streets and begged for his survival. One day while lying down, he felt something poking into him, causing discomfort.

He thought it was something on the ground, but it wasn’t, he checked the pocket of his jacket, there wasn’t anything there. But he realized that it was something in the jacket, so he looked carefully and after opening the lining of the jacket he found a gem that his father had kept for him.

He was thrilled that his father had given him a second chance, and he didn’t end up spending all of it and used it to buy a house, start a business and share his wealth.

Buddha said, all of us are like the destitute son, we too have inherited great wealth but aren’t aware of it. Like the son, we are wandering around like the homeless, thinking we are poor. We have treasures of enlightenment, joy, understanding and love inside us.

All we have to do is look within, rediscover our hidden gems and allow them to manifest for us to be happy.

Interesting, isn’t it? From this beautiful teaching by Buddha, I reflected on it and learned three lessons.

1) When you are aware of how a person is, put yourself in the father’s shoes and be patient. Plan ahead, so you don’t lose your cool and always give a second chance.

2) Like the son, make the most of what you have been given when someone gives you a second chance, especially when it comes to a loved one, do better to never let them down again.

3) The lesson Buddha imparts, it’s very easy to forget that all the love, peace and joy within us. Don’t lose track of our gifts.

The parable has been adapted from, “A Pebble in Your Pocket” a book by Thich Nhat Hanh where he stated being mindful is the key to remembering these gifts, always remember to breathe consciously to stay in the moment.

The greatest gift is to give people your enlightenment, to share it. It has to be the greatest. ~ Buddha

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Buddha by Oshtto
Prodigal Son

Seven Reasons Why Reading is Awesome

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“I’m not sure what is worse, a closed mind or a closed book.” ~ Anthony Liccione

Reading is the ultimate therapy, the predominant catharsis – a meta-catharsis, if you will. It informs even as it reforms. It plunges us into worlds that are not our own. Reading, more than any other act, reconditions our preconditioning.

It launches us out of ourselves, out of our heads, and out of our own way. It blazes trails through impossible labyrinths even as it lays down maps through life’s many thresholds.

Like Eric March wittily punned, “Reading doesn’t just make you smarter and give you more fancy big words to break out at fancy wine parties with your fancy friends. It’s a badass, empathy-exploding, sickness-curing cruise ship time machine.”

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Indeed it is. And in the spirit of hopping into precisely such a badass time machine, here are seven more reasons why reading is awesome.

1) Reading is revolutionary

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” ~ Ray Bradbury

Reading is daring. It’s adventure in our pocket. And as long as we’re able to read more than just a few books in our lifetime, then reading can be a radical act in an otherwise conventional world. The fact that there are banned books showcases the insurgent value of reading.

The powers that be shift uncomfortably in their thrones when books like 1984, The Satanic Verses, or Fight Club are written. But even bad press can be good press. And, as Victor Hugo said, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

If reading is a revolutionary act, then it begins at home. Read enough and you might earn the right to write something revolutionary.

Like Lisa See said, “Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.”

Couple reading with travel and life experience, and there will be nothing out of reach of your imagination.

Like Benjamin Franklin urged, “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

Either way, the words written will have the potential to be a revolutionary act.

2) Reading is highly meditative

“I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut

reading benefits

Consciousness is gripped by patterns. It’s overwhelmed by the need to make order out of chaos and sense out of senselessness. Our brains are obsessed with connecting the dots while also having the need to be awestruck.

Reading helps us get out of our old stagnant patterns and into new updated constructs, while also helping us to absorb our old patterns as building blocks for the new patterns we read in literature.

It does this by bridging the gap between the mundane and the extraordinary, by placing us into an absorbed, introspective state of impermanent awe that changes, ever so slightly, the way we engage reality.

Reading is meditative precisely because it uses our imagination as a tool which leverages focus. Time stands still. Time speeds up. Time becomes subsumed by the meditative process of reading another person’s thoughts.

We become fully engrossed, fully present, and in the moment. To the extent that our imagination, like with meditation, can defy the laws of physics.

Take these words by William Blake for example: “To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.” Wow!

3) Reading is fuel for creative fire

“I pity the writer who writes more than he reads.” ~ Mark Twain

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If writing is the fire, then reading is the kindling. We read so that we can fuel up on something other than our own thoughts. Reading is the cornerstone of art, the foundation upon which all poetry is built.

When we read, we stimulate aspects of our imagination we didn’t even know existed, while at the same time we feed the aspects that are still growing.

Books are like stepping stones toward our higher self. The more we read, the higher we will get. Indeed, the more we read, the more we capitalize on the human condition itself. The more we read, the more shoulders of giants we are capable of standing upon.

From these shoulders we get a bird’s-eye view of the human condition. This is both an interpersonal and intrapersonal perspective that we could not have achieved had we not dared to crack open more than just a few books.

4) Reading is a superpower

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” ~ Mark Twain

Reading can indeed be a superpower. Not only do we gain knowledge from reading, we also gain introspection, wisdom, and providence. We learn how to become heroes in our own lives through the heroes in our books.

We learn about our own darkness through the villains we read about. Most of all, we learn empathy. We learn how the human condition is mostly a washed out middle gray of commingling and co-creating black and white energy that is constantly in flux.

If knowledge is power, then reading is the conduit through which such power gets channeled.

Like Doctor Who said, “You want weapons? Go to a library. Books are the best weapons in the world.”

And in a world where weaponry has trumped livingry, reading is perhaps the most powerful way to turn the tables. Reading gives us the power, the psychosocial toolkit, to trump violence with love, apathy with empathy, and indifference with compassion.

Reading, as a superpower, manifests the building blocks upon which our power can become superb.

5) Reading is profoundly nostalgic

“There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book.” ~ Marcel Proust
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Reading is the ultimate nostalgia, a profound reminiscence. It’s even more powerful than our sense of smell for transporting us to a particular time and place. I pity anybody, child or adult, who has not experienced the profound pleasure of losing themselves in a good book. Think Sebastian in The Never-ending Story.

Reading, and especially rereading, puts the “art” into the “art of reminiscence.” It helps us to quantum-entangle with permanence, even as it teaches us the nature of impermanence.

It helps us to think outside of our current box by thinking within an older box, while also giving us an entirely different perspective on the content of the box in context with our overall life.

6) Reading is a bridge between worlds

“Perhaps the greatest reading pleasure has an element of self-annihilation. To be so engrossed that you barely know you exist.” ~ Ian McEwan

From nescience to knowledge, from the known to the unknown, reading is the ultimate bridge. As readers, we stand upon that bridge like a flag of humors waiving in an existential wind. We are sentinels guarding the open-ended entries (exits).

We are periphery keepers par excellence, daring to go from ordinary to extraordinary, from merely human to superhuman. With the hope that maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to bring some of that magic back to the “real world.”

If, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “fiction reveals truth that reality obscures,” then perhaps reading has the power to mend the split between the truth-functions of fiction and the fiction-functions of truth.

Even as it bridges gaps, reading bridges truths. Indeed, profound literature can reveal how, as Niels Bohr said, “The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement, but the opposite of a profound truth may very well be another profound truth.” And suddenly, being between worlds isn’t such a split after all.

7) Reading adds depth and meaning to life

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” ~ George R.R. Martin

benefits of readingReading can be a form of psychological longevity. It actually adds value (time) to our lives. It can actually aid us in living multiple lives within a single lifetime. When we read, we traverse dimensions.

We navigate magnitudes. We crisscross crossroads. We pilot everything from platitudes to plenitudes. We negotiate with profound, sometimes overpowering, characters. This all adds priceless value to our life that cannot be taken away.

We open a book. We go on adventures. We sail shiny seas and trek jagged mountains. We surf cosmic waves and drag ourselves through sandpaper deserts. We slide down rabbit holes and widen cracks into canyons.

We do this not only because we want to, but because we need to. We need to feel something new, something outside of ourselves so that we can feel more real, more surreal, more super-real, and more human. We need to satiate the “wonder-junky” within.

And what could be more wonderful, more mirror-perfect, more human, than to live multiple lives through the words of another human soul?

What is Literature for?

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Bibliomaniac
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C.S. Lewis quote
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